Sunday, August 26, 2012
It's coming! It's coming!
What do you mean, what's coming?!? La rentrée, of course, the glorious return from vacation! I can hear its humming approaching from far away, little by little, gaining in force and nerve: right now, when I was finally beginning to resign myself with living a life of humble austerity and wise meditation on the moral benefits of solitude!!!
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
New job opening at the Store: Scapegoat needed
"A female voice emerged from the loudspeaker, as airy and full of promise as a bridal veil:
'Monsieur Malaussène is requested at the Customer Complaints Office.'
It was a misty voice, as if a David Hamilton photo just opened its mouth. But, all the same, there was still a detectable smirk lurking behind Miss Hamilton's haze. And the smirk wasn't a nice one at all. Anyway, I had to go. I reckoned I might make it there by this time next week." ('The Scapegoat' by Daniel Pennac
)Thursday, August 16, 2012
Sun is shining in Versailles - just don't get too used to it!
I think
that the one-week Versailles summer is over, says Versailles weather channel: there
will be a little burst of sun this weekend and then au revoir! hasta la vista!!
adios!!! bye bye!!!! The eternal clouds will threaten again the decent minds of decent
people, you know, like the ones used (and raised) with 4 distinct seasons per year.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
The French + Chocolate = LOVE!!!
Ah, le chocolat!!!... The long, lasting, passionate, immortal love story, shared by every single French person I've ever met... I mean I do actually know a French who hates cheese (although he might be the only one left, the shame of the nation!) but I've never ever seen anyone who openly declares that they don't love the dark concoction (and I don't have any hope to meet one, as I am told when researching for this post)
"The darker it is (=the higher the cocoa percentage it contains), the better!", this is how one of my ex-colleagues concluded the thoroughly explained chocolate theory (remember, any French can give a 3 hour speech on anything related to food. You've been warned!). So I officially became an oddity when declaring that I don't like chocolate: it happens that I have a bad childhood memory with something so bitter (like the communist era I was living in) that cut me forever the apetite to discover anything that looks like it. For me, quite the opposite works: the more it's mixed with milk and filled with anything other than cocoa, the happier I am! Ooops, I've just committed a cultural faux pas!
But, rest assured, the French nation has resolved to show me the light, because everywhere I turn to I will be chocolate-imagery-flooded. There are hundreds of chocolate bar types in supermarkets, in candy shops, in chocolateries (imagine entire stores dedicated to chocolate, with professionals having spent a couple of long years studying it in order to acquire the title of "maître chocolatier", chocolate master) and then I'm not even counting the books or the cooking shows presenting chocolate in every imaginable form and combination. Not to mention the all very popular chocolate fair held every autumn in Paris (and in the biggest cities all over France) "Le salon du Chocolat", where a "World Chocolate Masters" competition takes place and the "International Cocoa Awards" are granted...
"The darker it is (=the higher the cocoa percentage it contains), the better!", this is how one of my ex-colleagues concluded the thoroughly explained chocolate theory (remember, any French can give a 3 hour speech on anything related to food. You've been warned!). So I officially became an oddity when declaring that I don't like chocolate: it happens that I have a bad childhood memory with something so bitter (like the communist era I was living in) that cut me forever the apetite to discover anything that looks like it. For me, quite the opposite works: the more it's mixed with milk and filled with anything other than cocoa, the happier I am! Ooops, I've just committed a cultural faux pas!
But, rest assured, the French nation has resolved to show me the light, because everywhere I turn to I will be chocolate-imagery-flooded. There are hundreds of chocolate bar types in supermarkets, in candy shops, in chocolateries (imagine entire stores dedicated to chocolate, with professionals having spent a couple of long years studying it in order to acquire the title of "maître chocolatier", chocolate master) and then I'm not even counting the books or the cooking shows presenting chocolate in every imaginable form and combination. Not to mention the all very popular chocolate fair held every autumn in Paris (and in the biggest cities all over France) "Le salon du Chocolat", where a "World Chocolate Masters" competition takes place and the "International Cocoa Awards" are granted...
Monday, August 6, 2012
Summertime - August in Versailles
Summertiiime, and the liviiing is eaaasyyy!!! Nope, we're not lost somewhere in South Carolina where the cotton is high and the marvelous Ella is enchanting the spheres with her voice...
Welcome to Versailles, France, where the living is equally easy ever since its inhabitants have all fled the kings city, like they do every August. The reason is not, as one might think, some vesuvian-induced urge or other lurking catastrophe, but something of capital importance for the respectable middle and upper-class French: vacation!
Welcome to Versailles, France, where the living is equally easy ever since its inhabitants have all fled the kings city, like they do every August. The reason is not, as one might think, some vesuvian-induced urge or other lurking catastrophe, but something of capital importance for the respectable middle and upper-class French: vacation!
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