L'Amour

Paris

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From I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown

Little Girl: I'm tired of all this kindergarten stuff. 

Rerun: Why don't we run away to Paris? If we got on a plane at midnight, we could be in Paris tomorrow. 

Little Girl: Do you have any money?

Rerun: I have 50 cents. Maybe, we can get upgraded to business class. 

Poisson d'Avril

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Today, I subbed at another new school. (No joke!) I was a bit apprehensive about it because it's April Fool's Day. Who's a better fool than a substitute teacher? Luckily, the kiddos were amazingly sweet and kind all day. One mischievous kiddo did get the Poisson d'Avril tradition going. Good thing, I remembered the tradition from my high school French class. (Thanks Mademoiselle. See, I did learn something and retain it!) It was a lot of fun watching the kiddos make paper fish and attempt to Poisson d'Avril their friends.

"Lobster Killer"

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Our movie for this week was Julie & Julia. I was really excited about watching it because I have become a fan of Julia Child ever since I read My Life in France. Meryl Streep was amazing! She's definitely been on a streak lately. I found her performance really endearing. As for the Julie part of the movie, I'm still not a big fan of Amy Adams. It seems like she does a lot of overacting. Chris Messina, who plays Julie's husband, definitely has the sweet husband role down. As my hubster accurately pointed out, we are very much Julie and Eric. I hope that turns out to be a good thing! Overall, Julie & Julia is worth watching even it's just for the beautiful shots of Paris. Oh Paris, we will meet soon enough.

Just As Sweet the Second Time

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I'm in the middle of rereading My Life in France. When I first read it, it was after our Mediterranean cruise and I was missing La Belle France (as Julia calls it). That was two years ago. Again, I find myself longing to see pretty apartments, small Virgin Mary shrines, street menus in cursive and the most perfect fruits and veggies. Now, My Life is back in my purse and being toted around with me daily. It's just as enchanting as before. Julia Child's wit and humor shines through. Her husband must have kept her on her toes because he sounds like quite the character as well. I now want to watch Julie & Julia and read The Sweet Life in Paris. I must prepare for our eventual trip to Paris. It's not a matter of if we will ever go. It's just a matter of when. Just ask my hubster. :)

One of My Favorite Actresses...

"There's More to Life than Songs."

I managed to convince my hubster to watch La Vie en Rose. Overall, the movie was a bit depressing. It just wasn't the feel good movie that the poster or the commercials portrayed it to be. Bummer! Edith Piaf's life was just so sad. It reminded me of Ray for some reason. Marion Cotillard did an amazing job playing Piaf. My hubster couldn't believe that she was the same actress from Love Me if You Dare.

Foodie Bios

Recently, I've rekindled my love for foodie bios. What is a foodie bio exactly? It's a biography about someone whose life revolves around food. I first got into this genre when I read Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence for my French Humanities class while I was at Cal Poly. Lately, I devoured Julia Child's My Life in France right after we got back from our honeymoon. Now, I'm onto Bill Buford's Heat. The subtitle for Heat is: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany.

I just had to read it when I read the part about the "Dante-Quoting Butcher." Dante has been a big part of my collegiate life. I learned in my first hardcore literature class that Dante was obsessed with a woman named Beatrice and wrote her a series of love poems. She also reappears in the Divine Comedy. I had to read the entire Divine Comedy along with other medieval literature while having a full course load that quarter. Talk about intense. I'm so glad that I read it though. It's amazing. Then another quarter, I had a philosophy teacher that would say every morning (class started at 7:10am) when he called my name for role, "Dante would be very happy you're here." When we went to Italy last year, I saw his tomb in the Santa Croce church in Florence. That's my whole Dante shpeal.

Of course I previewed the book before I bought it, the preface begins with this quotation from George Orwell:

A human being is primarily a bag for putting food into; the other functions and faculties may be more godlike, but in point of time they come afterwards. A man dies and is buried, and all his words and actions are forgotten, but the food he has eaten lives after him in the sound or rotten bones of his children. I think it could be plausibly argued that changes of diet are more important than changes of dynasty or even of religion. The Great War, for instance, could never have happened if tinned food had not been invented. [...] Yet is curious how seldom the all-importance of food is recognized. You see statues everywhere to politicians, poets, bishops, but none to cooks or bacon-curers or market gardeners.


I love the 30+ pages I've read so far. I know it's no Odyssey or Ivanhoe, but I think I put in my dues already. I can read some non-serious literature for awhile. :) But seriously, each of these foodie bios talk about people rediscovering themselves and following their true passions. For this reason, I love these books. Yes, it sounds somewhat corny and overly idealistic; however, it's something that is easy to connect with and aspire to.