Mangia!!

By far, one of the best parts of getting to know another culture is getting to know its food - what people eat both day to day and for celebrations, how they prepare their special dishes and how they share meals together, are all such vital (and wonderful!) elements of a place.


The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind tour of these experiences.

The highlight for me has been sharing all of these meals with Javier, who arrived on Sunday the 16th! For our first meal together, we picked up my favorite boulangerie's specialty bread, "Pain Paillasse" on our way back from the airport, and enjoyed it with French crepes that we made at home. :-) Dabbling in French cuisine was a theme for the rest of the week, with potato-leek soup, wine and cheese tastings and omlettes with salad all on the menu.

We took a break from the French theme on Wednesday, however, to participate in our school's International Food Night. While Philippe, Javier and I picked up some "American" fixin's (brownies, chips, coca cola, etc), Andy was responsible for the star dish - true Southern bbq pork sandwiches. We served these goodies to crowds of students who also sampled treats from Mexico, Morocco, Scotland, Brasil, Germany, and a whole host of other countries.

This past weekend, though, was back to Italy for the best eating there is! Javier's aunt, uncle, and godson live in Milan, and we were lucky enough to spend Easter with them.


Strolling around Milan, visiting the Leaning Tower of Pisa and attending Easter Mass, where Javier's godson was the altar boy were all great moments during our trip.







The main events, however, were definitely the meals. Massive, wood-oven pizzas the first night, followed by dark choclate gelato that was like a truffle that litterally melts in your mouth. Then a Tuscan feast for lunch in Pisa, followed by charcuterie, cheeses and a smorgasboard of five different pastas with meat, pancetta, cream, pesto and spicy tomato sauces all homemade by Javier's aunt that night. And then, Easter, which included a five-course feast prepared by Javier's uncle's Italian mother and a final tasting of risotto and sausages that night. Amazing.

This week, we're re-discovering, with more pleasure than ever, what treat it can be to eat light for a change! Soups and salads are definitely in order to recover from the decadance of Milan!

Rainbow Season

Living in France for me has been a dream on many levels. On other levels it's just part of... living. This week has been mostly normal, everyday stuff - no crazy adventures to post. However, whether in France or anywhere else, it's amazing how many little pleasures can light up a "normal" week. In between going to class, grocery shopping, counting down to Javier's arrival on Sunday, and cooking dinner, little "gifts from the universe" always appear!



This week, gifts included time to go to the cheese place with my friend, Andy, and sample a plate of the owner's favorites; a free lunch as part of the student elections on Wednesday; a clear bill of health from the medical system that had to check all of us out as part of the paperwork formalities that go with our visas and... rainbows!


I thought Chicago weather was crazy, but we've been everywhere from 32 to 72 degrees this week, and several days in a row, we had rain come from practically clear skies. But check out the results!!



Oh, and in an effort to spread good things, two women from my life in Chicago have asked to have their latest works introduced around! If you get the chance to check out Tracy Coenen's book or Rebecca Parrish's short film, please do!

"ESSENTIALS OF CORPORATE FRAUD" by Tracy Coenen

The book guides executives, managers, attorneys, and auditors through the basics of corporate fraud. In order to effectively fight fraud, it is important to understand who commits fraud, why they do it, how they do it, and how it affects the company as a whole.
Essentials of Corporate Fraud is more than a primer on fraud detection and prevention. It is a real-world look at how fraud occurs from an expert who has investigated hundreds of internal frauds, including embezzlement, financial statement fraud, investment fraud, bribery, and corruption. Tracy's broad experience ranging from law enforcement to traditional auditing and finally to forensic accounting and fraud investigations brings a unique perspective to this publication.

Essentials of Corporate Fraud offers readers the opportunity to:
* Understand the root causes of corporate fraud and how to manage it * Identify red flags of corporate fraud * Become familiar with common fraud schemes and their warning signs * Learn basic fraud prevention procedures

www.fraudessentials.com

CROSSIN ALL THE BOUNDARIES
A short documentary by Rebecca Parrish and Brooke Bassin exploring race, class, gender, and power in a small Mississippi Delta town through the lens of the 2008 presidential primaries.
Crossin' All The Boundaries is a journey through Clarksdale, a small town on the Mississippi Delta. Three weeks before the 2008 Mississippi Presidential Primaries, the filmmakers, Rebecca Parrish and Brooke Bassin, travel across boundaries of race and class in this small Southern town to find out how people relate to the candidates and to national politics as a whole.
In this intimate portrait of a political process that can often seem distant and abstract, the filmmakers meet people where they're at: on the street, at work, in their living rooms, at church, and even golfing at the country club. The film ultimately goes beyond the elections to provide a window into the operations of race, class, gender, and power.

http://current.com/items/88865059_crossin_all_the_boundaries.

Pain Paillasse

It's tough work, but somebody has got to do it... With the end of our official language training just three weeks away, I have been spending a good deal of time at one of Clermont-Ferrand's best "boulangeries," taking pictures and learning all about the story of M. Riviere in order to prepare my final project en francais.

I took about a hundred pictures on two separate pre-dawn visits. (A few of them are attached, the rest you can see in my "web albums") Any American who believes what they've heard about the French being lazy simply doesn't realize the enormous amount of work, focus, dedication and love that is actually behind the French products we all appreciate the most- in this case, amazingly fresh and delicious bread and pasteries!

M. Riviere has owned this boulangerie for over thirty years. He and his wife started the business when they were 22-year-old newly-weds, and they're finally in semi-retirement, with new owners taking over.

After that much time, it's hard to just walk away, however. M. Riviere seems to have been born for this work. During their early years in the business, he and his wife worked alone, baking breads with the finest flours and the expert's touch, all night long, and then charming customers with a showman's talent all day. Their two children spent most of their "familiy time" in the boulangerie.

With the introduction of the new, patented, and exclusive "Paillasse" bread in the 1980's, the little boulangerie became a booming business. The team grew as teenagers would come as apprentices to learn under the master. Because M. Riviere insited on keeping the team very small and efficient, these apprentices became like family, literally growing up in the prestigious boulangerie.

Today, M. Riviere is still there most mornings, overseeing the final moments when the bread from the night's baking fills up the shop, and greeting the regular customers who come even from the suburbs on the weekends.

While I've had a chance to sample a good portion of M. Riviere's creations, a complete exploration is part of the plan while Javier is here! I'm counting down the days - his six week visit begins when the flight lands from China next Sunday!

La vita è bella

A week in Italy with my family promised to be an unforgettable whirlwind of art and history and food and wine and love. Two days after I arrived in Rome, I received news that ensured that I could do nothing but savor every moment of this precious time I was given to experience this beautiful life.

In the picture above, you can see Kimberly Erin Forbes, sitting closest to the camera, on the right. This picture was taken on my 27th birthday when Lauren, Alicia. David and Kim met me at Shin's restaurant in Chicago for a celebratory brunch. Ten days ago, on February 15, less than a month after her 30th birthday, Kim was taken from this world - the sudden and unexpected result of a rapid onset of acute leukemia.

I want to share the story of this magical week that I was so fortunate experience in memory of this spirited, generous, ambitious and joyful friend who left us much much too soon.

So, with an abundance of gratitude here is my story of my "voyage en Italie":

There are advantages to living in inconvienent places - the need to travel further gives rise to opportunities to meet beautiful strangers, like the woman who sat next to me on the train from Clermont to Paris. We spent most of our three-and-a-half-hour journey chatting (in French!) about our lives and families, and I believe I now have a friend to explore more of the countryside with this sumer!

After this first leg, several more followed - bus to CDG, plane to Rome, a long customs line (intra EU? I still don't understand what that was about!) and finally a last train and a taxi to the hotel where I dropped my things and found my parents and Barb (Dad's cousin and one of my dearest friends in Chicago) at a wonderful little restaurant around the corner. Check out the delicious food (the first meal in a series of gluttonous goodness!). Throughout the trip, we concluded almost every evening with a three hour dinner that included many of life's most essential pleasures - satisfying, flavorful food, good wine and engaging conversation.

Our three days in Rome were just enough to begin to give us a sense of the enormous history that rests in this place. From the ruins where the ancient romans first dabbled in democracy to the catacombs where Christianity as a religion was born - we saw the first documented image of the madonna and child - to the opulence that developed as the Catholic Church gained power, Rome is a truly awe-inspiring place.

Florence was our next city, and, true to my memories from eight years ago, I believe it is one of the most beautiful places on earth. With its own history of intrigue and power, what remains today is the art of Botticelli, Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael, da Vinci - all the greats; the poetry of Dante (which, according to "Eat, Pray, Love" was the template for establishing Italian as it's spoken today); fine leathers, furs, and scarves, the peaceful, green hills of Tuscany, with its villas and vineyards and olive groves, and the palpable gratitude of the Florentine people for having all of this as their precious inheritance.

With our guide, Elisabetta, we explored the city and its museums - Botticelli's "Primavera" and Michaleangelo's "David" are particularly memorable. Dad and I took a side trip to a Chateau that produces fine Chiantis while Mom and Barb strolled through Sienna. Barb walked away with the souvenir of the trip - a gorgeous leather coat!

Our final stop was Venice - one of the most unique and sadly beautiful cities I've ever visited. The maze of canals and bridges, cloaked in mist and fog, lit by shops selling brightly colored glass and eerie masks, is a kind of strange wonderland. We walked the secret passages of the Dodge's palace - including the path that Casonova used to escape prison. We marveled at St. Mark's and took in more beautiful art at the Accademia before bidding eachother farewell at the airport.

In all, it truly was a magical trip. I am so grateful to my parents and Barb for sharing it with me!

Well Installed

If you're also keeping up with me on Facebook, you've already seen some pictures on this theme. In French, "bien installe" is the term that's essentially equivalent to "getting settled." And that's how I'm finally feeling, 5 weeks after landing here.

Now that I have regular electricity in my apartment (yeah, a little short in my electric hotplate left me without for the first weekend...), and I know when and where to go to get groceries, I'm getting into a bit of a rountine to manage the homework and I have a pretty concrete idea of how long it takes to get places - oh, and I have INTERNET at home again, (oh the little things you take for granted), the structures within which life happens are up and solid. Which, fortunately, is allowing some more time to actually live life a bit more.

I've been enriching life first through an attempted ski weekend that was unfortunately much more about ice and concussions than powder and snow-bunny-ness. Last weekend held smoother adventures - an early morning watching my local boulanger bake bread in preparation for a project I'm working on for school, followed by a day of exploring in Lyon. This week has been completely taken over by Clermont-Ferrand's claim to fame in the arts world: The festival of short films, which is the second largest film festival after Cannes. I went to six different sequences and saw everything from a semi-horror flic about a a guy who goes crazy after losing his hand in a meat-packing accident to a beautifully joyful short about a man who was "clinically happy" - even without owning a second home on the beach or an expensive convertible. :-)

In between, I'm trying my best to keep up on emails, the primaries in the states, and preparations for the big trips that are coming up - including Italy with my parents next week!

Scenes around Clermont

Three weeks in and I'm finally getting settled.

I've been feeling as though I arrived here under a thick veil, and little by little, the layers are being lifted away. The first "layer" was probably the easiest to erase - my exhausting cold of week one disappeared the following weekend, thanks to lots of sleep and soup!

During that first week, I was also trying to get my bearings in the town. The winding streets around the Cathedral felt like an innavigable maze, but little by little, the paths from here to there are coming into focus, in an almost obvious way.

The language is similar, although it's slower. In general, when I'm listening to others speaking French, I can understand it about as clearly as I could if I were listening to English through water - I get the gist, it makes sense, but it's never sharp and totally in focus.

This week, I got a candid glimpse of myself through French eyes, and it was an amusing and interesting picture! First, Pauline, my neighbor who is a 3rd year medical student, invited me to dinner - which in and of itself was a great accomplishment - more than any French person had done when I lived in Paris! She let me know that my accent was strongly American, but that I don't make too many mistakes when I talk and I'm quite easy to understand (hooray!). Gaetan, who it the owner of "Moversia," a small company that arranges housing and everything that goes with it for foreigners like me, told me that when I speak French, my voice changes and I sound like I'm trying to imitate a princess. We both had a good laugh about that - I'm not sure how to change that tone, so I'll just hope that everyone else finds it amusing too!

One of the things I've been most grateful for is the hospitality of everyone at the school. The top pictures are from a day last week when one of our professors, Isabelle Jourdier, invited us to her house for a January tradition - the "Gallete de Roi" or "King Cake" which celebrates 3 Kings Day with an almond-paste treat, wrapped in flaky, buttery goodness. Emily is wearing the crown, which she won when she got the porcelin toy in her piece of cake.

3 Continents in 3 Days

Wow, has this week ever been a whirlwind.

One week ago, I had just finished two days of decorating and celebrating the arrival of 2008, and then lounging in the sunshine of the Finca in Colombia with Javier and his family. We ate salted potatoes, fire-roasted beef, fresh picked fruit I've never seen before, and guanabana-flavored meringue cake to name just a few of the star dishes for New Year's Day. For the rest of my trip we visited a Salt Cathedral, ate dinner at a fine French restaurant at the top of Bogota's nearest mountain, shopped for beautiful leather goods and capped it all off with a whole night of dancing and dining at Andres Carnes De Rey - the kitschiest, craziest, most popular dance hall/steakhouse/entertainment place anywhere near Bogota. It was wonderful!

On January 4,I flew back through Miami to Chicago where I was able to spend the next morning celebrating a belated Christmas with my family, including all of its newest additions - Mia (2), Sophia (2), Christopher (1) and Madeline (1) - and next year we'll have two more as well! It was such a treat to see everyone, even if the visit was quick.

That afternoon, I took off for France, and after a long flight and an even longer layover in Paris, I finally arrived in Clermont-Ferrand were I'll be living for the next eight months. The town is a charming maze of winding streets that spread out around the Cathedral (Philippe and I are standing in front of it in the picture below). We can walk everywhere; the school (Groupe ESC-Clermont, a prestigious French business school) is maybe 15 minutes a pied from my current home, which is a studio that's part of a student-housing complex. Within the next week or so, I'm hoping to find a place that's a step up so that I can really get settled.