The Banquet Years of Apollinaire, Alfred Jarry, Henri Rousseau, and Erik Satie

I cannot possibly write a review of Roger Shattuck's book "The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant-Garde in France 1885 to World War I without including the quote from Plato's Symposium (also sometimes translated as Banquet) found on the very first page.

. . . there remained awake only Socrates, Aristophanes, and Agathon, who were drinking out of a large goblet which they passed around, and Socrates was discoursing to them.  Aristodemus did not hear the beginning of the discourse, and he was only half awake, but the chief thing which he remembered was Socrates insisting to the other two that the genius of comedy was the same as that of tragedy, and that the writer of tragedy ought to be a writer of comedy also.

Roger Shattuck's book The Banquet Years is a book devoted to five subjects: Henri Rosseau, the self taught painter who would influence Picasso, Léger, Jean Hugo, Beckmann, and the Surrealists; Alfred Jarry, who is most famous for his play Ubu Roi (King Ubu) and its rather famous opening word "merde" that caused a quarter of an hour of pandemonium with the traditional theater attending public booing and jeering while the avant-garde countered with cheers and applause; Guillaume Apollinaire (Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki), who is accredited as the coiner of the term "Surrealism", Apollinaire was the impressario of the avant-garde, who met his end of the very last day of the first World War; and Erik Satie, the true progenitor of "Musak" with his 1920 manifesto advocating "musique d'ameublement" (furniture music), the brilliant composer that beat both Debussy and Ravel in the race to create modern music, and brought together in his own way the avant-garde, Surrealists, the Dadaists, and the old and the new.

Shattuck states in the Preface (to the Vintage Edition),

"Then came the idea - a kind of gambler's hunch that the trio Rousseau-Satie-Apollinaire represented several significant aspects of the period and could reveal them better than any single figure. . . Within a few weeks Jarry had forced his way into the group and established himself close to the center of things. He helped me clarify my underlying subject: how the fluid state known as bohemia, a cultural underground smacking of failure and fraud, crystallized for a few decades into a self-conscious avant-garde that carried the arts into a period of astonishingly varied renewal and accomplishment."

It all started with a funeral. On May 22, 1885 French literature was dealt a tremendous blow with the death of Victor Hugo (who received his letters addressed à Monsieur Hugo, sur son avenue - to Mr. Hugo on his avenue after they renamed the Avenue d'Elyau Avenue Victor Hugo in his honour). More than two million people joined in his funeral procession from the Arc de Triomphe to the Panthéon where he was laid to rest beside Alexandre Dumas, who was buried only fifteen years before. The endless procession included several brass brands, every political and literary figure of the day (like Zola who would also be buried in the same crypt as Hugo and Dumas), speeches, and numerous deaths in the crowd of the mourners. A church had been unconsecrated. No monarch ever had such a funeral.

Victor Hugo's funeral procession in a hearse of the "people" as he demanded in his will.

Paris had just had a lot "done". Baron Haussmann was the ultimate Svengali, preparing his ingenue for her ultimate role in la belle epoque. Every theater, avenue, cafe, and street corner would be her stage. Paris would become the Muse for art, literature, theater, fashion, and how to live the good life.

Unlike most celebrities, Paris is fairly open about having had work done.

Of all the stages set for her, the most demanding was that of the salon. The new Napoleonic aristocracy had replaced the old. The most elevated member of the new nobility, Princesse Mathilde Bonaparte, Napoleon's niece, did not mince her words: "The French revolution? Why, witout it I'd be selling oranges in the streets of Ajaccio." Princesse Mathilde cultivated" the great minds of Gautier, Flaubert, and Renan to her dangerously liberal salon. During the Third Republic she began receiving Alexandre Dumas (fils), Henri de Régnier, Maupassant, and Anatole France at her house on the rue de Berri. The same house would later be the Belgian embassy and it's next door neighbour would be fashion designer and rival of Madame Coco herself, Elsa Schiaparelli who was heavily influenced by the Surrealists, most notably by Salvador Dali and Jean Cocteau.

Elsa Schiaparelli, lobster painted by Dali, made for Wallis Simpson.

Elsa Schiaparelli with details by Jean Cocteau.

Paris is nothing if not the cleverest of ladies. Knowing she could not conquer the salon, she used her new face lift to attract new admirers to the cafés. Here anyone could sit for the price of a drink. This singular idea would give birth to the café culture that still exists today. Here artists and writers could meet and exchange ideas. Impressionism came from The Café Guerbois on Avenue de Clichy thanks to Manet who was often joined by Zola, Bazille, Latour, Degas, Monet, Renoir, and Sisley with Cezanne and Pissaro visiting from time to time. Together the group was known as Les Batignolles, named for the area where the cafe was located. At the Nouvelle Athènes on Place Pigalle (torn down in 2004) one could find Matisse and Van Gogh. Degas painted L'Absinthe here. The Napolitain, the Weber (a favourite hang out of Henry Miller), the Vachette - all the cafés of Paris were full of people putting their glasses and minds together.

L'Absinthe on display at the Orsay Museum in Paris that was once booed off the easel and thus kept in storage for nearly 20 years.

With that much talking go on and amongst so many gifted minds, it is inevitable that a quarrel should occur but none more bizarre than the one between Count Montesquiou and Henri Regnier. After the new cinematographe of the Lumiére brothers caused a fire at the Bazar de la Charité in 1897 that led to the death of a few prominent French aristocrats a quarrel broke out between Count Robert de Montesquiou and the symbolist poet Henri de Regnier and all over a cane.


It was rumoured after the fire at the Bazar that some of the upper-crust youths used their canes to clear a path for themselves out of the fire, abandoning their lady companions. Upon meeting Count Montesquiou at the Baron de Rothchild's, Regnier's two sisters-in-law made a comment about the count's cane, even though he had not been present. Regnier himself added some comments about how dashing the count would look with a muff or a fan. Montesquiou demanded satisfaction, choosing pistols.

But Regnier claimed to have said, on the contrary. "There are two things I wish I could use - a fan in the summer and a muff in the winter". The offender became the offended and chose swords. The poet proved as mighty with a sword in his hands as with a pen and wounded the count. They both refused to be reconciled.

Dueling or demanding satisfaction were not uncommon during the age. The newspapers announced each day's affaires d'honneur, with interviews from the seconds as to what had and had not happened. Engagements were fought untl the first blood flowed only. Fatal duels were rare though sometimes death was only just avoided as in the case of Catulle Mendes who almost lost his life defending Sarah Bernhardt's right to play Hamlet.

But despite these fanciful things in 1885 Paris there was a need for fresh outlets of expression that was met in part by the new literary reviews, the Salon des Independants, and the private gatherings of artists such as Mallarmé's mardis (Tuesdays) and Edmond de Goncourt's grenier (attic). The pressure was building up - and the effects would go farther than just the limits of Paris.

The year was 1913. Cubism was now in London and DH Lawrence published Sons and Lovers. 1913 is the year that Joyce would send in Dubliners for publication. In New York, in Italy, in anywhere that mattered things were starting to happen, but in 1913 Paris everything was happening at once.

Apollinaire was writing about Cubism and sitting for portrats; Satie was composing music that would be later pumped into elevators; the pistol of Alfred Jarry the pataphysician was now being carried around by Picasso after Jarry died of tuberculosis after years of drinking and drugging in 1907; Rosseau would die three years later and be buried in the same cemetary as Jarry outside of Paris. Apollinaire would compose his epitaph that Brancusi would chisel on to his tombstone:

We salute you Gentle Rousseau you can hear us.
Delaunay, his wife, Monsieur Queval and myself.
Let our luggage pass duty free through the gates of heaven.
We will bring you brushes paints and canvas.
That you may spend your sacred leisure in the
light and Truth of Painting.
As you once did my portrait facing the stars, lion and the gypsy

The Dream, the last painting of Henri Rousseau painted just before his death.

Ubu Roi, Alfred Jarry.

Apollinaire painted by Maurice Vlaminck. "Faut-il qu’il m’en souvienne
La joie venait toujours après la peine..." Our loves recall how then after each sorrow joy came back again".

Erik Satie's first published composition,  Gymnopédies No. 1.

With the exception of the Renaissance, the avant-garde was a time when writers, artists, and musicians lived and worked together and tried their hands at each other's arts in an atmosphere of constant collaboration. But the avant-garde years, The Banquet Years as Shattuck calls them were more than a period, more than just a movemement. It was, as Shattuck puts it in Chapter Two: "a way of life, both dedicated and frivolous.  The question is where to look, where to concentrate one's attention in order to distinguish its form and details." Shattuck mentions in his footnote that Edmund Wilson's Axel's Castle and Marcel Raymond's De Baudelaire au surréalisme are worth a read, but one couldn't go wrong to read "The Banquet Years" (or at least purchase it for its footnotes and bibliography.

* I would like to comment here that while Satie's work in music did eventually lead to modern day Musak, his compositions are well worth a listen and can easily be listened to on Deezer. Please don't let your experienced with Neil Diamond "Musak" at grocery stores dissuade you.

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Some French rappers ask me for fashion advice

Today while waiting for my train to London I was approached by a French guy, probably no more than 20 years old asking if I wanted to buy a CD of his rap group Serieux Bizness. We get to talking about music and New York city. I tell them I used to live in Jay-Z's old hood and he's impressed.

He changes the topic to fashion. At first I thought I misunderstood him. Fashion? As in clothes? I ask him. He wants to know how French women's fashion compares to New York women. I tell him French women are more conservative - that they wear a uniform of navy blue, black, beige, and grey. He laughs and tells me that's true. I think it's the end of it, but then he asks me if I think overall French women are better dressed than American women. I tell him the styles are different. I'm trying to be impartial.

He ribs me about not answering. I offer to give him an example, does he know Sex and the City? He rolls his eyes and laughs. He does because his "girlfriend forced him to endure it". I ask him if he knows which one Carrie is and when he admits he does I go on with my analysis.

"Carrie Bradshaw (and SJP in her own right) is a widely acknowledge style icon in the US. Carla Bruni Sarkozy, who is a former model and now First Lady of France is considered a style icon (though she did not beat Ines de la Fressange in a recent poll). If I were to put them side by side I would say Carrie Bradshaw is more stylish..." At this point he lights a cigarette and one of friends comes over and joins our conversation.

Even the short version of my comparison is lost of these 20-something French boys. They want to know what I think about the way they dress. I tell them with their Nikes with white tennis socks, Armani Exchange jackets, and dark blue jeans it's sort of French gangsta. They ask me what gangsta means. After I explain what a gangsta is one of them holds up an index finger and says, "les ghettos sont comme des cités". Still I tell him given the absence of sweatpants that their gangsta look is much more chic. They like hearing that. So much so that they ask me to check them out on Facebook before I make a dash for my train.

On the train I gave some further thought to my comparison. Carrie vs. Carla.

I love what Patricia Fields did with the costume design for the series and the films much more than the show or the films themselves. She is also one of the most interesting women to have a conversation with - the real deal. Plus she can work the hell out of a one piece jumpsuit in a way that Jennifer Lopez should really study closely.

Now in the Carrie vs. Carla debate, Carrie wins - for me. I'm not a conservative dresser. Most of my favourite outfits involve wearing as many mismatching Missoni prints at the same time as possible. At the moment I am typing this I'm wearing a Guns-n-Roses t-shirt and a black chiffon Prada skirt with patent Chanel ballet flats and multiple strands of pink, grey, and black pearls.

While I love a skirt suit and good tailoring as much as Carla does I tend to wear my vintage YSL and Chanel skirt suits with funky shoes, Morrissey t-shirts, or with men's dress shirts, an Hermès tie, and cufflinks. I like mixing high fashion with casual pieces. I like dressing up like a female dandy. I probably own more ties (Hermès only) and pocket squares (all vintage) than most men. I have an impressive collection of cufflinks and tie pins too. I've even had shirts made for me by the best shirtmakers on Saville Row, Turnbull & Asser.

While I would chose Carrie's style over Carla's there is one French style icon who I think Carrie or her real life fashionable counterpart will never out fashion and that's Loulou de la Falaise. Loulou accredits her mother Maxime for her style. Maxime was a model for Schiaparelli and an icon of her age. In Schiaparelli's autobiography "A Shocking Life", Elsa mentions Maxime is "draped in lavish furs" to attend the Surrealist Ball being thrown by Salvadore Dali. Like mother like daughter. Loulou inspired Saint Laurent to create one of his most famous looks "Le Smoking". Loulou and Yves were life long friends. He referred to her as "his twin sister".

But a good friend of mine who is also a designer has the right answer to the question of which nation's women are more stylish. "When American women get it right, they get it right like no other women in the world". I agree. I like the airy aspect of a stylish American woman's style. A stylish American is more capricious. An American woman will splurge on something that is absolutely fantastic and build an outfit around it. I think stylish French women tend to buy quality classics that can be worn season after season and that's why they tend to stick to a muted colour palette because they tend to build their wardrobes up and don't shop as often or as recklessly.

As for me I get my love of fashion from my grandmother. She was always elegant and well-dressed even when she was working in the garden. From my grandmother I inherited a love of dresses and skirt suits and for couture. From my mother I inherited a sort of fearless sense of spirit that can only come from when I feel I know I look great. Living in the US inspired me to take risks. To mix and match. To overaccessorise. To make no apologies. To want to stand out from the crowd.

So the next time you're in Paris rock your style fashionable American ladies. Yes you'll be easily spotted, but that is, in my humble opinion when done properly, a good thing.

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Gemütlichkeit, the greatest word ever spoken

Some people melt into a puddle at the mention of Paris. The lights; the sights; sipping wine on the terraces with the Tour Eiffel twinkling against the night, which it only does the first five minutes of an hour on the hour, but for those who love The City of Lights it's part of the charm to wait for the sparkly spectacle (which is best seen from the outdoor terrace @ Café de l'homme with a coupe en main.

But me? Mijn hart behoort naar Amsterdam (My heart belongs to Amsterdam. If my Dutch is correct.) and every now and then I like to give my heart what she wants.

In part thanks to my bizarre good Craigslist karma I found an amazing appartment to rent. The couple, a Dutch lady and a Canadian gent were renting their place in the Jordaan in exchange for taking good care of their two cats. We exchanged emails, one way Skype'd because for some reason the camera on my laptop wasn't working until they found it too bizarre, and decided to give it a go.

Nearly a month and half later, after a frustrating wait, a stolen passport, and showing up for my bus on the wrong day - I arrived to Amsterdam, but not before making a few friends. I took Tania and Katia who were both visiting Amsterdam from Moscow and Gladys who is from Sao Paulo. I take them to the only place in Amsterdam that is open at 6:30 in the morning and we all drag our luggage and order pastries and coffees and teas. We talk about  Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Mushkin. Gladys is named after a character from a Pasternak novel.

The sun comes up and the streets start to slowly full up with bicycles. I walk through Leidseplein because I'm feeling nostalgic and I want to see the appartment I stayed in before off the Prinsengract. I get a text to go to the appartment. When I arrive I am happily surprised. It's gorgeous; the couple interesting and lovely; the cats almost too adorable.

I haven't been in Amsterdam for 6 hours and I already feel happier. I always feel happier in Amsterdam. I can't see how it's possible not to. Holland is the land whose people believe that gemütlichkeit or achieving gemütlichkeit is essential to life. Gemütlichkeit is essentially "cosiness". Not just in your surroundings. It connotes the notion that you belong, that you are accepted, of being cheerful, staying away from stress, and making sure you have the opportunity to have a good time.

Six hours and already I have achieved near optimum gemütlichkeit. So out I went out and followed the canals until I found the kind of trouble I was looking for - yummy Thai food and a good smoke. I spent the night wandering the Red Light district after stuffing myself with the best Thai in Amsterdam Thaise Snackbird and was happy to head back to my temporary home.

One of the bonuses of renting an appartment when you travel besides feeling like you're home even though you're not is that if the kitchen is well-stocked you can cook. Maybe cooking isn't your idea of how to spend a vacation but I love the challenge of cooking with unfamiliar ingredients coupled with my non-fluent grasp of Dutch. It's an adventure. Plus Dutch produce is, when bought at markets like the Noordermarkt, quite good.

While in Amsterdam I cooked,

-  a from scratch lasagna with fresh pastry and from scratch sauce with leftover grilled ratatouille and ground lamb and from scratch sausage with fresh basil and parsley,

- Poulet rôti stuffed with sausage, fennel, and wild rice with grilled ratatouille and Dutch tomatoes left to marinate in sweet balsamic vinegar, herbs, and honey.

- Fried chicken, potato salad, and grilled ratatouille with pine nuts and feta and then strawberry cheesecake for dessert.

I of course didn't cook all of that for myself. I invited friend to crash with me and couldn't resist cooking for them. Yes, I love cooking for people. No, I will not give you my address.

After two weeks in Amsterdam it was back to France to find that in my absence Spring had sprung. Everything was suddenly green. The barren trees of winter were all dressed up now and showin' off.

I finally bought the adapter for my camera's memory card and looking through the vacation photos gave me heartache. Thank god I'll be back in a few weeks!

Tweekie! She's big, she's beautiful, and she's a cuddle slut.

Ducks often car surf in Holland.

John!!! It's lasagna!!!

Classic New England Potato Salad that proves Star Wars geeks can cook.

My "famous" New York Style Cheesecake.

Monsieur Remus with whom I came to the agreement that if I did not rub any area of Monsieur Remus besides the top of his noble little head, he would not rip my face off. No thanks to delicious bribes Monsieur Remus and me became great friends most of the time and often sat around in the mornings conversing though I know not what we spoke of as I do not speak cat.

Speaking of cats...try to tell me this isn't the most f*cking

adorable thing you've ever seen and I won't believe you.

Dutch Graffiti and Bicycles.

Random construction site I somehow became obsessed

with trying to take good pictures of even though I know

I totally suck at taking pictures.















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Isabelle Eberhardt, another true femme flâneuse

I first discovered Isabelle Eberhardt when I bought a book of hers, The Oblivion Seekers, published by City Lights and translated by Paul Bowles. I bought the book because of the quote on the back cover "One of the strangest documents that a woman has given to the world." (Cecily Mackworth)

Isabelle Eberhardt was born in 1877. She was an explorer and writer who lived and travelled in Northern Africa. She was well educated despite being registered as illegitimate (her father was the family tutor Alexandre Trophimowsky) and spoke Arabic and several languages fluently. Her illegitimacy later kept her from being able to make claims on her inheritance after her mother took ill and died in Algeria where mother and daughter had travelled so that they both might convert to Islam. Shortly afterward Isabelle's father would die of cancer in Geneva and his greedy wife in Odessa was all but too eager to contest the will. Isabelle simply left for Tunis where she outraged the French pied noir living there by smoking kif (tobacco mixed with marijuana) on the cafe floors and taking home any man she pleased.

Isabelle eventually left Tunis to wander in the desert, but when her financial circumstances got worse, she crossed the sea to Marseille. There she found her brother who was legitimate but still living in a state of poverty that rivalled her own. Unable to arrange anything in Geneva, Isabelle travelled to Paris where she hoped to be a journalist. She was determined to be a writer.

Though she did not consider it a stroke of luck in her desperate times to encounter the rich widow, the Marquise de Morés paid for Isabelle's return to North Africa to investigate the mysterious murder of her husband four years before. Though later in life Isabelle would acknowledge the part luck had played in her life. "No one ever lived more from day to day than I, or was more dependent on chance..."

When the Marquise found out that Isabelle had little interest in actually investigating her husband's murder, she cut off all funds. Isabelle was unphased by her sudden and instantaneous catapult back into poverty. Instead she took a lover, an Algerian soldier named Sliman, who would be the great love of her life, and set out to join the secret religious cult of the Qadriya, one of the most powerful of all the tribes.

Disguised as man she took the name Si Mahmoud Essadi, but the Sufi brotherhood knew she was a woman underneath her men's clothes and decided that if she wanted to dress and act like a man it was her own business. From then on every member of the cult was sworn to feed her, shelter her, and give their life to protect her as they would any other member of the Qadriya.

But not everyone shared the Qadriya's views. The French thought Isabelle was a clever spy and rival cults did not approve of the Qadriya accepting a man they knew to be really a woman. One day as Isabelle sat in a courtyard an unknown man drew a sword intending to slice Isabelle in two. Luck again intervened in Isabelle's favour as the tip of the sword got caught on a wire clothesline first and instead of hitting her head, the blade hit her in the shoulder, nearly severing her left arm entirely.

After six weeks in the hospital she travelled to meet Sliman who tried to apply to propose to her. Their application was rejected. After she was banned by the French from entering North Africa entirely, Isabelle rejoined her brother in Marseille and again lived in extreme poverty as her injuries kept her from being able to work for long hours of lift anything heavy. She started work on a novel based on her experiences in Marseille working as a stevedor amongst the Muslims and numerous letters to Sliman urging him to transfer to Marseille. One day he arrived and they married both at the Marseille city hall and then again at a mosque.

But there would be no happy ending for Isabelle as scandal and ill health would follow her for the rest of her life. The mayor of Tenes was forced to resign for befriending her; Sliman would be transferred to a remote village, and eventually Isabelle would die in a flash flood surrounded by muddy pages of the manuscript she had been preparing after Sliman demanded the authorities continue looking for her.

In her book The Oblivion Seeks is a chapter entitled "Pencilled Notes". These are the first words of Isabelle's I read and they are thoughts that stay with me.

"A subject to which few intellectuals ever give thought is the right to be a vagrant, the freedom to wander...To be alone, to be poor in needs, to be ignored, to be an outsider who is at home everywhere, and to walk, great and by oneself, toward the conquest of the world. The healthy wayfarer sitting beside the road scanning the horizon open before him, is he not the absolute master of the earth, the waters, and even the sky? What housedweller can vie with him in power and wealth? His estate has no limits, his empire no law. No work bends him toward the ground, for the bounty and beauty of the earth are already his."

For myself, who grew up a nomad living everywhere but nowhere, those words resonate for me. Once I was jealous of people who knew the same places most or all of their lives and never felt the same hunger to wander that consumed me, especially when I was a teenager. I followed The Grateful Dead, drove from one side of the US to the other, and even when I was at university I kept a car so when the pressure building up inside of me needed release I could throw a box of CDs on the passenger seat and drive as far as a tank of gas would take me in any direction as long as it took me away.

My last great wandering took me to Brazil. In Brazil I found my darling doggie, five weeks old and malnourished, but even that didn't stop me from taking her first in a jeep through the rainforest as far as I could go. Then by boat up the Amazon into Venezuela. Eventually me and La Chienne would cross Venezuela, Colombia, and through the cloud forests of Ecuador before flying back to my then home, Boston.

Even still my wanderlust has not diminished. It is love that pulls my feet towards home and keeps me there. Love for my darling doggie who is not the pup she used to be and so I cannot bear the thought of not being with her. Telling people that I rented a little place in the forest to have quiet in order to write sounds a lot less crazy than explaining that when my dog was ill and I was made to believe she had cancer that I took the place so that my dog could retire to the country on the weekends.

When I get the urge to wander I take the metro around Paris and look upon it as an unfamiliar country or I go further beyond Paris, beyond London. I am not unhappy either because whether I am gone an hour or a week I am greeted by the same happy dog and the slap of her strong tail against my legs and if my journey did not sate me entirely there is now a forest to explore and her to sniff out the best paths for us to take together.

Isabelle spent most of her wandering time on the back of her horse, traipsing around the Sahara and while I think she had a truly fascinating life, albeit a sad one in many aspects, I think she would approve that I spend some of my time wandering the forest looking at the backside of a dog.

The works of Isabelle Eberhardt:

In French:
Dans l'Ombre Chaude de l'Islam  (In the Hot Shade of Islam)
Nouvelles Algériennes (Algerian Short Stories)
Les journaliers (The Day-Labourers)

Available in English:
Vagabond
Departures
The Nomad: The Diaries of Isabelle Eberhardt
The Oblivion Seekers
In the Hot Shade of Islam
Prison of Dunes

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Canada vs. South Park - What's that Aboot?

First and foremost let's get one thing out of the way. I think Canada in my experience is a lovely country. It's sort of like America, but with universal health care. What I don't get is why Matt and Trey seem to hate Canada so much. What's that aboot eh guys?

In an interview given by the two geniuses (C'mon they are geniuses. They're still as relevant and funny as the first season, which is something I wish I could still say about The Simpsons.) they say it's just a satire about how Americans perveive Canadians as being so different despite all the similarities.

That being said, I even nearly a week after the last episode aired I can't stop thinking about what their last episode "Royal Pudding" really was all about. Anti-royal wedding sentiment? Dental hygiene? Was it a brilliant way of telling South Park viewers how they felt about the so many non-UK citizens being so engrossed in the British Royal family? And if so, why didn't they take a shot at Pippa Middleton's now famous ass? It's not that big, but Matt and Trey have rarely ever missed their mark when aiming at the British Royal family in the past. The Queen blew her head off and an early episode of South Park they even gave us Princess Diana herself singing "Christmas Time in Hell" complete with burning mistletoe.

So c'mon Matt and Trey. The Guardian is saying you're going soft. Where was the Royal Wedding episode I was expecting?

Why didn't "Harry" say something that needed to be translated by a lip reader that would have had me in stitches. He gave you the perfect set up. You should have stolen a line from Vince Vaugh's character in old school à la "Alright, let me be the first to say congratulations to then. You get one vagina for the rest of your life. Real smart Frank. Way to work it through."

Oh Great Creators of South Park. In the past your show has left me feeling overwhelmed and underwhelmed, but this episode left me well - whelmed.

Did you do it on purpose?

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Blog Updates

Once upon a time I was lucky enough to have a professional webmaster for my blog and all I had to do was type and hit publish post, but now that I'm doing everything on my own this ol' dog has had to learn a few new tricks.

I've already posted about how I got snippets of my post to work in Blogger, but after reading some blogs I found myself terribly envious of people who have those nifty recommendations at the bottom of their posts. After a quick Google search I found the right widget at LinkWithin.

Follow the simple steps, and within a few minutes you will see the thumbnails and posts appear under your blog posts and no longer have to be envious.

Keep in mind it's specifically for thumbnails, which means I'll need to add more images to my posts, which has been something I've been planning to do. In the meantime sorry for the repetitve recommendations, I am going to be working on this most of the day, so hopefully by tomorrow it will work flawlessly. If you're looking for a text only version, I didn't find much when I looked, but maybe this will help.

On a separate note, I'm very against advertising on blogs, so don't worry that my improvements will include adding advertisements. There is nothing worse to me than trying to read a blog and all these animated gifs and things keep going off. I write my blog for pleasure and not profit so any updates will be simply to make my blog more enjoyable for readers and not less!

Thanks for your patience while I implement this update!

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Sexism in Literature

"This is going to sound sexist," he says warningly, "but American woman writers are just awful..."

Sexism, still alive and well in literature apparently.

He then proceeds to knock Eudora Welty, whom I consider a damn fine female writer, but my head is still spinning from the whole American woman writers bit. I am seriously offended. Eudora Welty is to me one of the best short story writers in American literature. Nevermind she was a she. Her work still holds it own in the male-dominated world of literature.

I ask for examples. He looks in a book of Welty's collected short stories. He reads until he is annoyed and stops. He blurts out "as full of himself as a colt". It's a metaphor I say and probably one she grew up hearing since she was from the South. He goes on saying Welty is "too clever, too effusive, trying to hard to be clever".

I don't want to sound snobby here but until you have examined a vast proportion of a writer's work you cannot judge their writing. You can judge the work on its own merits, but not the writer him-or-herself. I loved W. Somerset Maugham because the first thing I read were his short stories. Then I decided to read Of Human Bondage and didn't like it as much. Now that I've read nearly everything that Maugham ever wrote I can still earnestly and with authority say he is one of the best writers to ever write. Sure he's slightly outdated now, but I don't give a fig. I have yet to find a book that is as witty and sharp as The Razor's Edge. I can nearly recite his short story "Rain" verbatim.

He sits down in the chair and opens up a book of Alice Munroe's Selected Stories. He doesn't approve. He gives Munroe the same treatment he gave poor Eudora. The language is too precious he says.

Now he or you or I have as much right to not like a writer for whatever reason we want. The writing might not be to our tastes or the subject of the book or story might bore us. Yes, everyone might be named Rose. Yes they might write lines like "she understood Char was beautiful". But if you could hear what he's saying now (which basically boils down to backtracking faster than a politican), you'd probably feel the same way as I do which is, how dare you take my books off my shelf and then proceed to butcher some of my favourite writers (Well I'm not a fan of Munroe's. I bought her book because I wanted to see what happens when you take another writer's style and make no effort to reshape it into your own.)?!?!

I ask him, "Do you understand that Eudora Welty is considered one of the finest American writers of all time and a master of the short story?"

No, he doesn't care. He doesn't care about a writer's reputation.

"If you don't care about a writer's reputation, then why do you bother to read books that are recommended to you?"

It's who recommends them he says. And the work itself.  "Who's opinion is it", he asks, "and why do they deserve it?"

I ask him why he bothers to write down ever book ever mentioned in the works of Borges, Miller, or Colin Wilson, all of whom he's told me make the best recommendations for books.

"It's all about pleasure for me. I only read it because I like it."

So let's get away from the whole recommendations thing then. "How can you judge female American writers based on just Welty and Munroe?"

He doesn't. He likes Sylvia Plath and Amy Hemple. Still I refuse to let him off the hook because whereas I go out of my way to support female writers in general, his reading is predominantly male.

I tell him I don't understand why he'd make such a blanket statement. Why not he says.

Have you ever read Wharton I ask him? No.

What about Carson McCullers? She's genius he says. Harper Lee is also a genius apparently.

I keep at it, citing other female American writers. He conceeds. But in the end it doesn't matter does it? He prefers male authors. Is it because most books published are written by men? Does he think that female writers can't be as good as men?

Not at all he says. But he reads most male writers because he's a man and there's more of them. I certainly wish that we women had this luxury. Of the 100 books on Time's list of the All Time 100 Novels only 18 of the books were written by women and two of those 18 were written by Virginia Woolf.

So my question to my readers is, who are you favourite female authors? They obviously need our support.

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Things You Should Buy in France Part I of X

1. Fleur de sel, "Finishing salt"

Fleur de sel is hand-harvested sea salt that contains more mineral complexity than regular table salt. There are four regions of France that produce fleur de sel and each has their own distinctive qualities. Fleur de sel is considered a finishing salt because you do not use it directly while cooking because it dissolves too quickly, but rather to sprinkle on finished dishes as the grains of salt add texture and a unique taste when consumed.

Fleur de sel from Guérande is considered the very best salt in France and prices will reflect that.  The best artisinal sel de Guérande can cost as much as 85,00 euros a kilo. Make sure when you buy your Guérandais salt that it bears a stamp indicating it is true Guérande salt. Most French products that come from a certain region are known as les terroirs.

I bought my sel de Guérande when I was in Brittany in a beautiful glass jar with a wide mouth and a cork stopper and it cost 22,00 euros for 150 grams. It also came with a really adorable little wooden scoop that was unfortunately lost when I moved. I still get my salt from the same place because when I visited I was offered a little tour of this charming couple's salt flats. The husband's family has been hand harvesting sel de fleur in Guérande for over 100 years, so I like to give them a little business since they only sell in little shops in their area.

If you'd like to take a tour of the salines, you can find more information here via La Maison des Paludiers.

Another type of fleur de sel found in France is harvested from Noirmoutier-en-Ile. I've rarely seen this salt even in fancy shops in Paris. It's not as reknowned as sel de Guérande, but if you can find it I would definitely buy it and sprinkle the grains over Noirmoutier potatoes.

These special potatoes are known as "La Bonnotte" and sell for about 500,00 euros a kilo and only 100 tons are harvested each year. The La Bonnotte potato fields are fertilised with seaweed and algae from the sea and have a distinctive earthy flavour and a natural saltiness of their own. I've cooked with them the first time myself when I bought them from the epicerie shop at the Bon Marché department store and I'm glad I did because my grandmother loved them and it was the last time I ever cooked for her before she passed away. She used them from time to time when she had her restaurant and would often joke about moving there to become a potato farmer because then she at least eat them more often. I always serve La Bonnotte potatoes on her birthday since my grandmother was born on May 1st, which is the first day of the La Bonnotte harvest, though usually not too many of them because of their price and I always garnish them with sel de Camargue, which was her favourite type of fleur de sel and for most things, mine too.

Sel de Camargue is the last fleur de sel of France I would recommend buying either for your own cooking or for someone you know who cooks. But first things first. Do not buy sel de Camargue in a grocery store, go to Camargue directly. Why? Because it's one of the most beautiful places in all of France and buying salt is just a good a reason as any to visit.

Camargue is located south of Arles between the Mediterranean sea and the two arms of the Rhone river delta known as Le Grand Rhone and Le Petit Rhone. It is a preserved wetland and is home to over 400 species of birds, including Pink Flamingos who get their colour from eating plants found in the saltmarsh waters.

It is also home to the Camargue bull and the Camargue horse. The Camargue horse is used by the gardians, who are the closest thing to cowboys in France. The gardians used the horses to rear the Camargue bulls for bullfighting either in France or in Spain. They are always grey in colour, meaning they have a white coat over black skin, and much like Arabian horses are born either black or brown and become whiter with age. Growing up I had a few chances to ride a grignon and there are more than a few places where you can rent and ride Camargue horses in the area.

Much like the flamingos get their colour from what they eat, sel de Camargue is also slightly pink but it gets its flavour from the violets that grow wild in the area, which makes it best for Provencal cooking. My preferred brand of sel de Camargue is one from La Baleine, which is a salt company that sells many different type of salt in France, but this one is very special because it is hand raked and collected and each container is hand signed by the collector of the salt in your container.

My suggestion? Take the train from Paris to Arles. Once in Arles visit the bullfighting stadium and Roman ruins (Arles is a UNESCO heritage site), eat, buy lots of Provencal fabrics (that inspired Christian Lacroix as a boy), and then rent a car and drive down to Camargue makign sure to visit Aigues-Mortes (dead waters), which is one of the finest examples of a well-preserved medieval city in France (the others being most notably Carcassonne, St. Malo, and Provins). Once in Aigues Mortes drop by La Baleine for a tour and buy your salt (in bulk if practical). Your hotel will likely be full of brochures for these type of tours, so just see which one you want to take. Also if you're into kayaking, ask the concierge at the hotel to recommend a place where you can rent a kayak and get close to the flamingoes. I've only done it once but it was a truly beautiful experience because I was able to get pretty close before they stalked off.

But back to salt again. Of all the salts I've recommended sel de Guérande is the most notable, but not always the most expensive or the best depending on your recipe and while I do use it regularly the one thing I must say cannot be consumed without sel de Guérande is a grilled entrecote. If you have never had a perfectly cooked (à point being the most an entrecote should ever be cooked through so that the very inside is warm but still quite red) entrecote with sel de Guérande you are missing out on a combination (especially when served just a little butter and freshly chopped parsley) that will make your mouth very, very happy.

If you've enjoyed reading this be sure to check back as I plan to write a ten part series. I thought I could fit all ten things into one blog post, but apparently not!

Next in the series I'll write about artisinal honey, many types of which are only available in France.

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A Must Read Blog

I was passed the link for this blog from a friend and I've fallen totally head over heels for it. It's brilliant. Whoever this Greg Ross gentleman is, he certainly knows how to make a blog I will stay up at night reading.

The blog is called Futility Closet and full of interesting little puzzles and information. My favourite post thus far has been a post about Dashiell Hammett, the famous detective writer of The Maltese Falcon fame. I've cut and pasted a little excerpt from Futility Closet to tempt you:

In 1930 Dashiell Hammett reviewed mystery fiction for the New York Evening Post. Dismayed at the blunders he encountered, he published 24 “suggestions that might be of value to somebody.” Excerpts:
2. The Colt’s .45 automatic pistol has no chambers. The cartridges are put in a magazine.
4. When a bullet from a Colt’s .45, or any firearm of approximately the same size and power, hits you, even if not in a fatal spot, it usually knocks you over. It is quite upsetting at any reasonable range.

You can read the rest of the entry here: http://www.futilitycloset.com/2011/05/14/gumshoe-polish/

What makes Hammett's "advice" so interesting is not only does it give you a deeper glimpse into Hammett's writings than perhaps he intended, but it's valuable advice for any writer about being accurate in your writing when accuracy is possible. As a sidenote, when I started reading Hammett's suggestions via FC's blog, I actually thought Hammett was encouraging bad readers to blow their brains out. The first two items from the excerpts do sort of seem like advice on how to load and fire a Colt 45.

 (Not to be confused with the malt beverage that once had Billy Dee Williams as their spokesman).

Recently, the agent and writer Betsy Lerner said on her blog that the Internet has "separated the yolks from the whites" as some writers spend more time on Facebook or YouTube and less time submitting bad manuscripts, but I think the Internet has helped me as a writer. Not only can I blog my frustrations, trials, and triumphs, but it also helps me practice. I also have endless resources to research, look at things that might inspire me, and of course to check out the competition.

Not to mention when it gets really, really bad I can compulsively shop online to feel better or torture myself even more by reading writers who are far more talented than me.

Be sure to check out The Futility Closet, it's great reading.

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My Americancentric Wish List

I miss the US. I haven't been back in two years and many of my American friends who have expatriated themselves to France can't understand why, but I miss it. I miss NY. Sadly there isn't a t-shirt for that, but lately I've been missing New York City and to rub it in, a girlfriend of mine just announced she's off to NYC for a couple of weeks.

Since I supplied her with an extensive list of places to eat, drink, and be merry, she has nicely offered to bring me back 10 things I miss most about NYC that aren't perishable or likely to have her detained as she tries to fly out of JFK back to France. I've give this some solid thought because once she said non-perishable, the list I had in my head like a cheesecake from Junior's, a pastrami sandwich from Katz's, and a pizza from Grimaldi's needed revision. So here is my current list. I have until June 8th to sort it out entirely.

1. Old-fashioned metal biscuit cutters.
For the past six years I've been cutting biscuits with improvised objects and it's been a very messy affair - like Tiger and Elin Woods messy. My biscuits haven't been perfect since I moved to France and now that I'm determined to master baking, I'll be needing these for biscuits, cookies, and pastries.

2. Metal measuring cups and spoons.
While I grew up with the metric system most of my cookbooks are non-metric and while I have found measuring cups in France, they're always plastic and break when I need to measure out butter. Plus, I am pretty sick of measuring out exactly 123.47 grams of flour. Cooking is already complicated enough without having to measure dry and liquid ingredients to the second decimal place. Though kudos to recipe sites that allow you to convert to metric like http://www.allrecipes.com/.

3. Burt's Bees Honey Lip Balm
I have literally tried every type of lip balm I have found in France and none work as well as Burt's Bees. Last winter was a particularly harsh one here in France and I got a bad case of chapped lips. I haven't had lips that chapped since I first discovered making out as a teenager and not a single of the products I bought (I lost count after 12) really helped much. I knew somehow that if I could get my hands on some Burt's it'd take care of it, but I simply couldn't find Burt's in Paris. I went to organic health food stores and pharmacies and even to the stores that carry American products. In the end I rubbed coccoa butter on my lips, but it was so disgusting I couldn't bring myself to do it more than a few times. My doctor here told me to stop licking my lips and it'd go away. Thanks for the advice Doc. As if I didn't know that. It's not exactly an easy thing not to do given it's a natural instinct to do so when your lips are chapped. It's not my fault that no French cosmetics company has been able to make a decent lip balm.

4. Dr. Scholl's Fast Flats

You can find Dr. Scholl's products in France, if you're willing to pay 3x as much for them, but those of us who love heels know one cannot wear them without some kind of miracle gel insert. I used to buy mine at Dwayne Reade for a couple dollars, so imagine my sticker shock when the same gel inserts here cost around 12,00 euros ($14). In NYC where I wore high heels pretty much even when I was in bed asleep, I always carried a pair of "fast flats" in my purse that could be rolled up and didn't take up much space. I've never seen a pair in France, but contrary to what Louboutin and Pierre Hardy would have you believe, French women aren't crazy about skyscraper high heels. Now in Italy wearing flats probably has some article in their penal code, but the truth is French women wear flats or very low heels most of the time. Given that I used to wear heels so often that people were amazed at my actual height (5'5) when I was barefoot, I got into the habit of wearing flats and now only wear heels when I have money for a taxi because it's still cheaper than buying gel inserts.

5. Towels

Yes you can buy towels in France - if you have a lot of money to spend you can even buy nice towels in France. The last time I was in the US I bought about 10 fluffy, extra large bath towels at Wal-mart for about $80. To buy similar quality towels in France would cost me about 250,00 euros. Since I don't see the point of taking a shower unless you can get out out and wrap yourself in an instantly absorbent and soft fluffy towel, I can always use more. If I spent 80,00 on towels in France I'd emerge from my steamy shower only to rub off one layer of skin no matter how much fabric softener I used in the washing cycle.

6. Sheet music for guitar

Since most of the sheet music sold in France is imported from elsewhere, by the time it's in the shops the price is marked up by at least double. I bought sheet music for The Smiths and it cost me 52,00 euros. The same book of sheet music is only $17 at the most expensive music store in NYC.

So what sheet music will I ask her for? The Beatles songbook (72,00 euros vs. $30.00), Radiohead (45,00 euros vs $21.00), and The Bob Dylan songbook (35,00 euros vs. $18.00).

Whether or not I will ever master guitar well enough to play anything beyond the first four chords of Karma Police or the beginning of The Clash's Should I Stay or Should I Go (it's just D and G) remains to be seen, but I'd like to see the actual guitar tabs and give it a go and for the price I can actually afford to.

7. Ingredients for baking yummy American desserts.

To make 2 dozen Nestle Tollhouse cookies buying the ingredients from an American grocery store in Paris (minus eggs, flour, and regular sugar that I can buy at any French grocery store) costs about 25,00 euros. The Nestle Tollhouse chips alone are 9,00 for a 1lb bag and I like a lot of chips in my cookies because I make them fairly big. So I've asked for as many boxes of Domino's Light Brown Sugar, jars of molasses, bags of Hershey's Kisses, and bags of Nestle Tollhouse milk chocolate chips she can carry. She said she'd do her best as long as of course, some of those cookies were to make it her way. I've promised that at least a few would. But just a few because I really love chocolate chip cookies. Too much actually.

8. A Black & Decker Dustbuster

While there are a few similar products here in France, vacuum cleaners in general leave little to be desired here. I'm not sure why this is, but perhaps it's due to the fact that very few French appartments have carpets.

9. Secret Deodorant

It's a myth that French women don't shave their legs or armpits. Actually I think French women are very fastidious about body hair. Any trip to a department store here will amaze you with the amount of epilators on sale. French people also for the most part wear deordorant. The problem is deodorant brands here aren't as good as Secret. I've tried everything and nothing compares and nothing is worse than holding on to the pole in the Metro and realising that the stank you smell is coming from your own armpit. Unless you're on Line 4 from April - October. Then your stank is merely combining with everyone else's stank to make a super stank. I try not to ride the Line 4 in the summer months if I can avoid it and suggest you take my advice on this as well.

10. As many notebooks as she feels fit to carry.

I used to think that I was the only one who felt French stationary was inferior to American stationary, but I'm not. The last time I went back to the US I came back with 10 notebooks for a friend who also hates French stationary. As a writer I need notebooks. Henry Miller suggested writing in notebooks and ignoring what you wrote, but I use my notebooks religiously and while I love the medium sized format of the soft cover Moleskins, they're really quite expensive. What I want are some cheap CVS single subject spiral bound notebooks. I can buy 18 of those for the price of one Moleskin (16,00 euros) here in France. As long as they're college ruled.

I've already been told I won't get everything on my Americancentric Wish List because she'll likely be bringing things back to France for herself, but since I'm hoping to make it back to NYC in the fall I'll pick up the rest myself. So if you see a girl in October buying massive quantities of gel inserts, Secret deodorant, and notebooks at a Dwayne Reade come over and say hello.

I'll be making a similar list of things a lady should buy while in France, once I can narrow it down to less than 40 things because despite my complaints, there are some really great things here as well. Like the very best shampoo in all the world. Screw Bumble & Bumble!

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A big "merci" to my readers!

I checked my blog stats today, not because I am obsessed with having a popular blog, but to see what everyone is mostly interested in so I can keep delivering the goods. I thought my readers might be interested as well.

Firstly thank you to my American readers, but also thank you to my readers in France, Singapore, Denmark, Germany, and the UK! I can't believe that people in Singapore are reading my blog. Despite the connectivity of the Internet, it still seems impossible somehow.

Secondly thank you to Google. One of the reasons why I chose a Blogger account over the other blogging platforms is because Google does a lot of SEO (search engine optimisation) for you. If you're considering a blog I think it's a good idea to get started on Blogger for this reason. For example I discovered if I looked up "femme flâneuse" through Google's search engine, my blog and a few of my entries were the first 4 links.

Now I also, because I am also a big, big geek, have to give a shout out to my readers who use Linux. Granted I'm not such a big geek anymore that I could do much on a Linux operating system (yes I have been corrupted by Windows), it does warm my heart to know that at least amongst my readers that Linux is still your operating system of choice. It would probably still be mine if I hadn't treated my ThinkPad so poorly. Considering my ThinkPad was made by IBM I have probably dated myself, but c'est la vie!

Some of my traffic has to be from my recent application to be a contributor for some other blogs, but it's nice to see that the blogosphere is still a give and take community. By this I mean, I read blogs and I comment on blogs. Sometimes people who read the same blogs read my comments and click to read my blog. I can't recommend this enough for any beginning blogger. Take the time to read what other people are putting out into the blogosphere and maybe some of that comes back to you. Let's call it blarma. We could call it blogkarma but it would be too obvious. Since neither are particularly clever, let's just drop the subject entirely.

It seems my readers really like book recommendations and Henry Miller, so in that case I will keep that bit up. I imported my old blog yesterday that has lots of lists of books I've bought for my library and recommendations so be sure to check my archives from 2008. You also seem to like recipes, so I will happily supply those as well. The only reason why I haven't posted so many recipes yet is because I happen to own a Sony digital camera with a proprietary memory stick that doesn't fit into my new computer, so once I get the proper adapter I will take lots of unprofessional but well meaning photos of what I cook. Just please keep in mind I cook better than I take photographs.

Thank you again . I just made some edible but not as good baked fried chicken and needed a little boost!

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The Fried Chicken Controversy

When it comes to cooking there are a few things I'm not modest about and one of them is fried chicken. I've been making fried chicken since I was about 16 years old.

The first time I made fried chicken the wrong way was with a Fry Daddy that actually spit out the pieces I'd put in to fry and caused a massive grease stain on the ceiling of the kitchen in the house that the embassy had rented for my parents. This was immediately followed by the first time I learned to make fried chicken the right way thanks to a nice lady from Alabama who not only helped me scrub the mess off the ceiling before my parents found out, but also made me the very best fried chicken I have ever had. Well, at least up until I'd had a year of practice because then I actually think mine was a tiny bit better than hers. Sorry Rita Mae, but it's true.

I did a little research online because I wanted to see if it was possible to make fried chicken in the oven to avoid the extra fat and thought I would share my experiences as I try to find a healthier way to make fried chicken. Instead what I discovered was there is a huge amount of debate as to what is the "real" way to make Southern Fried Chicken. And I mean huge, but by debate I mean arguments in text that sometimes ended in people cussin' at each other and bringin' up the Civil War. I ain't kiddin'.

Well since Rita Mae was from Alabama and I've had many Southerners devour my fried chicken from nearly all of the states south of the Mason Dixon line including Texas, I'd like to respectfully add my methods, thoughts, and advice along with the rest.
What type of chicken should you use?

For this experiment I bought 8 smallish thighs (not legs just thighs) of chicken. Now some people say the only proper way to make fried chicken is to buy whole fryer chickens and cut them up. I disagree. I've tried that method and found it only wasted time and more importantly, no one wanted the breast meat. Not because it was dry or not delicious, but because dark meat is not only better for frying, but is a lot tastier in general. I've tried a lot of tricks to make the breasts more like dark meat, but since I have yet to master The Dark Culinary Arts that will make white meat taste like dark meat, no matter what I tried the breast meat was always slightly inferior as it always is, even when you roast chickens.

Do you need to soak the chicken beforehand?

Some people soak their chicken. The times vary but overnight (8 hours) is about the longest length of time and 1 or 2 hours seems to be the mininum for some people. I've seen recipes that call for soaking in buttermilk, milk, and slightly salted water. The only time I've ever soaked in buttermilk is when making Buttermilk Fried Chicken as I've always considered BFC it's own specific type of chicken. I have never soaked my chicken in regular milk or salt water. Soaking meat in salt water is however a real technique called "brining". I've brined whole roasting chickens and consider brining a turkey absolutely mandatory. But for fried chicken I cannot see why this method would be used. So my stance on soaking is, examine the quality of the chicken you will be frying. If the meat looks tough, use buttermilk. If the meat looks old or dry, use the brining method.

If you decide to go the route of buttermilk, milk, or brining keep in mind that it will affect the coating of your chicken in the long run. Buttermilk and milk will thicken the coating and brining can possibly thin your coating. If you do soak your chicken you need to rinse it with cold water beforehand, pat dry, and then soak in whatever you are using. Once the chicken is done soaking you have to let the excess liquid drip off. I would suggest with buttermilk that unless you like a thick coating to pat the chicken with paper towels even after you've let any excess liquid drip off.

What to bread the chicken with?

Some people say flour and only flour. I happen to agree. However, as I've only just discovered this evening you can use whole wheat flour and it actually tastes better. I'm not sure why this is but most likely it's because whole wheat flour likely absorbs more oil in the process of cooking. If you know why this might be, or have other theories, please feel free to post in the comments section.

Now I bread chicken for other recipes and have used crackers, cornmeal, bread crumbs, almond flour, pecans - you name it. It's up to you as the cook to decide what you like best because after looking at about 50 recipes posted online; all proclaiming to be more authentic than any other I couldn't see how there could be one true recipe. On one forum people actually swore at each other over it. Apparently Southerners are very opinionated about fried chicken and rightfully so, but as an experienced cook the only thing I can think that might make a difference is how other ingredients would: hold up during the frying process, absorb oil, and provide the right level of crunch.

So you make you own decision as to what to use in the breading. If it tastes good and has the right amount of crunch, you should be fine unless serving purists.

What should I season the breading with?

Again there are many opinons. Purists say salt and pepper should be enough or that adding cayenne makes it not Southern, but Louisianna style. I personally like to use thyme, cayenne, a bit of garlic powder, salt, and pepper. I sometimes vary the spices greatly, but I don't consider it Southern. Rita Mae was from Alabama and other than adding thyme, the base of my seasonings are what she told me to use. I also stick to her rule about proportions. Enough salt, mostly fresh ground black pepper, enough cayenne to make the flour look a little pink, and just a pinch or two of garlic powder. I usually add about a tablespoon of thyme for every 2 1/2 cups of flour.

So again, it's up to you. I use the same recipe for Southern Fried Chicken as I use to make a fusion French style fried chicken except I cut out about 1/2 the cayenne and add basil, oregano, and rosemary.

To Egg Wash or to Not Egg Wash?

From the 50 different recipes I looked at I've drawn a few conclusions. There are people who don't like a lot of breading on their fried chicken. If you don't like a lot of breading you have to stay away from soaking in buttermilk and from using an egg wash. Simply press the flour directly on to dry chicken and then allow to sit for about 30 minutes in the refrigerator. I have tried this method and it is great because the breading is very light, but I love breading, so I use an egg wash.

Now here are a few things I've learned from experience:

1. If you want the breading to stay intact on chicken legs, dust the chicken with flour first, then dip in the egg wash, and then re-dip in the seasoned flour. Make sure to press the flour firmly with your hands.

2. The first dusting of flour actually helps the chicken stay moist.

3. Dusting with flour, egg wash, and then pressing the second flouring in with your hands until all the chicken is covered and the egg wash no longer shows visible wet marks on the floured chicken actually helps to cook the chicken faster without scorching the breading. Although you shouldn't have this problem because you should always turn the heat down once the breading reaches a light golden colour and use the last minutes of frying on low heat to let the chicken get that perfect golden colour fried chicken should have.

4. There is nothing worse you can do to your chicken than not bread it properly. The breading will fall off during the frying otherwise and you'll have to change your oil. Unless you are making a massive batch of fried chicken you should never have to change oil. I made about 4 kilos (10lbs.) of thighs and legs once and only changed my oil once.

What to fry the chicken in?

Again every one seems to have an opinion. There is only one type of "fat" I wouldn't suggest frying chicken in and that's anything with a very low smoking point like olive oil. The "fat" needs to get to a certain temperature and olive oil can't get that hot without smoking. Now I was taught that one should fry chicken in Crisco, but I haven't touched the stuff in eons, not even for bicuits or pie crusts. I've read recipes that use Crisco, 1/2 lard and 1/2 butter, peanut oil, sunflower oil, and vegetable oil.

Personally I use sunflower oil. It has a high smoking point and is just a little bit healthier than peanut oil. I sometimes use 1/2 sunflower oil and 1/2 duck fat for certain recipes, and I've used 1/2 sunflower and 1/2 peanut oil as well. If you're not experienced at frying foods, stick to using one type of fat. Get fancy later when you've had practice and could fry chicken in your sleep. I can. I literally fell asleep with tongs in my hands once while waiting to fry chicken. Thankfully it didn't burn as I was making fried chicken for about 20 people.

Other tips:

- Make sure once the breading is slightly golden that you turn the heat down and flip every so often to avoid scorching your breading.

- No matter what anyone says do not cover your pan while frying.

- This might be blasphemous, but I don't use a cast iron skillet. I use a simple old steel frying pan that is so beat up and ugly because it's really only used to fry things. It looks like a shallow wok with a handle, but it heats evenly like a cast iron skillet. All you really need is a pan deep enough for the oil that heats evenly.

- Watch the chicken until you can identify what is going on with the frying just by being within earshot. I can tell whether or not I need to turn my chicken and even if it's thoroughly cooked just by listening to the sound of the oil. If you watch the chicken enough times, you'll be able to do this too.

- It is possible to make fried chicken in the oven, but simply because it's possible it doesn't mean it should be done. It is not healthier either. Today I baked 1/2 of the chicken in the oven and the other 1/2 I fried in my blasphemous non-cast iron frying pan. The baked chicken started soaking up oil the minute I set it into the baking dish. I made sure to heat the oil in the baking dish in the oven before setting the chicken pieces in it, but it didn't make it a difference. I needed to add extra oil 10 minutes into baking and then again when I turned the chicken pieces to the other side. In addition it needs just as much attention because the oven can burn the breading. While the chicken had the same taste, the baked fried chicken's breading was hard and too thick compared to the batch I fried on the stove. I will never do this again quite frankly. I'll just have to work off the calories when I get a craving.

- Let your fried chicken set. Sure you're putting it on to clean paper towels to let the grease soak up, but it should also be to let the meat rest. If you serve or cut the chicken too early the juices won't have a chance to reconstitute and it will make every mouthful after the first taste bland and not as moist.

- If you make fried chicken with chicken that was frozen you must use the salty water brining method. Otherwise the chicken is just going to get tougher with frying. In fact I highly recommend brining any frozen meat before cooking, except poultry is the only meat you can immerse in the water while brining. With pork, lamb, beef, or even duck you should simply sprinkle salt on the meat while it's still frozen and wipe off the excess salt as you pat the meat dry before using it in your recipe.

- It's possible to make tasty fried chicken using skinless chicken or even skinless breast of chicken, but the reality is the bone adds to the taste. I've de-boned thighs when I made fried chicken for picnics (French people don't like to eat with their hands, so deboning the chicken made a big difference), but in those instances I used the freshest and best quality chicken I could find. Otherwise the bone adds a tremendous amount of moisture and flavour so don't fry without it.

I hope this helps and honestly, I was overwhelmed with the amount of fried chicken recipes (and arguments as to its preparation) I found after just an hour. I stick to my recipe because when I've tried other people's it's just not the way I like it.

If you have any tips (or arguments) please feel free to leave them in the comments. I'm always looking for ways to improve upon fried chicken as it is, let's face it, one of the best dishes to ever come out of American cuisine*.

*The other being gumbo.

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Priceless

Saturdays were once my favourite day of the week, especially when I lived in Brooklyn (Williamsburg). Despite waking up early all week for work, I'd still get up early on Saturday mornings and try to get all the practical stuff out of the way so that I could have fun for the rest of the weekend. After moving to France my schedule changed and Saturday became my least favourite day of the week.

I attribute the change in my feelings to the fact that as they say, New York is the city that never sleeps. I could buy bed linens at Bed, Bath, & Beyond at 9:45 pm if I wanted to or drop off my laundry and pick it up on my way home from work. It's not until recently that grocery stores in Paris were open after 8 o'clock so that meant when Saturday rolled around I, like most of the French people my age, spent most of Saturday being practical and fighting the massive crowds also trying to get things done.

So Sunday became my favourite day of the week and even now that I'm not working a 9-5 job, it's still my favourite mostly because of my neighbour's son.

On Sunday Coco comes for his English lessons. Since he's 8 (going on 9), I tend to try to make the lessons as fun as possible for him. Today since it's a bit chilly I made some chocolat chaud à l'ancienne for him with lots of lots of whipped cream. Last week we had guests over who all spoke English so we made the lesson about practicing speaking to people with different accents (we had Northern Irish, Australian, and American for him to chose from), eating strawberry shortcake, and then took a little walk.

The truth is most of my friends are either with child (and about to burst) or they already have at least one child. I have a dog and while La Chienne quite the hound, it's not the same level of responsibility or interaction. I'm very lucky that my neighbour allows me to spend time with Coco because it's not only hopefully rewarding for Coco, but it also is very rewarding for me as well. We play football or board games, and since he is generally always smiling, it brightens up my day.

If you're like me and don't have any children and you have a lazy afternoon in your life to spend, I highly recommend you spend it with a child. Borrow one from a friend or volunteer. In the US I was a Big Sister through the Big Brother and Big Sister program, volunteered through a therapeutic horseback riding program, and read to children at my local library.

Unfortunately in the current economic climate more and more educational programs are being cut for children either through schools or public libraries. Now in Coco' s case he has really kick ass parents. If I were going to be a parent I would hope I would be half as good at it as they are, but Coco is a fortunate kid. There are plenty of children who need a positive role model in their lives. If you think you have the time to dedicate, don't hesitate.

I might be a sap to say this, but there is a certain joy you get from making a child happy. When I went to Holland (Coco's family is Dutch) I promised Coco I'd get him a shirt for the Dutch player Wesley Schneider who is his favourite. He was bit worried I might forget to bring one back for him while I was away, and told me so. When I told him I of course wouldn't forget he smiled at me and said he knew because I always keep my promises. He wears the shirt every time he goes to football practice and always smiles when he has his shirt on.

It's like that MasterCard commercial they had a few years back. Tickets to Amsterdam 250,00 euros (mostly because I got the date wrong and had to rebuy a ticket), T-shirt of the best player in Holland 15,00 euros. Seeing Coco so happy because I didn't break my promise, priceless.

I remember reading a quote once that said (I'm paraphrasing here) that by giving it is you who receives something in the end. I have never found this to not be entirely true.

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