Bon Appétit: The End Of The Meal

We have finally reached Day Five: the final day of our Bon Appétit series here on Kaycee En Route.

If you’ve made it this far with me, I congratulate and thank you! Seriously, it means a lot that so many of you have come back day after day to read and comment on this project.

This week, we’ve seen that the French live up to their stereotype of taking long, luxurious breaks for multi-course meals, even in school cafeterias. Old-fashioned dishes are still far more common than quick sandwiches and the like in the country of haute cuisine. Even though fast food has officially invaded France and obesity is slowly increasing across the country, the French still manage to be some of the healthiest people on the planet by staying loyal to their tradition of taking the time to enjoy real food.

Children learn that spending time with friends in communion is a vital part of every day. Students sit down to small round tables and face their classmates. They pick up real silverware at the front of the lunch line and serve each other from pitchers of water, the only beverage offered to the kids (teachers get wine and coffee, too). The setting and presentation of the meal is nearly as important as the food itself. All of these details add up to a more familial experience, teaching young Frenchies that les petits bonheurs of life really do matter.

As far as the content of the actual plates is concerned, your grandmother was right to say “In all things, moderation”. The majority of the dishes you’ve seen this week have been fresh, locally sourced vegetables and grains, but they were usually swimming in a fair amount of butter. (Keep in mind, everyone else’s plate had some form of meat, as well.) All but the strictest of dieters take a dessert every day. The French enjoy their meals-they don’t feel guilty about eating delicious food or taking the time out of their workday to do so. By allowing themselves that break, they will be happier and the rest of their day will be more productive. They take just as much time to walk around town with friends, spend time with family, and profit from all of the best of life, thereby maintaining a more positive state of mind and overall health. The perfect adjective for the meals and lifestyles that are promoted in France is equilibré: balanced. 

Here, it seems like you really can have your cake and eat it, too.

Entrée: clementines
Plat Principal: mixed vegetables in soy sauce and multicolored rice
Fromage: brie and an apple
Dessert: coconut cake

In honor of the Chinese New Year, today was Vaguely Asian Day in the cantine. Yes, it looks as though the school must have gotten a great deal on carrots this week, but I really don’t mind. The rice was a wonderfully flavorful departure from my usual pasta, and the soy sauce was enough to stave off my Japanese-food-detox shakes for a few more weeks. More important than the food, though, was that I took the advice from the French and savored every moment. I spent a full hour sitting in the cafeteria, listening to my colleagues gossip about students and stacking each finished plate onto another with that satisfying little *tac*. After I pushed my chair back and wished the group an enjoyable fin de repas, I joined my fellow English teachers in the staffroom to sip on our usual tea like the geeky Anglophiles that we are. In the end, it’s less about the dishes served and more about the enjoyment of the most mundane of things: a meal among friends.

Again, thanks for taking the time out of your day to read this series. I hope you enjoyed it, and t’hesite pas to send me any suggestions or questions in the comments! And of course, don’t forget to take a moment to do as the French do and enjoy a bite with loved ones today; whether you include the camembert is up to you.

Bon Appétit: Paying For It

Happy Thursday, hungry people!

Typically the busiest day around school for heaven knows what reason, Thursday in the cantine is a mad sprint for forks and slices of baguette. Shiz gets real. But even though it’s loud and cutlery sometimes goes flying, I’m still more than happy to be there. Why?

Because it’s darn cheap.

Teachers at my school pay €2.56 ($3.50 at time of writing) for a balanced, multiple course meal cooked by professional chefs. My soon-to-be-infamous bagel, chips, and root beer cost about the same five years ago.

How do the French manage to provide high quality meals for a relatively low price? It’s a question of department finances. Each department in France (similar to a county in the States) regulates its own school meal program. Local governments have made supporting a healthy lifestyle a priority by putting its money directly into subsidizing, on average, half of the cost of all school lunches. For the rest of the cost, there’s an income-based payment system for students. Higher income families pay a higher average than lower income ones. (Incidentally, no matter the financial situation of the student in question and the price paid, he or she gets the same meal as everyone else sitting in the cafeteria. No skipping meals. Every kid who wants to do so eats.)

Entrée: grated beets and carrots
Plat Principal: carrots and potatoes with rosemary
Fromage: le coutances, banana, and apple
Dessert: pound cake roll with caramel pudding

Being the poor little English Assistant that I am, paying 3 bucks a day for a four-course homemade meal that I would never cook for myself is one of the better perks of this job. Yes, I had two kinds of carrots today, but I love me some carrots and it was still better than anything I’d ever find in town. The kebaberie down the street sells ham sandwiches for €4.50 a pop: twice what I pay for less than half the food. If I went for a multiple course meal in a typical French restaurant, I’d be paying at least €20. Yes, it would be rich and sumptuously delicious, but I’m just fine to stay at school and save that cash for travel.

If you ask me, French kiddos don’t know how good they’ve got it.

 

Bon Appétit: No Meat, Please

Merry Mercredi, everyone!

Being a vegetarian in France is usually no big deal. Once I go through the typical script of “No meat. Yes, fish is meat. Yes, other seafood is meat. Yes, bacon is meat. Yes, chicken is also meat. Meat means animal. If it is an animal, I don’t eat it unless it’s a once-in-a-lifetime cultural experience. Yes, really.” people usually understand and I do just fine with pasta, veggies, and all sorts of other delicious dishes. At the school cantine, it took several days of saying “Je ne prends que des legumes, s’il vous plait” before the servers caught on to my diet. Now, when the chefs see me coming, the call echoes down the line. “La petite végétarienne arrive!”

As you’ve seen from the past two days, I have no trouble finding enough food at lunchtime and generally am more than satisfied with the many options before me.

The exception to the rule is Wednesdays.

Every Wednesday across this fair country, all elementary schools are closed and high schools have half days. Because most kids are running for home by 11:55 AM, the cafeteria offers a limited menu to the remaining boarding students and teachers, usually made up of leftovers from the previous day. For the few vegetarians and vegans around here, that means plain grains and less-than-filling meals that frequently lack a protein. In fact, I tend to skip the cantine lunch on Wednesdays, but I wanted my dear readers to see the difference.

Entrée: cucumber salad
Plat Principal: macaroni noodles in tomato sauce; green beans
Fromage: camembert
Dessert: caramel cake with whipped cream

It’s easy to see the origins of today’s meal: green beans from yesterday’s side and macaroni that was first bought for Monday’s lunch. It might be less than beautifully presented, but these dishes were still surprisingly yummy and relatively filling, though my rumbling belly would have probably been content with sawdust this afternoon. The green beans reminded me of home, even though they weren’t quite as salty as my family would have liked. (That’s probably a good thing.) Having had camembert cheese three times in as many days, I’m starting to hope for a nice chevre or even emmental for tomorrow. The one thing our cafeteria always gets right is the dessert; the gooey chewy melty caramel cake was perfection on a fork.

Do you have any dietary concerns that some people just don’t understand? Gluten-free or vegan people would have a very hard time here in the land of bread and cheese.

Bon Appétit: My American Lunch Experience

Happy Tuesday, dear Bon Appétit adherents!

For those of you who didn’t have the pleasure of knowing me as a child, I’ll first mention that I was  precociously decisive in terms of taste an insanely picky kid with no tolerance for anything with a sauce, cooked in a casserole dish, or green. I could survive for months on end on cheese roll ups and Frosted Cheerios. This was not the fault of my dear mother, who did everything she could to prevent my dad’s insufferable eating habits from rubbing off on me, but all my own. Sorry, Mom.

Add in the fact that I spent my entire adolescence running from one activity to the next like that proverbial beheaded chicken, and my high school lunch experience was probably somewhat atypical. Almost every single day, for four straight years, I ate a mini bagel with plain cream cheese, a bag of Bugles chips, and a can of Barq’s Root Beer. These foods could be grabbed quickly by bypassing the “hot lunch” line and going straight to the central vending machine area of my cafeteria, therefore allowing me to use my twenty-minute lunch break as “efficiently” as possible. (And I wondered why I started spontaneously passing out midway through senior year.)

Once again, not my mother’s fault or the fault of my school. I attended a private, religious K-12 school in an affluent part of L.A. (Lower Alabama, that is). The school cafeteria always offered a hot meal, though most kids went for the hamburgers, french fries, and chicken sandwiches that were on offer every day, or brown bagged it. Bags of chips and soda or sports drinks were the usual sides. My brother, for instance, was perfectly happy to eat the Pizza Hut that our school had delivered in bulk every day. Not the healthiest of foods, but at least he was getting in the necessary calories.

Kids don’t really have the choice to be that difficult here in France. Take a look at any restaurant menu, and you’ll notice a distinct lack of a kids’ section. If one does exist, you won’t see grilled cheese or chicken nuggets; you’ll find smaller portions of the kitchen’s regular dishes. People might have a preference for certain types of cheeses or other very specific tastes (i.e. I don’t like mustard), but I have yet to meet someone with the wide-ranging “pickiness” that so many American children have.

Entrée: grated carrot and apple salad with vinaigrette
Plat Principal: puff pastry filled with rice, spinach, and egg; green beans and various veggies
Fromage: camembert and an apple
Dessert: applesauce topped with meringue

Today’s lunch was about as far from my high school experience as possible. I’m proud to have graduated from my mini bagels. From the salad dressing to the (heaven forbid) touching ingredients in the puff pastry and the slimy mushrooms, this meal would have been absolutely off limits not so long ago.

Let me know what your usual school (or work!) lunch is in the comments below, and don’t forget to read the questions that were posed under yesterday’s post!

Bon Appétit: An Introduction To The French Lunch

Happy Monday, everyone!

I’m very excited for the first day of this Bon Appétit series. As I mentioned yesterday, each day will highlight my own lunch as well as one facet of French school lunches. Let me know what you’d like to hear about in the comments below!

First things first: what is lunch in France? Lunch is typically the biggest meal of the day, eaten between noon and two o’clock. If you happen to stroll along a typical French sidewalk between these hours, you’ll find yourself in a ghost town. Shops, offices, and any other businesses (besides cafés, of course) will feature a locked door and a small FERMḖ sign. Le déjeuner truly is sacrosanct in French culture as the time of day for everyone to pause and enjoy a nice meal with family and friends-even on weekdays.

In a typical high school cafeteria, students line up to collect a tray, water glass, and silverware before circling around to the food. The school chefs, professionally trained experts in French cuisine, serve the hot main course. This usually consists of a choice between meat or fish (which somehow doesn’t count as meat here) and three side items. Then, they keep sliding that tray along the line to pick up a choice between two or three cold sides, desserts, cheeses, and fruit. Everyone’s favorite station is the giant basket where slices of fresh baguette are dumped into piles for the taking.

Entrée: sliced grapefruit
Plat Principal: roasted zucchini and tomatoes au gratin, macaroni noodles with vegetable sauce
Fromage: camembert and a banana
Dessert: chocolate mousse cake

And finally the main attraction: today’s meal! Note the various little dishes dividing each course. The French love the order and regularity that comes with eating food in separate courses. They get a strange satisfaction out of sliding each new plate directly in front of them while making a little “tac!” clicking sound to indicate a new act in the performance of the meal. Most people eat an entrée, or appetizer, before moving on to the main dish, cheese, fruit, and dessert. (You read correctly; the entrée is the first course, not the main. Anglophones have been getting it wrong for ages.) Personally, I like to save my fruit for an afternoon snack.

 

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s edition of Bon Appétit! Again, let me know what you’d like to learn about French lunches and if you think you’d enjoy eating in my cafeteria!

 

 

Bon Appétit: A 5-Day Series

I’ve written about how much I love French food, and (let’s be honest) food in general quite a bit over the past few years, and you’ve seen more than a few pictures of my most memorable meals.

This week, the blog will feature a series of food posts, and I’ll be showing you exactly what I get to eat every day at my school’s cantine, or cafeteria. We’ll look at several cafeteria food-related subjects and discuss more of the French school system in general. I hope you’re excited to see more of this gourmande’s daily nosh fest.

Be sure to come back here every day this week for another update! Bon Appétit!

Day One: An Introduction To The French Lunch

Day Two: My American Lunch Experience

Day Three: No Meat, Please

Day Four: Paying For It

Day Five: The End Of The Meal

3 Spaniards, 2 Americans, And A Brit Walk Into A French Bar…

…and listen to traditional Irish music.

No, it’s not a joke, it’s my life. (So maybe it’s both?) Here’s a clip from my Sunday night.

 

The Coziest Of Evenings

As I listened to the rest of the dinner table express complete shock over the idea of putting peanut butter and jelly on two slices of bread and then allowing them to -gasp- touch, I knew that I was truly among my people. At one end of the wooden bench sat Anne, describing the classic brownbag lunch she’d refused to make during her time as an au pair in 1980s San Francisco. At the other end, I tried to explain that, although I personally agreed that it was totally dégueulasse, most American kids had no problem with the unusual mixture. PB&Js are actually sort of a big deal. 

Or so I’m told. 

A Saturday night with friends in the country home of my colleague Anne had reached that point in the evening when the other guests began asking me about American eating habits. Honestly, you’d think Americans only eat peanut butter and McDonald’s from the way the rest of the world talks about our food choices. I always preferred cheese rollups and Waffle House, but no one wants to hear something that contradicts the stereotype. I’ll just let them have this one. 

Frenchies lining up to enter Burger King at a train station in Paris. And Americans are the ones who love fast food?

Anyway, after our meal, we moved on to the real spotlight of the evening: music. Violin and guitar cases popped out from under coats and couches as we gathered around the giant wood-burning stove in the living room. Everyone paid for their dinner with a bit of classical or an Irish reel (I did both), and then we pretty much joined hands and sang Kumbayah.

Not quite, but close enough.

We didn’t go that far into the hippie abyss, but we did crowd around sheets of music to sing Serge Gainsbourg, Jimi Hendrix, Oasis, Metallica, Renaud, and just a little bit of Lynyrd Skynyrd. I let you guess which song everyone begged me to lead. The television sat dark and silent in the corner as we created our own entertainment rather than consuming someone else’s, and we didn’t sound half bad, either! We spent hours enjoying each other’s company and soaking in the smoke of the crackling logs on the stove. 

Sinking deeper and deeper into the never-ending cushions of the couch, I sipped my tea and listened to Anne’s ten year old son as his fingers flew up and down his guitar. If I could have poured that moment into my mug and drunk it up, too, I would’ve.

No Place Like Home…But Where Is That??

The other day, in my jetlag-riddled state, I left this Facebook post on a fellow assistant’s wall. Thanks to the Great Freeze Freakout of North America, she was stuck in the states and hadn’t yet made it back to France from her vacation.

I may have used the term simply because it was the easiest way to refer to where we live now in an all-caps FB post, but it’s quite telling that I was willing to type it at all. “Home” has always been a bit of a difficult word for me to say, and the most difficult of questions to answer is the classic “So, where are you from?”.

I was born in one state, lived in another from the ages of two to six, and then moved to Alabama for all of my secondary schooling. My close family now lives in yet a fourth state, and the rest of my extended family is still mostly in our original birth state, where we spend quite a bit of time visiting.

Though I spent most of my life in Alabama, I’ve never felt tied to it as a home. Being the type of person who always wanted to travel the world, I knew what most people’s opinions were of the American South and I didn’t want to be associated with it.  I’ve always been that obnoxious kid on the first day of class who refuses to respond to a simple question with a simple answer. I felt it was more mysterious to come up with a cool answer like “I claim no home”. (In retrospect, this is not a cool answer. This is an annoying answer.) My “Hometown” spaces on Facebook and LinkedIn remain blank. You get the picture.

Now I live in France and I’d like to stay here for the near future, but I don’t know if the French will ever really let me officially call it home, or if I’ll allow myself to do so again. In the end, it’s more about enjoying life there, having a career, and then moving on. I might settle down in France or in the US or on Mars for all I know, but I doubt I’ll ever consider any of those locations to be my home. Wherever I can sit with my closest loved ones, my family-that’s where I want to be. I don’t know if following people around counts as having a true home base, but at least I know that I’m happiest lying on a couch-any couch, in any room in the world-with a book in hand, my mom to the left of me, my dad to the right, and my brother snoozing nearby.

I guess home really is where the heart is.

I invite you to watch this TEDtalk on the concepts of home and movement. Travel writer Pico Iyer has beautifully described the situation that today’s “world citizens” face more and more. He’s made me think quite lot about my own journey, and whether I’ll continue bouncing between the continents in pursuit of my home.

 

 

How To Cure Jetlag

Bonne Année à tout le monde et mes meilleurs voeux pour le nouvel an!

I spent a wonderfully relaxing Christmas break chez moi in the USA and just got back to Normandy this weekend. This morning, I greeted my friends with cheek kisses, squeals, and belated presents brought across the ocean, but before all of that, there was yesterday.

Sunday.

Having dragged my bags and myself home from the train station on Saturday afternoon after the usual schlep across the Atlantic, the struggle was real. But then Sunday appeared, and brought with it the chance of a Useless Day. A day with nothing to do except a few loads of laundry and the basic maintenance needed for one’s own survival. Don’t you just love those?

Copious amounts of hot tea and an emotional reunion with my MacBook helped the struggle situation, and I awoke on Monday morning with my jetlag a thing of the past. Back to work!

Here’s to a mostly productive 2014 with a few Useless Days thrown in for fun.