What Dreams May Come

Last weekend I had my neighbours over for breakfast and dinner. They've been flattering me since I sent over a plate of my chocolate chip cookies, made them some authentic fougasse, and asked them to sample my Thai-Mexican fried chicken.

To be complimented on my cooking by anyone is always a great treat for me, but to be complimented by French people makes me shy. I think it's because I am greatly inspired by American cuisine and naturally assume that French people won't appreciate it. I fry a lot. I use lots of flavour combinations not found in French cuisine. When I'm asked I refer to my cooking style as hodgepodge, a word that has no real translation in French but prompts me to attempt a poetic and delicious sounding explanation.

I didn't think anything about it when my neighbour started to ask me questions about what kind of a restaurant I'd want to open in Paris. What I would serve, when, how, and where. Then he told me he wanted to introduce me to his cousin who is looking to invest in a restaurant; how he's been talking about my cooking and thinks I'd be a brilliant choice to be its chef.

To be truthful I wish I'd answered his questions differently, but I didn't know it was a test of sorts. More than once I've leaned towards the idea that I should make my living involved with food - and in Brooklyn I did for four months. I ran a small take out place out of my loft. I had paid my rent for the year, had a little pocket money, and didn't really care about making a profit. I stuffed menus under the doors of my neighbours, many of whom had suggested I start a take out place after dinners at my place, and had so many orders the first week I had to put a badly hand painted "first come, first served" sign on my front door.

For one month my little takeout place (called Chez Ama) served something different every night until my customers started writing their requests on the menus. They wanted more fried chicken, chicken & sausage gumbo, lamb curry, and what they called my "fancy Chinese food" (which was just authentic Chinese food).

So before I meet with the cousin I need to get my thoughts in order.

If I could open my restaurant anywhere in Paris, anywhere at all, I'd want to have a lunch stall at the Marché des Enfants Rouges.

Located in the 3e arrondissement, between rue de Bretagne and rue Charlot, it's quite a happening spot. There's a few types of cuisine to choose from - couscous, Italian, Japanese, African - and lots of outdoor seating that means it's packed on nice days. The market closes before dinner, so lunch would be the only meal to serve, and because it's always packed the clientelle are more accepting of delays and hiccups.

It has its downsides as a location. The competition is delicious. My favourite Japanese restaurant would be one of them. I couldn't see the other restaurants being happy about a fusion cuisine restaurant when they're marketing themselves as authentic straightforward examples of the cuisines they offer. Plus the places in the market are expensive. The Japanese place offers a sort of bento lunch around 12,00 euros. It's not a lot of food for the money, but delicious and fresh and I don't mind shelling out for it now and then.

I could think of other locations where the lunch traffic would probably keep a restaurant in business even if the dinner crowd was much quieter, but dinner is more fun to cook.

And what would I cook? I think that depends on what I can find. I'd want to source locally. I wouldn't cook in season because the variety is limiting, but as locally as possible when possible. I'd offer two or three choices for entrees, plats, and desserts - with a few favourites always on the menu.

But the cooking would be home style. Nothing fancy or poofy or posh or chic just to jack the prices up. Just delicious food at reasonable prices using the full repetoire of my cooking abilities.

I'd serve American, French, Korean, Thai, Mexican, Indian, Lebanese, Filipino, Chinese, Moroccan, Italian, Japanese mixing up taste, ingredients, and cooking techniques. Food I'd serve at home to friends and with the same kind of feeling. Lots of mismatched dishes rescued from flea markets and sidewalk sales and thrift shops in a cosy room with large tables and comfortable chairs. I'd come out of the kitchen now and then, and wouldn't have to make excuses when the cooking drags me away like I do at home.

So if my blog strays from book talk to cook talk, it's because I'll be giving a lot of thought to the recipes I'd want to use. Maybe my dream will become reality. Maybe not. That's the beauty of food really. Even if taste testing everything means my bathroom scale might be groaning a bit more in the future.

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T-Minus 3 days until Amsterdam

I admit I love Amsterdam and Dutch people in general. I don't entirely get the sense of humor, but that's okay. Dutch people are fairly aware that most non-Dutch people don't get their humor and they're okay with that too.

That is what I love about Amsterdam. I feel free there. To dress as I want, eat what I want, and to generally do whatever I want while being respectful of the people who live in Amsterdam.
I've been going to Amsterdam since 2005 when a then friend who was living there asked me if I wanted to come hang out and detox with her after a particularly gruesome series of fashion weeks. I'd just got back to Paris and it began all over again. I was about to lose my mind.

I took the train with her and we hopped into a cab. I didn't know it at the time but this is a complete niet-niet in Amsterdam. We should have taken the tram or hoofed it.  I knew it was a mistake when I watched a buxom girl on a 10 speed strap her suitcase on and ride away. Lesson learned.

So this then friend was living in the Weteringstraats near the French consulate and for one week I just lazed about Amsterdam doing whatever I felt like and of course popping into coffeeshops here and there. I went to galleries, drank absinthe, pretended not to be peeking at the wares on display behind backlit panes of glass in the Red Light district lest someone think I was more than window shopping, and tried to pronounce words properly. When I realised I could also buy amazing vintage clothing from a street vendor for less than a Meal Deal at McDonald's I knew I would have to come back again and again...well played Holland.

That was the beginning of my love affair with Holland. In the six years since that visit I have spent all but two vacations either in part or in full in Holland. I've been considering for two years to move there for a few years, but when the little house became a possibility, I sort of shelved my longing.

I'm going to be in Amsterdam for two weeks and I can't wait. I've got a new laptop to write on and I feel like the Muse will be kind. The last time I was in Amsterdam for longer than a week was when I stayed for four months and wrote an entire non-fiction book that may or may not be published one day. So maybe this time I can write a chunk of a fiction novel that will be published one day sooner than later?

All because I found an ad on Craigslist where someone wanted to rent out their place for cheap to watch their cats.

If you're in Amsterdam, come find me. I will be the extremely happy girl in some Comme des Garcons clothing or a Justice League t-shirt trying to make my dreams come true. See if you can spot me!

(Just wait until Friday because I won't be there until then.)

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Garden Shed Writers (which will soon include me)

When I first saw the Maisonette on Craigslist the pictures made it look small and more like a garden shed than a possible home, but me being the kooky lady I am this appealed to me. Roald Dahl wrote in a shed and is my favorite of all children's writers, but he was not alone. Virginia Wolf, Dylan Thomas, George Bernard Shaw, and Philip Pullman wrote in garden sheds. Though no one comes close to having as many sheds for creative purposes as director Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick left behind thousands of boxes in numerous garden sheds built all over his estate.

Now technically the Maisonette is a shed. It's not the bare bones, one room variety but it is still a shed. It is nestled at the entrance of a larger property (and there is another shed on the property where someone else will be living besides the family we'll be renting from) with a beautiful garden and I truly mean beautiful. The  family we'll be renting from own a florist shop and their home garden is beautifully planted and organised.

When we visited the garden was full of flowers in every color of the rainbow, trees, and emerald green grass. Inside their house is a makeshift hospital for plants to reflower and regain their strength and beauty. At the time we visited there were three or four phalaenopsis orchids in the recovery ward. It was our new landlord who called his home a hospital, but as he spoke I realised it was actually a refuge. Few people can see the beauty of a plant when the flowers have faded and fewer people have the patience to wait for beauty to be reborn. I myself didn't see it until that moment.

And the little house will be a refuge for writers. A place to work when we want to escape the hectic life of Paris.

I've come to the conclusion that the only way to write with success is to treat it like a job, at least for me. Whether this means sitting in front of the computer or the typewriter (we have two, one with an English keyboard and one with a French keyboard that both work perfectly) or going out into the world for inspiration it will be work. I've read quotes from interviews of famous writers (and my pseudo-sibling Donald agrees) that writers are always writing even if it doesn't translate to accumulated pages of genius. Every experience adds to my writing, every observation, and every person I speak with (or don't) is writing in my head until I find a place for those things in a story.

Yesterday we had a torrential downpour and then in the afternoon a much needed break. I went out to my terrace to see what had become of my plants. All were water logged and needed a little attention. On a balcony across the street were three little children, who always wave to me and blow me kisses. On a whim I took a plastic jar of soap bubbles and began to blow a steady stream of bubbles hoping the wind would carry them over to the children.

I filled the entire street below us with bubbles and people raised their heads wondering where these little balls of magic where coming from. For a moment the children disappeared into their house and I saw when they returned that each of the children had their own little plastic jar of bubbles in their hands. They quickly learned that blowing soap bubbles can be a tricky task, but I encouraged them and applauded them as they succeeded and watched how closely they watched what I was doing in the hopes of achieving the same results. I observed their smiles, their joy, their frustration, how their family encouraged them. When I decided to leave them to continue on their own that for them some of the fun was lost and so the bubble-making stopped altogether.

Roald Dahl went to his shed every morning bringing with him the stories he'd made up to entertain his children the night before. I will go to the forest and my little house with all the stories I've ever made up, all the things I've seen and done, and all the hopes and dreams I have for my life.

Writing is the dream I have for my life. I am happy to know I'll be following a grand artistic tradition, but since the garden shed is pretty far away, it might take some fine tuning to make it so we have time to go out there, but we did sort of take the place on the premise we'd force ourselves.  Thankfully the whole little house is cheaper than a Paris studio apartment!

Here are a few pictures from Roald Dahl's shed courtesy of Roald Dahl's website.

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