"Don’t wanna be an American Idiot!"
~Green Day
Well, this has all the makings of a good anti-American rant, so prepare yourselves.
Living in another country, if nothing else, will make one so much more aware of one’s own background. I’ve said before that I never felt particularly American until I showed up in Paris, suitcase in hand (or not, as it were), and suddenly realized that everything I do and say and see and feel is through the framework of an American. And at first I resisted that completely, telling myself I was as European as the rest of them, but I’ve come to realize more and more that it is a flaming lie and I am, truly, American. What that means to me, however, is now significantly different from what it used to be, and probably even more significantly different from what it means to you. (Here’s a hint: politics are not involved, but musical tastes, food preferences, educational background and manners are.)
In the process of me becoming much more aware of myself as an American (and thus, as Lily Moscowitz’s parents would say, more self-actualized), I’ve also become acutely aware of other people as Americans here in Paris. And hardly ever in a good way. Because, despite the fact that I identify more than ever now as an American, I still use it to refer to things pretty much only pejoratively. (Oh, that girl’s ponytail is so American/ Those boys pour wine like such
Americans... etc.) So between suddenly having this framework revealed to me as clearly as Neo in The Matrix, and then also living with a woman "of a certain age," my views on life have changed drastically in the last six months. (In France, the polite way to refer to people over 60 is "of a certain age." I think it’s the cutest thing ever. I made the mistake of referring to someone as old once, and you’d have thought I suggested we euthanize the person based on the reaction I got.)
I mean, think about the cognitive dissonance this has caused me: I spent the last two years solid living with only people my own age– 40 girls on a floor; 9 co-eds in a bus; 8 camp staffers in cabins... none of us above the age of 24. And now all of a sudden I am cohabiting with a woman sixty years older than me? Ridiculous. But I adore Madame. Because there is nothing I could ever say bad about her. I love that woman, and I have so much respect for her and so much admiration and so much appreciation for everything she’s done for me.
(Here’s a tearjerking example: she barely speaks English, and when she met my mom, I interpreted back and forth the whole time, since they couldn’t communicate at all. At the end of our tea, my adopted French mother said, in broken English to my very non-French biological mother, "I will try to be good mother to her while she is in France." I don’t cry about anything, and I nearly started sobbing.)
Monday I was sick and spent all day in my room feeling sorry for myself and reading a stupid book that some previous student had left in my room– at 1130am, there was a knock on my bedroom door, and I answered it to see Madame standing there with a vase of daffodils for me. "These are for you," she said, trying not to act surprised that I was still in pajamas, "because, you know, it is springtime in Paris, you should enjoy it!" So cute! Then tonight we had another cooking workshop here, but this time her friend that usually leads it with her was out of town, so she asked ME to help. ME! This may not sound like a big deal, but I was extremely flattered.
Because the cooking workshop, as previously stated, is not like a big cooking extravaganza– the way it works is that Madame and her friend prepare and cook the meal for the 5 students, explaining the whole time everything that they are doing, and then at the end they give copies of all the recipes to the students and we all eat the meal.
So her asking me to help was huge. Before all the students arrived, she and I went through and set out all the ingredients, made sure all the quantities were right and everything we needed was clean, etc. She got out two aprons for us– big long red-checkered ones that came to my knees– and she soon had me chopping onions, peeling apples, beating egg whites, etc. after everyone else arrived. I had so much fun doing it, and even more fun preparing for it with her– I just love to hang out with her– I’m sure it’s kind of boring for her, listening to my oversimplified stories, and constantly trying to make sure I understand whatever it is she says, but to me it’s fascinating. This time, for example, she threw into conversation as we were tying the aprons around each other, that the painting hanging over the piano in the dining room is of her family in 1910. This painting is of a Victorian-era looking woman with a man in a suit and three kids in knickers sitting at dinner. Her brother, sister, cousin, and parents. She is 20 years younger than her oldest brother, so she wasn’t born yet, but it’s still the coolest thing ever. (There’s another painting in the living room of her alone at the age of 3 or 4, painted by someone her mother hired. I think
the money she comes from is old.)
She told me about the time she went to the US to visit New York– before she went, she decided to practice her speaking English with tapes in her car, which for some reason emphasized to
death one single sentence, and sent her to New York City knowing only how to say "I have lost my fishing license."
She didn’t really know what it meant, and she must have said it to someone there, and so a few weeks after she returned she received in the mail a Santa Claus doll fishing, with a note that said "he has his fishing license."

Now it’s time for the rant. The other students showed up for the cooking workshop tonight, and it was a lot of fun. One of the guys worked for a caterer in the US for awhile, and has great manners anyway, so he was constantly helping carry heavy dishes and opening and pouring the wine (which I appreciated, because when it is just me and Madame, the wine always falls to me, and not only am I completely inexperienced, but I’m also just bad at it. She has a DeGaulle corkscrew [this may be the French name for it, but I don’t know. It’s the kind with the wings that come out... the French call it DeGaulle because he was always raising his arms in victory. The French call a lot of things after DeGaulle, though, like, for example, every major intersection in the city of Paris. Not unlike the fact that every American city of over 10,000 inhabitants has a Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.], but I am still completely ungraceful). And the girls that came were fine... but one of the guys showed up stoned out of his mind.
Who does that? He knew he was coming to the thing, and not only is it terribly rude, but it’s just stupid. I mean, he didn’t even have the decency to try to lessen his bloodshot eyes with Visine or something– and although I am pretty good at picking out when people are stoned (I didn’t live in a frat house for a year and gain nothing), this kid would have been spottable a mile away. At the end of dinner, one of the other girls said to him, out of earshot of Madame and in English, "For awhile there I thought your eyes were just going to start bleeding out of your head or
something..." Oh, yes, it was quite that bad. I don’t know if Madame noticed, because his French is bad anyway, so it’s not like his speaking was seriously impeded, but honestly. That’s not even living up to the stereotypes, that’s, like, worse than the stereotypes. Not to mention that I’ve known a fair amount of potheads in my life, but I have yet to meet one who was that outrightly RUDE. If you’re going to go out in public stoned, then fine, I disagree with your lifestyle, but if you’re going to, like, a Barefoot Manner concert or something then at least you won’t be in the minority. But if you are going to an old woman’s house to have her cook you dinner for free? Honestly, I can think of nothing ruder.
Anyway, other than that (and the girl who was completely freaked because I separated the eggs the French way, using my hands instead of the shells) the dinner was delicious– avocado paté
and then chicken curry and cheese plate and moelleux au chocolat. In the US I am kind of indifferent to Indian food... except naan, which is this RIDICULOUSLY astounding bread that, during finals week at Emory, I have been known to live off of. It’s cooked in a clay oven until it
falls off the walls of the oven into the ashes, and then you know it’s ready, or something, but that is irrelevant because we didn’t eat it tonight, but curries here are nothing like in the US. They are fruity, sweet, not very spicy, and never have weird cheese in them. This one was banananana, apple, golden raisins soaked in some kind of alcohol, and chicken breast cut into lumps, served over white rice with finely grated coconut and mango chutney, which the French call "mawngoo shootnay," instead of, like, "confiture des mangues," which is what it would be
translated into French. Ahhhh, so good. And moelleux au chocolat... is always to die for. This is not the same as gateau au chocolat– chocolate cake. Moelleux is a word that doesn’t translate into English, really– we don’t even have a concept that really matches it, but the best I can tell you is imagine something that melts in your mouth, is airy like a soufflé but moist like cookies fresh from the oven, and made with two huge bars of dark chocolate. Ok, you’re imagining that? Now, whatever you have in your head, double the deliciousness and there you have, almost, a moelleux au chocolat. (Pronounced, in case you are curious, mmm-wall-uh oh show-ko-law.)
Also, Madame was the first person to see the new haircut, and she loves it... all afternoon as we were getting ready for dinner, she would stop me in the middle of doing something and say, "Oh, I just can’t get over it! Your hair is so lovely!"
Probably she thinks this since she was alive the FIRST time moptops came in... maybe I can bring them in again... but the Beatles were never that popular here (in comparison with the rest of Europe or the US), so I don’t know... maybe they just don’t realize that the trend is up.
(True story: the Beatles used to go sightseeing around Paris on foot, unbothered. However, everyone acts like this is such a big deal for them... but they are from only, like, 2 hours away by train. They probably are as fond of Paris as I am of, like, John’s Pass.)
With Love From
Eleanor Rigby