In which I somehow artfully segue from a rant about American Apparel into a tender farewell

Is anybody else following these Gawker-led assaults on American Apparel?  To be honest, I’m kinda conflicted about the whole thing.  I shop there on a regular basis, as do most of my friends. I even recently encouraged a reluctant B to shop there for the first time when he needed some new t-shirts. None of us would be considered particularly “on-brand” from the perspective of AA corporate style. Most of us take serious issue with how material consumption structures life in contemporary society. Not to generalize for the people I’m close to, but I think the logic that we all share is that AA produces logo-free, decent-quality, sweatshop-free basics. I guess the last part is the most important to me on some level, as I’ve certainly encountered the occasional lapse in quality in AA products and find their aesthetic to be increasingly visible in its branding, if not to my parent’s generation certainly to people in my own peer group. But I’ve felt somewhat better about buying from AA based on their well-publicized mode of semi-ethical production. I’ve at least felt like it isn’t the worst place to buy an article of clothing if you have some sense of remorse about your object world being brought to you on the backs of the poor.

While I’ve certainly heard accounts of the snobbishness that goes on toward customers at AA stores, I’ve never felt particularly ill-treated while shopping there. That said, I tend to like being ignored when I’m buying things, so if you wanted legitimate help from a sales clerk I probably would steer you elsewhere. Some of the clothes have felt frustratingly ill-sized and I’ll admit it’s maddening to be a size 4 and feel like everything is too small. My local AA’s in Southern California seemed relatively diverse in their staffing, so I was surprised to read in these tell-all forums about the seemingly rampant discrimination that takes place behind the scenes. I have found AA employees to be uniformly good-looking and hyper-conformist to the brand aesthetic, which seems to support the accounts of a horrifying staffing process that involves constant photographing of both potential and current employees. I was under the impression that this sort of thing was illegal. However, I just watched a woman on a reality show on national television ask a potential assistant during a job interview if he slept around a lot, so apparently I’m just out of touch with how worker’s rights have devolved in the past decade or so. I guess I’m rather curious if AA is really an exceptional case, or if the lookism that they perpetuate part of most clothing stores’s modus operandi at this point in time.  That is to say, I don’t see any unattractive, off-brand employees at most high-end retailers. Is the issue here that AA brands itself as an ethical company in its advertising while resorting to retrograde hiring practices behind the scenes? I see scores of angry commenters on Gawker calling for the end of American Apparel – is it better to shop somewhere with better retail hiring practices and more ethically problematic ones at the level of production? I’m genuinely asking this question, in part because I don’t see any other retailers at the level of mass production and  distribution that sell domestically-produced, sweatshop-free clothing, manufactured by factory workers who are given access to low-cost meal programs and medical care. Is it an incredibly ugly truth that these standards are a radical departure from the manufacturing protocols of most other major US clothing retailers? Yes. Should the AA retail employees unionize (or at least organize) and disrupt the chain of distribution until they are afforded the basic rights of all taxpaying workers in the US? Absolutely. Are the anonymous Gawker forums the place to do such a thing? I kinda doubt it. If you are seeing chronic sexism, lookism, and other kinds of discrimination in your workplace as high as the corporate level, get legal representation and put your name on your complaint. While the US system isn’t designed to help, speak for, or even acknowledge the existence of the people who work in those clothing factories, it has become incredibly adept at addressing the issues of middle-class and upper-middle class workers suffering from discrimination in the past few decades, especially in a context this photogenic and media-friendly. I’m a little burnt out on news stories about the banker who was fired because she was too pretty (and also posting sexy photographs of herself on the internet).  Or the online plaints of the AA employee who was fired because her nail polish was chipped. I’ll bet you that’s nothing compared to the labor practices at your friendly neighborhood Chinese megafactory that produces the 3 dollar t-shirts that fill your local Wal-Mart (or, for that matter, the labor practices at your friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart).

What sayeth ye, dearest reader? I’m totally ready to face the accusation that I’m merely providing a palliative rationale for my own consumption to appease the gnawing worry that buying anything makes me part of the problem. I’ll say it upfront: I’m probably providing a palliative rationale for my own consumption to appease the gnawing worry that by buying anything, I’m already a part of the problem.  I’m also ready to face the music on the fact that while I complain about the reality-television-ification of our culture that extends to the way in which our news is framed and delivered, I’m also one of it’s greediest consumers. Is this an impasse? Am I always-already a hypocrite?

My friends BC and S would probably say yes, if I can put words in their mouths.  BC, S, B and I have been hanging out a lot in the past two weeks, as we’ve been trying to jam in quality time before S’s departure from Paris today (sob). The four of us gotten into a lot of heated debates, eaten some delicious meals at Rouammit and Le Hangar, watched some football and aired some ugly patriotism, prepared and consumed a gumbo feast, drank several bottles of French-branded tequila and whiskey, and reviewed our respective coming-of-age via hip-hop music for hours and hours on end (well, that was the boys, not me). It’s been pretty great and I’ve been in my sweet spot of being the girl who gets to hang out with all the cool guys, something that my inner geeky seventh grader never fails to enjoy. I’m so happy to know these guys and to be even remotely hip enough to roll with them.

As for S:  Man, are we sad to see you go! I know you are returning to your überlovely girlfriend in the second (or third, depending on how you count) best city in the world, but we sure wish you could have stuck around here for a bit longer. I’m so pleased that somehow in the last few months we went from being exceedingly polite strangers to ragging on one another like old friends. Please feel free to think of this blog as a surrogate for Facebook whenever you like.  We here at Keeping the Bear Garden in the Background should be so lucky. Vaya con dios, brah. You will be missed.

Clarence in Paris: Pink Flamingo Pizza

Pink Flamingo Pizza

205, rue Vielle du Temple, Paris 75003

Métro:  Filles du Calvaire or St. Sebastien-Froissart

I’ve been wanting to try Pink Flamingo Pizza since every single person I know sent me this New York Times Frugal Paris article when they found out I was moving to France. The idea was so lovely – order your pizzas, take a pink balloon, and go find a spot along Canal St. Martin and wait for your picnic to be delivered. I’m surprised that it took me so long to actually go to Pink Flamingo. Some of that can be attributed to the long hard winter that made sitting outside anywhere seem less than delightful. But most of it can be attributed to the fact that when I investigated the Pink Flamingo website (yes, I like scouring menus on websites as a hobby), the whole thing seemed, well, kinda gimmicky.

Perhaps the problem is that I lived in New York City for just a bit too long to have much patience for creative ingredient combinations on pizza. At an old-school New York pizzaria, there are only a handful of toppings available and you can bet your ass that none of them are pineapple. Or perhaps it was my time in Southern California, home of the stupidest pizza in the world, that got my guard up. Either way, Pink Flamingo boasts unique, vaguely filmic pizzas in a kitschy environment and I’ll admit I got nervous when I saw formulations like La Che (Cuban-style pork marinated for 24 hours in garlic, lime, green onions, and coriander with fried plantains), La Gandhi (Sag Paneer, Baba Ganoush, and mozzarella), or La Bjork (smoked salmon, fish roe, and crème fraîche) on the menu. It seemed to be the recipe for a California Pizza Kitchen style disaster.

But I just kept hearing good things about Pink Flamingo, and when I by chance walked by their smaller Marais branch on rue Vielle du Temple on my way to APC to admire things I cannot afford, I was pretty charmed by their funky décor and the VW bus that sits out front. You see, as a child I was totally obsessed with pink flamingos and wanted nothing more than grow up and be the crazy old lady with a veritable flock of plastic ones in her front yard. To see that much pink flamingo kitsch aggregated in one location, in Paris no less, got me all hot and bothered.

I had suggested to S that we eat there on the hungover day that followed our night of being blind drunk, but we had already been badly burned by brunch by Breakfast in America (already said my piece on this, but you can mentally insert a shudder in all references to this place hereafter) and neither one of us were interested in another stupid contrivance with bad food. B finally agreed to check it out with me on our weekly date night (I know! If I wasn’t so happy I’d gag too!) after we saw a pretty rare print of Pasolini’s Mamma Roma, his totally mesmerizing (if depressing) indictment of Italian culture. It was my first Anna Magnani film and oh man, is it worth the trip to Accattone if you happen to be in Paris in the next few weeks. I guess Criterion has also already gotten their sweaty little paws on the thing (I jest, I totally love those guys), so you can probably Netflix it too if you don’t live in Paris or if you can’t stand the atmospheric charm of Accattone.

It was rather late and rainy by the time we finished the film, so sitting along the Canal while we ate didn’t really seem like an option. We headed to the Marais branch of Pink Flamingo and immediately found ourselves transported into a Jim Jarmusch film – Tom Waits on the stereo, checkerboard tablecloths, dim lighting, pictures of Brooklyn on the walls, and what B calls “a studied grittiness” (I was going to just steal that outright, but all those lectures I give my students about plagiarism have finally gotten to me). We decided to go for it an order some of the more adventurous combinations on the menu: La Basquiat (gorgonzola, fresh figs, and prosciutto) and L’Almodovar (a “paella pizza” with chicken, shrimp, mussels, chorizo, fresh peas, and a tomato saffron cream sauce). It smelled really good in there, and we were impressed to read that all the flour used on the premises was organic and that all the ingredients were bought fresh daily from small, local producers and retailers. The guys who worked there were surprisingly nice, especially given that they are probably some of the hippest hipsters in the hippest part of the Marais (that’s pretty hip, people). And the pizza:

Oh.my. lord. This stuff is delicious. Thin, perfectly charred crust, sweet tomato sauce, and a carefully considered combination of toppings that were flat-out alchemic in your mouth. Both B and I walked in to this place expecting to get something out of our system, and instead found ourselves waxing poetic about these perfect pizzas. We brought the menu home and now find plotting future visits to this place one of our favorite activities (“Ooh, next time we should do La Macias (tajine-style chicken cooked with onions, ginger, coriander, and cinnamon, served with pickled lemons, and green and purple olives) and La Poulidor (finely-sliced duck meat, apples, and goat cheese)!” or  “Don’t we practically have to order L’Obama (grilled ham and pineapple chutney) at some point if we really want to call ourselves good Americans?”). Best of all, my local branch not only does home deliveries (by cute hipster boy on bicycle no less!), but will also happily bring you your pizza on the grounds of the Musée Picasso if you want to have a picnic. But I suspect we will be trying the Canal delivery service next, as boozing by water features is already in pretty heavy activity rotation. Might as well add some truly fantastic pizza into the mix.

Details: Go with it and you won’t be disappointed! Pizzas range from 10.5 – 16€ apiece, and we did see a happy couple share one. Clarence only shares pizza if he can still eat the quantitative equivalent of an entire pie, so B and I were pretty stuffed with two pizzas. Free bicycle delivery to a local outdoor picnic spot, complete with a souvenir pink balloon so the guy can find you. Home delivery requires that you spend at least 15€ euros and they charge you 2€ fee. As far as I can tell, that’s a lot of hipster sweat for a small price. Open everyday for lunch and from 7-11:30 p.m. They also appear to be in Berlin as well! Their website is definitely worth a gander.

* * *

B came to my place in a state of pure glee a few nights ago and drug me to see this billboard:

This baby, you see, appears to share the same name as one of my favorite readers.  A silly association, perhaps, but we thought of you, Hattie.  Hope this delights you as much as it did us.

We have a winner!

About a million years ago I asked my readers to identify the enormous, bottle-green, soft-flesh, milky, sweet, and vaguely waxy olives that they serve at La Briciola. The lovely Caitlin B. of Denver, Colorado has informed me that they are the much-coveted Sicilian Castelvetrano olives. I’m totally amped about this for two reasons:  1) it’s just good to know such things and 2) B and I are going to Sicily at the end of the month and I’m planning to fill my suitcase to the brim with these little beauties. I promised the contest winner a sweet Keeping the Bear Garden in the Background prize. I searched in vain for a video clip of that scene from Jarmusch’s Stranger than Paradise where Aunt Dottie announces “I am zee vinner!” for you Caitlin, but you’ll have to settle for a small Parisian treat instead. Send me your address pronto to claim your reward!

Clarence in Paris: Ice Cream

I’m sure that in my next life I’ll have air conditioning, but in the meantime I spend most of my summer days in a state of sticky, cranky delirium. There’s nothing better at the end of all that sweaty annoyance than taking an stroll in the cool evening air to get ice cream. B and I began our nightly ice cream ritual by creating semi-elaborate rationales for the extravagance:

“I feel like this is the first really hot day of summer, and we did all that walking, so we should get ice cream as a reward.”

“Well, we did eat pasta and watch a Fellini movie, so we really should get gelato to make our Italian date night complete.”

“That salad we had for dinner didn’t have nearly enough saturated fat to account of all of the boozing in the park we did this afternoon.”

Gradually we both realized that we basically just like getting ice cream more or less every night. So now we skip to the chase, throw on our espadrilles (purchased at the awesome Cordonnerie & Clefs across the street from my apartment), and head out right after dinner for a leisurely stroll and a frozen treat.

Now like any healthy tourism-based economy, Paris is full of scams. “Oh my gosh! Is this your 24-karat gold ring that I just happened to find on the ground right next to your white American sneakers?” One of the biggest rackets in town (and I do realize these are fighting words) is Berthillon, the l’île Saint-Louis-produced ice cream company whose vendors claim a monopoly on the island tourist market and many of the ice cream selections available at bistros all over the city. I’ll admit that they produce some pretty cool flavors, like blood orange, apricot, fig, grapefruit rose, rhubarb, spice bread, Earl Grey tea, ginger caramel, and cassis. But Berthillon is overpriced, stingy with their scoops, and totally underwhelming in texture. I’ve had a few Berthillon scoops that actually had ice crystals accumulating in the ice cream, a surefire sign of stale ice cream that has been too many times partially melted and refrozen.  Furthermore, at a whopping 4 euros for the tiniest cup imaginable (one which they don’t even usually fill to capacity!), I can’t see why I would ever bother to cross the bridge and waste my time and money. Now I know that a lot of people will wholeheartedly disagree with me on this one, my lovely friend M included. But as far as I’m concerned Berthillion is a scam the likes of which should be reserved for only those dumb enough to fall for gold ring shenanigans. I’ve also got a bridge I’d like to sell them in Brooklyn.

Not a scam, and nearly as ubiquitous as Berthillon, is the French company Amorino, whose beautifully shaped and decorated tubs of gelato are as much a treat to look at as they are to eat. As big chains go, this one keeps the quality standards high, even at locations like my local one in the Marais on rue du Vielle Temple that are positively mobbed by crowds on the weekends. I especially love their amarena flavor, a vanilla custard swirled with ribbons of sour cherries. They also make good Bacio (chocolate hazelnut like the yummy Italian candies with the romantic quotes inside the wrappers), spéculos (chock-full of those amazing gingery cookies that often come with your coffee in Europe), and passionfruit flavors.

However—and I say this with all the emphasis I can possibly muster in this heat— the best place to go for ice cream in Paris is Pozzetto, the exquisite, artisanal gelato shop at 39 rue du roi de Sicile in the Marais. This is the real deal, people. Ever since B and I started going there thoughts of all other ice cream destinations faded away into a sugary oblivion. This is one of those places where serious foodies with a real hunger for pedigreed ingredients can get their fix. The best thing to ever happen to me is their Pistacchio de Roi de Sicile flavor made with the most perfectly green Bronte pistachios from Sicily. It’s so good that it’s hard to justify trying anything else. One of us always gets it, and the other is usually kinda jealous. Also amazing—and perfectly evocative of my time in  Sorrento—is their Limone sorbet, the most piquant cure to a hot afternoon I can think of.  We have also enjoyed their seasonal pear sorbet, their Fior de Latte that conjures up the sweet ice milk that filled cheap ice cream sandwiches in my youth, and their airy Stracciatella filled with delicate chocolate shavings. They keep their selection limited to about 10 flavors at a time, but this means that the fruit flavors are seasonal and all the gelato is super-fresh. I wait with baited breath for the arrival of Gianduia Torinese (Turin-style chocolate hazelnut), Zabaione (Sabayon cream, sweet liquer, chocolate shavings, and biscuit pieces), and Fior di Menta (Moroccan mint tea). Best yet, for a mere 3.50 euro you can get a cup of gelato stuffed and piled to the max, a price point that is agreeable with our (a-hem) growing addiction. The people that work there are incredibly friendly and eager to talk about their amazing products. They also serve 22-second Italian espresso and sell a gorgeous selection of imported chocolates, sweet spreads for toast, and those chalky pastille candies that come in those beautifully retro-looking boxes. As with any good Italian-style gelato place, the prices double if you deign to sit down. So do like B and I do and take your gelato down to the Seine instead. It’s a great way to end a summery day in Paris.

Image borrowed from the awesome Plonk and Replonk, my new favorite purveyor of postcards and other whimsical things.

This is how we do it in America

So I guess it all started yesterday morning, when I awoke to an e-mail from my dear friend J, who sadly left Paris last week to return to Southern California.  The e-mail announced that she and her longtime boyfriend BC (who is still here in Paris for a few more weeks) got engaged last week an hour or so before her plane took off. I couldn’t be more delighted about this news, as I can’t really imagine a more awesome couple than this one. They wanted to keep the news on the down low until they informed everyone in their (large) families, so BC has been pokerfaced all week during numerous hangouts. I decided that a celebration was in order, so I enlisted the help of B and S.  S is staying with me for a few days before he too leaves Paris for the States, so there is a definite end-times vibe in the air. We decided that there was no better celebratory meal for a bunch of expats in the Paris than a huge Tex-Mex feast. B’s visiting friends from Indiana recently brought him a suitcase full of Old El Paso delights, including pickled jalapeños and escabèche, dubious-looking “mild taco” and “cheesy burrito” seasoning packets, and mysteriously shelf-stable flour tortillas. These, coupled with a bottle of Tapatio that S had from birthday care package from the States and a few Haas avocados that surfaced at my local vegetable market last week, formed the basis of our fajita blowout.

It’s a trick to make anything Mexican in France, as this country wholly eschews spicy food. S and I went to three or four different markets yesterday in an attempt to purchase something vaguely resembling a fresh jalapeño or serrano or even poblano chile. We ended up with the equivalent of bell peppers shaped like poblanos, the appeal of which is completely lost on me.   We improvised, and I concocted a pretty killer (if I do say so myself) steak marinade by food processing together some garlic cloves, cilantro, Bermuda onions, lime juice, “mild taco” seasoning, smuggled-in chile powder, and olive oil.  We got most of the heat in our pico de gallo and guacamole from the aforementioned can of pickled jalapeños and escabèche that was hand-carried to us from South Bend, Indiana. France appears to be the place where avocados come to die, but the ones I picked up last week were pretty decently textured, if totally bland. I coaxed a mediocre guacamole to life, using copious amounts of lime juice, cilantro, and a spoonful of Maille mayonnaise. The mayo is trick my mother taught me. In a pinch, it gives your guacamole that fatty taste that good avocados have when, well, you don’t have good avocados. It sounds gross, but it works. S whipped up a gallon or so of pico de gallo, which he kicked into action with the vinegar from the canned jalapeños. Finally, we found some Colby cheese masquerading as “imported Cheddar” at Monoprix.

The result:

As it was a celebration, we kicked off the evening with a shots of tequila and a bottle of champagne, followed by two carafes full of my splendid homemade margaritas (equal parts lime juice, Cointreau, and tequila, with simple syrup to taste). You can see B pouring the first round from what looks like a bottle of Muscadet. At this point in the evening, we were actually reusing glassware! Organic champagne and recycling! How far we had to fall!

In case you didn’t get the memo, smoking kills:

Frying up those huge plates of peppers, onions, and steak was no small feat in my miniature kitchen on my glorified hot plates. By the time I was finished the entire apartment was filled with smoke and the floors were slicked down with grease. Thank goodness smoke detectors are something that only paranoid Americans have. The dinner was a wild success, if somewhat a disappointment as the guys seemed way more amped to about talk about the World Cup (go Côte d’Ivoire!) than the wedding. I wished that J was here to celebrate with us so that she and I could have geeked out on the romantic stuff. Oh well. She was missed.

I don’t know whether to attribute the events that followed to the two six packs of beer we somehow consumed, or the rather toxic (if strangely delicious!) French tequila we were drinking. It might also have been the two dusty Desperados (tequila-flavored beer!) that our British friends had brought to a party a few months back that I inexplicably decided to drink. All I know is that by 10 p.m. or so I was out for the count and had crawled into bed to pass out. I vaguely remember that the boys were going down to the river to finish off another round of margaritas (classy!). I also recall B patting my head saying in a soothing voice that he would take care of cleaning up the mess.

At two a.m. I awoke to the feeling that my brain was caving in on itself. Finding myself alone in the apartment, I surveyed the damage. Every single surface of my apartment seemed to be coated in congealed grease. Somehow the bowl of pico de gallo had been upended and there were chunks of tomato and vinegary juice covering the table and dripping onto the floor. As I stared dismayed at the carnage, S and B stumbled in. That they even made it back to my apartment was a miracle, as neither of them could enunciate or even walk very well. I quickly realized that they were going to be no help and sent them to bed. I was now decidedly in the hangover phase of my evening, so I pushed up my sleeves and got to work cleaning.

Around this time it became clear that B wasn’t kidding when he said the tequila really doesn’t agree with him. He ran into the kitchen needing to barf, but S was in the bathroom attempting to drunkenly extricate his contact lenses from his eyes. I yelled at S to get the hell out of the bathroom and passed B the trashcan, which he eschewed for some reason much to my bewilderment. He somehow made it to the toilet that time, but wasn’t quite as lucky in one of his six or seven subsequent trips, as I discovered when I slipped and nearly fell on a puddle of vomit in my living room. S wandered into the kitchen and carefully washed a single spoon, sighing with the sheer magnitude of his effort as he placed it on the dishrack and declaring that he felt dizzy. Realizing he was worthless in this state, I shooed him out of the kitchen and back to bed. I cleaned for an hour or so, breaking two wine glasses in the process. After I finally managed to mop up all the grease, pico de gallo, barf, and glass shards, I placed Advil and glasses of water near their S and B’s heads, and fell asleep muttering about how somebody better be buying me brunch tomorrow.

The three of us awoke midmorning with terrible hangovers and a lingering concern about what had happened to our friend BC along the way. S and B gradually pieced together the Seine portion of the evening. S said that he knew B was in trouble when eight or nine of his comments began with “Well, you know, where I’m from in Indiana…” followed by a total conversational non sequitur. Apparently the guys had decided it was appropriate to bring glassware down to the banks of river to drink their margaritas, some of which ended up broken and tossed in the Seine for emphasis. Let’s just say it wasn’t a banner night for Americans in Paris.

In light of this, we decided to do as hungover Americans do and get a big, greasy breakfast, paid for by the guy who barfed on the floor. None of us had yet been to the much-hyped Breakfast in America, which leads us to the following installment of Clarence in Paris.

Breakfast in America is a rather gimmicky establishment that was founded by some dude from Connecticut who missed proper American breakfasts when he moved to Paris to become a screenwriter. They’ve expanded the whole concept and the two branches of BIA (puke) are more or less simulacra of a generic American diners, complete with bottomless cups of drip coffee, Elvis on the stereo, and red Naugahyde booths.  In addition to a variety of Denny’s-style breakfast offerings available throughout the day, they also have a wide selection of sandwiches and burgers in the afternoons.

All that said, I resolved early on in this whole blarg experiment that I would only write reviews of restaurants I actually like and could say nice things about. I find myself conflicted as I don’t have too many nice things to say about Breakfast in America. The burgers were overcooked and tasteless, the bacon was limp, the pancakes were cold, and the coffee was sour and totally toxic (I suspect that this is their way of cutting back on the demand for refills). What kind of American diner doesn’t serve ice in their Coke? What kind of American diner doesn’t stock Tabasco? What kind of American diner doesn’t have air conditioning? Look, I’m all about a restaurant built around a stupid shtick (in fact, I’m cultivating a pretty serious fantasy about opening the first build-your-own burrito joint in Paris). There was just so much wrong with this place and I can’t imagine why it is so popular both with Parisians and Americans living abroad. If I ever find myself in this unfortunate condition again in the future, I plan to skip BIA and get a decent burger or omelet at any of the neighboring French restaurants.

Details:  If you find yourself wildly hungover in Paris and think that Breakfast in America might just be the stomach-coating ticket, well, you’re wrong.  Avoid it.