Category: social skills

Clarence in Paris: Rouammit and Huong Lan

So, I’ll admit, being contacted by luckygal90 with a cease-and-desist of sorts was a minor thrill. I’d liken it to the first time that I prank called someone and they *69ed me. I doubt that this will actually turn into anything, as I’m sure she has long since forgotten about my six readers and me. She’s probably way too amped about the fact that her video has indeed gone viral, garnering some thirty thousand hits since I originally wrote about it yesterday. I’m pretty jealous. What are you saying internets? That my posts about falafel, John Mayer, and my sex dreams about dead modernists aren’t worth 32,000 hits? Interestingly enough, yesterday was a record-topping day for me in terms of web traffic.  Unfortunately, most of those hits came from people googling “luckygal90,” which is kinda like the universe punching me in the teeth for being too smug.

Anyway, now that I’ve dipped one toe in the sludgebucket that is political blogging I’m going to quickly remove it and begin writing about food again.  I started out trying to express my genuine optimism that we will pull through this partisan nightmare and ended up bullying a 13-year-old girl.  I don’t have the stomach for it.  While I’ll hang on to a conflict like a dog worrying a dead animal, I’m not really one for actual confrontation.  I’m much more into complacently talking about people behind their backs.

Also, there’s this:

That’s right people.  It’s spring in Paris.  While other cities may indeed try to make a case for their singular awesomeness during other seasons (I remember New York in the fall to be quite lovely, and Denver winters are dreamy bar none), Paris in the springtime is pretty unfuckwithable.  I hear people have even written songs about it.  Suddenly everyone in this city is beautiful and smiling and sitting in a sunny park.  Lovers are canoodling by the Seine, children are playing, women are wearing beautiful beige trenchcoats and flowery scarves, and there are tulips and green plums in the market.  I’m not going to keep antagonizing a child living somewhere in rural America because, well, there’s such nicer things to do right now.  Shoulda come at me in January, kiddo.

* * *

Rouammit and Huong Lan

103 avenue d’Ivry, 75013 Paris

Métro:  Tolbiac

So I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while:

Yes, that’s duck.  Perfect, tender, lacquered duck in a spicy broth with braised bok choy, red chiles, and crispy deep-fried mint leaves.  I’ve been fantasizing about it since I didn’t order it two weeks ago when the genetically over-endowed S & H introduced us to Rouammit and Huong Lan—a yummy pair of Laotian restaurants in the 13th.  My buddy from California, BC (sorry, dude, B is taken), was staying with me for a few days and we puzzled over the idea of Laotian food for quite a while.  After a Wikipedia search, we settled on the idea that it was probably like Thai.  And it is, if you associate Thai with flavors like chile, peanuts, lemongrass, fish sauce, coconut milk, and green garlic.  But where many of the Thai restaurants in Paris tend to be kinda swish, the Laotian food here is hearty, cheap, and unfussy.  Rouammit and Huong Lan are just that perfect combination.

On my first visit, I ordered the first thing on the menu – Khao Pun Nam Pa, a soup of rice noodles in a fish and coconut milk broth.  It’s served with a plate of vegetables that you dunk in the spicy, salty, creamy soup, and their crunchiness nicely offsets the tender succulent fish chunks.  It’s really good, and would be amazing if you were sick.  But unfortunately I was sitting across from S, the veteran who wisely ordered the Pet Yang Lad Prik (pictured above).  I spent most of the meal being overcome with envy.  I hate it when I don’t order the best thing. You see, if I was forced to list the top ten things that I love about France, this country’s rabid consumption of duck and rabbit might find its way to the top of the list.  Duck, which you rarely see outside of lousy Chinese restaurants and high-end menus in the United States, is ubiquitous here, and usually much better.  The duck at Rouammit and Huong Lan is exceptionally delicious and works perfectly in tandem with their spicy sauces. BC sampled their duck with coconut red curry, called Kheng Phed Pet and it was really lovely.  But it was S’s lacquered duck with bok choy that I really burned for.

[Autobiographical aside: I was once told by an ex-boyfriend (after much introspection) that the animal I most resembled in character was a duck. I was totally crushed, as I was hoping for a bit more glamorous spirit animal. In retrospect, this game was pretty skewed towards his own egotistical gratification. When I asked what his spirit animal was, he responded that he was “a wolf or maybe a shark.” The “lone wolf” reference certainly wasn’t lost on me, but I wasn’t sure about how the shark might fit in to the veiled conversation we were obviously having about his fear of commitment. Then I remembered that if sharks if stop swimming for even an instant, they die. Man, can I pick ‘em or what? Anyway, apparently I’m fond of eating my spirit animal. I don’t really remember that part of Totem and Taboo.]

So last night, under the auspices of “blog research,” I drug poor M back to Rouammit and Huong Lan.  I pretended to let her look at the menu, but she never had a chance.  I was bound and determined to have that duck and to also sample the rave-worthy Phad Thai.  I think she knew that she was merely a cog in the vast machine of my scheme.  She’s an excellent sport (and perhaps this blog’s biggest fan), so she let me have what I wanted.  It was delicious.  Perhaps best of all, the bill was yet again incredibly reasonable.  Virtually none of the plates are more than 10 euro, making some experimentation practically a necessity.  I saw a heavenly-looking salad pass our table, which I think suspect is the Lap Neua, a spicy concoction of cold veggies, tripe, and beef.  I also lusted after passing plates of  Khao Nom Kroc, artfully arranged shrimp dumplings, and chili-oil spiked mango slices (didn’t write down the name of those).  Let’s just say I’ll be going back.

Details: It’s cheap, delicious, and the staff is unflaggingly friendly.  It’s also crazy-popular.  Get there any later than 7 p.m. for dinner and expect a serious wait time in the street.  Probably not best for bigger parties, though we managed to get a table for six by arriving early. Open 12-3 p.m. for lunch and 7-11 p.m. for dinner Tuesday through Friday, 12-4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.  Closed Mondays.

In isolation, he would examine himself in the Crowd-mood

I like it very much when the comments on my posts end up being much more detailed and much better wrought than my own writing.  It makes this whole thing seem slightly less malignant in its narcissism.  Lately, I’m totally unworthy of my commenters.  I would really encourage you to read both BJG and B’s comments on my last post, and would especially encourage you to watch the video that BJG links to on Youtube. I’m completely riveted by this child, and totally guilty of helping this little Neocon nightmare go viral.  We have a new poster child for the movement, ladies and gentlemen!  I suppose that this pettiness isn’t actually in keeping with B’s wise declaration that we not “continue to label them misfits in order to feel better about our own brand of elitism”  by going “back to a more human and humanizing form of discussion.”  But B, this one is just too damn good!  I especially love the sign at 0:17:  “Thank you Fox-News for keeping us infromed!”  Everyone, let’s help luckygal90 achieve her dreams, which she ever-so-articulately describes thusly:  “Every 1 I Really want Glenn Beck to see this so plz help me 2 get this video viral so he see’s it and i can mabie be on his AWESOME show !”

No mabies about it, kiddo, you’re gonna be huge!  Infrom your friends!

* * *

I wish I had an awesome restaurant to tell you about, but unfortunately I’ve been mostly housebound by a nasty head cold the past few days.  The past forty-eight hours have largely consisted of me lying in bed watching the second season of Twin Peaks and dealing with the torrents of snot.  How exactly I managed to miss Twin Peaks until now bewilders me, but now that I’m watching it I’m a veritable junkie.  I’ll spare you any half-baked analysis of the show as it would be a decade late and a dollar short, suffice it to say that I’m finding Lynch to be good entertainment when viewed through a serious Nyquil haze.

When I’m hopped up on Dayquil, I’ve been reading biographies of D. H. Lawrence and Wyndham Lewis.  Call it dissertation reading lite. I’ve never been a biography reader before this, though I can now see the appeal of the genre.  It is very satisfyingly intrusive to have this much intimate information about someone. Jeffrey Meyers, who wrote the Lawrence biography that I’m reading, seems positively infatuated by Lawrence’s sex life, specifically various ladies’ accounts of his virility and performance in the sack.  After one such exhaustive account of Lawrence’s ability to “come back to a woman time after time,” I felt compelled to draw a heart in the margin containing J.M. + D.H.L. 4EVR! This might be the result of repeated viewings of luckygal90’s groundbreaking video.  Or maybe just all the cold medication.  Don’t get me wrong, David Herbert (at least in Meyer’s account) sounds like just the type of vaguely sociopathic fellow that I myself could lose a lot of sleep over:

“Lawrence was an immensely attractive man, but lacked the traditional English aloofness and reserve.  Spontaneous and volatile, he put a great strain on his personal relationships.  He had an uncanny ability to pierce his friends’ social façade, penetrate the essence of their character and reveal their inner core.  He wanted to transform their lives, often a disturbing and unwelcome process, and the ability to withstand this onslaught was a prerequisite for retaining his friendship.  Lawrence spoke and wrote to his friends with unusual—and even cruel—candor in order to destroy their defenses and revitalize their existence.”

– D. H. Lawrence:  A Biography (1990)

Meyers seems especially adept at describing the particular strain of masochism that us mere mortals endure when confronted with Artistic Genius, that is, the battle cry of girls-who-date-musicians everywhere.  He’s mean to me because he wants to transform me!  He’s not a jerk, he’s an Artist!  If I withstand his bullshit, I’ll be the better for it!

Anyway, I suspect that all biographers—and perhaps dissertation-writers—run the risk of falling in love with their subjects.  I fell asleep mooning over a picture of old Wyndham when he was a dashing young solider and proceeded to have this overblown romance novel of a dream in which Wyndham and I were lovers torn apart by the war.  I awoke overwhelmed by the weight of my own lurid dorkiness.

* * *

I have taken my last dose of my smuggled-in American Nyquil (!), so I’ll let Wyndham have the last word.  I think he certainly had us Coastal Elites in mind when he wrote the following:

“You need the anger of the shopkeeper as much as the opinion, or the imagination, of the commissionaire.  It is because you are fundamentally like, as like as two peas to, your less informed, less polished brother, that you have a need of him.  You need to be seen by him, to keep close to or far from him.  You are always a pea disguising itself from a million other peas.  The other peas all know you are a pea, and love to think of a pea like themselves being a soft, subtle, clever, insolent pea!  But your identity is precarious.  Yes, you must be lavish; otherwise—you will receive that deadly look that one pea gives another when pretence is laid aside.  You must furthermore be careful never to touch, mingle with, or attack anything before first convincing yourself that it be, in fact, a pea.  Do not be so fatuous as to interfere with a melon!  it might not result in harm, but it is no fun!  The whole game is constructed, all its rules made, for bodies roughly speaking, identical in volume and potentialities.”

– Blasting and Bombardiering (1937)

UPDATE:  Luckygal90 apparently does not appreciate my publicizing her Youtube video to my six readers.  Too bad, we were only trying to do our small part in helping her achieve her dreams of going viral.  Nevertheless, I’ve removed the link at her request.

I kiss you because I don’t believe too much in individuals.

Yesterday I wrote, posted, and unposted a vitriol-filled screed about the current Republican response to the health care bill.  (To be fair, in the screed I called it a TEMPER-TANTRUM.  I used a lot of capital letters à la Kanye in my screed. If you are really curious I’m sure you can read it as Google caches everything, making unposting an unflattering entry a decidedly illusory fantasy.)  I was really angry yesterday about a lot of things, not the least of which was my own egotistical desire to not have my American-ness wrested away from me by people who wish to define a “real American” within rather narrow terms.  While I’m sure that many people would regard my way of living and my politics as not-American-enough, living in France has consistently made me feel all-too-American, as though I am tagged indelibly with my nationality.  The idea that there is something like a national character, and it does shape how people approach others, feels more real to me now than it ever has in the past.  I feel like I’ve been coming to inhabit my American-ness more comfortably than I ever have before and it makes me more sensitive to what I perceive as assaults to my sense of national identity and pride.

At the same time, I don’t feel good about what I wrote.  I titled it something awful, like “Stupidity is not a pre-existing condition” and complained a lot about the current culture of mudslinging, hate speech at full volume, and rampant anti-intellectualism.  When I stepped back from my anger, however, I realized that behind these insane protests must be an extreme level of fear.  I suspect that anyone this defensive of a horrible status quo must be accustomed to the status quo only becoming worse when anyone decides to change it.  I really hope that some of these legislative changes, and the ones that come about in their wake, will help make the lives of “everyday Americans” better in terms that they can feel tangibly in their wallets, in their sense of physical well-being, and in their ability to take care of those people that they love.  I write a lot in my academic work about how people become attached to their state of subjection and to the vision of themselves as victims.  Unfortunately, many of the people who are most vocally opposed to health care reform do not just envision themselves as victims of a broken system, they are victims of a broken system.  A powerful minority has instrumentalized their voices, but that minority offers no plan of action, only mindless antagonism.  I hope that this legislation can lessen the everyday victimization that people feel when they get sick and seek out assistance from the collective. That will be a much more effective response than screaming back.

It is interesting to think of the great blaze of heaven that we winnow down to animal shapes and kitchen tools.

My students informed me today that I am supposed to go on strike tomorrow. None of my supervisors have mentioned this, so it came as a bit of a surprise. I knew that they were threatening another transit strike for tomorrow, but those barely faze me at this point. Transit strikes don’t prevent me from getting to work, they merely make it a longer, harder, more frustrating commute. But now I’m worried that I’ll do battle with all the other annoyed commuters tomorrow, only to arrive on an empty campus.

When I asked them why I should be striking, they responded with the ambiguous explanation of “labor problems.” When I probed further, they settled on “employment issues.” I tried to change tactics and turn it into a discussion about the French proclivity for striking.  But my students didn’t really have much of an opinion about striking. It’s like bad weather, one kid explained. It’s going to happen, there’s nothing you can do about it, and there isn’t any point in getting worked up. It half-occurred to me that they might be fucking with me in hopes that I would cancel my classes and tell the other English-speaking lecturers to do the same. At the same time, I think these students actually like me and might be trying to do me a favor. In these situations I can’t help but feel like the dumb American monkey that has been imported to France to provide these students with “a native speaker.” Unless someone tells me otherwise, I’ll schlep to work tomorrow, bring a book to read in case nobody shows up, and shoot the shit in English with the few errant students who do show up. I think that the last thing is basically what they are paying me to do anyway.

My cluelessness about the mechanisms of French bureaucracy was terrifying when I first moved here. Now I’m just pleasantly amused by the perpetual confusion that surrounds me. The French university system is a bona fide mess, but on the whole I’ve found the individuals that inhabit it to be well-meaning and generous to the hapless American. I will admit that I feel as though I’m playacting as a teacher here. When someone enters my classroom and uncertainly asks if I am the professor, I nod and smile, but it is always tinged with uncertainty. Yes, I am the instructor of record, but no, I don’t know if you can technically register for my class, or where room 407E is, or if the university is on strike tomorrow. But we are reading about shark hunting and learning funny idioms today, not because there is a curriculum that demands we do so, but because it was what I managed to come up with. Join us! English is fun for everyone! It reminds me of a passage in Don Delillo’s Underworld where he is describing the selves that we are at work:

“I noticed how people played at being executives while actually holding executive positions. Did I do this myself? You maintain a shifting distance between yourself and your job. There’s a self-conscious space, a sense of formal play that is a sort of arrested panic, and maybe you show it in a forced gesture or a clearing of the throat. Something out of childhood whistles through this space, a sense of games and half-made selves, but it’s not that you are pretending to be someone else. You’re pretending to be exactly who you are. That’s the curious thing.”

* * *

Photo courtesy of the comely M. Starik.

She divined a very tough self-preservative instinct behind the promises, pity, and ten-pound note.

On Friday night I went to a most excellent concert at Café de la Danse, which you should definitely check out if you are a Paris inhabitant. Can I just say how much I appreciate this thing of sitting down at concerts? I’ll confess, despite the fact that I really enjoy live music, I’ve been feeling kind of old and cranky at concerts for the past few years. I get tired of standing around forever waiting for the band to start, only so some guy who is three feet taller than me can suddenly push his way into the tiny pocket of space directly in front of me the minute the band starts playing. He’s usually a nice enough guy, a friendly, corn-fed, rosy-cheeked, baseball-cap guy, and he often turns around and says “oh, can you see?” and I always say “yeah, totally” because I’m terrified of confrontations. When I was sixteen this shit didn’t bother me. I wore high heels and danced until my feet bled and would have happily ignored the tall guy or the smelly guy or the chain of girls that push their way to the front and spill your beer in the process. Because that was all part of the concert-going experience, you know? Now I feel like a cranky old crow when I go to shows. I wear flats and I complain about the cost of drinks at concert venues and I get tired of standing and I end up spending a lot of my time resenting the people around me for various height, hygiene, and personal space infractions. I maxed out last summer when my friends and I attended a huge, two-day, outdoor music festival and it rained nonstop. As I shivered under my six-dollar poncho, drinking a partially spilled ten-dollar beer, the refrain that echoed in my head came not from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Of Montreal, or The Walkmen. The refrain came from my own damn superego, and it went something like:

You’re too damn old for this, oooh.

You’re too damn old for this, oooh.

Who do you think you are, you old loon?

You’re too damn old for this, oooh.

Pretend that this is a Pynchon novel and that you are already familiar with the melody.

At first I thought this sitting down thing was a merely a lovely anomaly when M and I went to see Stars Like Fleas at the Pompidou and everyone just sat and quietly swayed to the music. It seemed so damn civilized and pleasant, completely unlike concert going in the States. But the glorious Bosque Brown / Clare and the Reasons show we attended at Café de la Danse on Friday night confirmed my hopes. As we filed into the theatre, we discovered rows of elevated seating. You could put down your coat and purse! Everyone could see the band! Perhaps as a result of such creature comforts, the people attending the show were in their thirties, and forties, and fifties! Beer and wine were 4 euros! The bathrooms were clean! This is concert going for grownups! France: 1, United States: 0.

And let’s be honest, I’m not going to Fugazi shows anymore. I’m seeing bands that are mainly conducive to swaying and the occasionally foot-tap. Both Bosque Brown and Clare and the Reasons are such bands, in the best possible way. Mara Lee Miller and Clare Muldaur are for my money some of the most talented, idiosyncratic ladies singing today. In the imaginary universe where I am a tastemaker, I would instruct you to immediately fill your iPod immediately with their magic.

The concert was the climax of an evening where I renewed my deep and abiding love of M. I had wavered on whether or not I wanted to go to the show, and she pushed the envelope by texting me from the venue in the early evening and telling me to get my ass over there. We explored the area around rue de Charonne near Bastille before the show. It is essentially hipster paradise with tons of little bars and restaurants and glorious shops full of expensive things you don’t need. She had already cased the joint, so to speak, and found an adorable bar where we could try my newest obsession: Aperol Sodas.

I’ve been a longtime devotee of Campari-based cocktails. It’s such a gorgeous, interesting drink. There is nothing more aesthetically pleasing than a bottle of Campari. The graphic design is perfect. The alcohol itself makes everything look so girly, like a Shirley Temple, but it packs a pretty serious punch, especially in tandem with other hard liquor. I would say that Negronis (equal parts Campari, gin, and sweet vermouth, shaken with ice) are probably my favorite cocktail when I’m not messing around. But Campari also makes for an easy summer drink when paired with grapefruit juice, orange juice, or soda. One of my favorite memories of a summer trip to Vienna is sitting on the banks of Danube at one of those “beach” bars (I love that Europeans drag in a bunch of sand every year to simulate beach-going) with my mother, drinking Campari and orange juice and watching the sun set as our toes squirmed in the cool sand. Campari–along with nautical stripes, red lipstick, and well-made leather sandals–always makes me feel like part of a decaying Italian aristocracy. On Mad Men, Don Draper has a mid-life crisis and runs away to Palm Springs to stay with these itinerant, louche European “artists” in this spectacular mid-century mansion. As they have sex and discuss existentialism by the pool, guess what they are drinking, straight out of the bottle? Campari. Talk about pitch-perfect.

When I discovered last summer that Campari made sodas in adorable, miniature bottles, I nearly died of happiness. I wasn’t quite so jazzed to discover that a four pack of such delight costs ten dollars in Denver. Get with the program, Denver. In Europe, however, Campari soda is cheaper than Coke. I had noticed Aperol next to the Campari, but I thought that Aperol was merely a second-rate Campari knock-off. Uh, no, stupid girl. Actually both liquors are owned by the Campari company. Aperol is a lighter, sweeter herbal elixir with the distinct taste of—wait for it—rhubarb! Rhubarb is probably my favorite thing in the universe. So I’ve been on the hunt for Aperol sodas, which aren’t quite as ubiquitous as Campari sodas. The verdict from Friday night:  amazing. Sweet, effervescent, and the prettiest shade of pinky-orange you can imagine. M and I forecasted many warm evenings to come where we will sit in rue de Charonne cafes and sip Aperol soda and chat about all kinds of fallen-aristocrat topics.

Anyway, if we dwelled in that magical parallel universe where I am a tastemaker, I would tell you to stock up on some Campari or Aperol sodas for the summer. You’ll be the coolest kid on the block (that is, an imaginary block in the imaginary parallel universe where I am a tastemaker). I would also encourage you to start experimenting with Cynar, an artichoke (!) based liquor and the redheaded stepchild of the Campari family. I’ve been desperately wanting to buy a bottle, but I’m apprehensive about what I’ll make with it. I’ve heard that one can make a kind of Cynar-Negroni (substituting Cynar for Campari), but I love the citrusey kick of Campari in a Negroni and am loathe to give it up. So I’m desperately seeking suggestions from the cocktail-savvy reader. I’ll send you a sweet postcard in exchange for viable Cynar cocktail recipes. Or I’ll make you a drink (or three) if you’re a local. I feel like we already have a lot in common if you are experimenting with Cynar and happen to live in Paris.  Are you going to the Rouch/Artaud/Tarahumaras documentaries tomorrow?  Wanna date?

* * *

I haven’t been blogging with nearly the ferocity with which I began. Anyone who knows me can attest to my intensity right of the starting gate followed my lackluster enthusiasm a couple of laps into the race. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Sagittarius, what can I say? I have a list of good excuses, including a head cold, a houseguest, and an amazing documentary film festival that is only two blocks from my house. But excuses (and those individuals who make a habit of making them) suck and the last thing I want to do is abandon this silly little project. I’m so, so grateful that you are still stopping by. There are good things in the works for the month of April. I’m taking Clarence to Berlin and Brussels, so there will be lots of adjective-heavy reviews forthcoming of currywurst stands and steaming bowls of mussels. Stay tuned.

Did I mention how handsome you look today? You’re a knockout. Let’s get a Cynar-based drink. I think we’re totally ready to move to second base.