F Train to Paris

In which a Jewish family from Brooklyn moves to Paris, France for two years of work, school, and adventures.

 

I still have time--just barely--to wish you all a Happy Chanukah. Chanukah has coincided with a cold snap in Paris, which has made the light of the menorahs and the warmth of the latkes all the more welcome. We light three menorahs, one for each kid. On the first night, J. (aka Hankobus, see below) said “I don’t really feel like I need to light my own menorah anymore.” Okay, no problem. But night after night, he has lit one. E. is so proud that he’s allowed to hold the shamash candle and light the other candles himself. I don’t remember if we let him do it last year. By the fourth night he had learned the brachot (blessings) by heart.

 

Last Wednesday, which was the first bitter cold day, I did a "hike" with a group from an English speaking organization called WICE, which started at the Parc de La Villette and headed south through Paris. The others ultimately got as far as the Seine, or at least they were planning to, but I had to leave early to pick E. up at school. In two and a half hours, we saw a lot but made very little southward progress. (Usually this group hikes in the forest of Fontainebleau, about an hour south of Paris, so I can't get back in time for school pickup. When they hike closer to the city I try to join in.) It was fun to walk around those neighborhoods up in the 19th arrondissement that you never go to--we discovered a charming neighborhood called the "Quartier Americain," because it was built over a gypsum mine that exported to the U.S. It's full of little tree-lined streets of adorable houses.

 

The kids' school vacation starts on Friday, and I've tried to cram lots of interesting activities into the past week or so to take advantage of my free time while I still have it. Last week I took another cooking class with a teacher named Francoise Meunier, in the 2nd arrondissement near the Bourse. She has a nice, casual style and is good at demystifying things like making caramel. Today, when I dropped E. at school, a group of moms and one dad were spontaneously deciding to go ice skating at the Eiffel Tower, so I went along. You've probably heard about the rink the city of Paris built there. You have to wait on the same line as everyone who wants to go up to the top, but once you're in, the skating is free, including skate rental. The rink is tiny, the ice is a mess (they don't know from Zambonis here), and a class of first graders arrived just after we did, but we had fun.

 

Tomorrow I will try to go to the Grand Palais to see the Turner, Whistler, Monet exhibit. I bought a card called a Carte Sesame so that I can just go to the special exhibits at the Grand Palais whenever I want, without booking ahead or waiting on line, but I haven't used it yet.

We've had a quiet, pleasant holiday, except for E.'s obsession with presents. I think he really believes he's going to continue getting a present every night, even though I've told him this is the end. We've eaten more latkes than usual this year, partly because J. decided he wanted to learn how to make them, and took over the frying. On Monday, he came home from school and whipped up a batch by himself, from beginning to end. I came home and found the latkes piled up on a platter, ready to be warmed up for dinner. He used liberal amounts of salt, onion, and garlic, and his latkes were amazing. Let me know if you want the recipe!

posted by: pariskleinmans at 22:26 | link | comments (2) |

Hey readers of "ftraintoparis", if there are any, this is "J." but you can call me Hankobus.

When I first read this blog I was astonished, why would L. ( my own mother) want to conceal my identity, as well as those of my younger brothers? At first I thought it was because she was ashamed of us, especially E. who will be referred to as Larry. When I asked she said it was so that if my friends "googled" me they wouldn't find this site. I know, I don't get it either. So I decided that L. is trying to conceal me so that I don't overshadow her, this explains why my dad ( R.) is referred to by his real name, it's because he isn't interesting/witty/smart enough to overshadow a box of sundried tomatoes.

I, on the other hand am easily interesting/wit blah blah... to overshadow a box filled with any sundried fruit, or sundried person for that matter. So in response to L.'s blog entries I will be periodically interjecting with my own entries in which I will make fun of L., with her permission of course, as well as complain about other seemingly unimportant things that are important to me, SO SHUT UP!

In closing:
To those of you who stopped reading after Hankobus ("what kind of name is that"), may you be sundried and boxed.
For those of you who traversed the rocky, unyielding desert that was this blog entry, may God bless you abundantly.
His bondservant, Hankobus.

P.S. For those of you who are wondering R. will be referred to as Science Experiment, or Science if I get lazy.

P.P.S. I added a new link, strongbad email, just check it out. And if you don't think it's funny you are obviously a loser.

posted by: pariskleinmans at 20:17 | link | comments |

Shabbat starts at about 4:45 this week, and even though I have all day to prepare, it always feels frantic at this time of year. By the time I leave here to go pick up E. at school, everything has to be ready, because when I get back, I will have to light candles immediately.

As we are vegetarians, our Shabbat dinners are generally quite unique. We don't eat the traditional Ashkenazi roast chicken or brisket, nor the traditional Shabbat couscous of Paris's north African Jews. Here's tonight's menu, which is a bit more gourmet than usual: fish and mushrooms poached in wine, with a mushroom cream sauce (from a Julia Child recipe that I've made many times in the past year), Gratin Dauphinois (ditto, but I don't make it all that often because it's so rich), and--surprise--cranberry sauce. Yes, I finally bought those cranberries, and when J. saw the bag he got excited, so I decided to make them for tonight.

For tomorrow, I'm cooking rice so I can make a rice salad with a coconut-peanut sauce (to use up some leftover coconut milk that's in the fridge), roasting eggplants to make some sort of babaganoush-like salad, and I'll make a fancy vinaigrette tuna salad (no mayo of course, my family and friends know) with capers, onions, maybe chopped olives. Besides just leaving the oven on, we don't have a good way to warm up food on Shabbat here, so we usually eat salads for lunch. I've been making quiches a lot lately, because they are easy to warm up in the oven, but my children are tired of them and have asked me to cease and desist (for a little while). Perfecting my quiche-making skills has been one of my recent achievements, and my family has been supportive and appreciative, but they have reached their limit.

posted by: pariskleinmans at 12:58 | link | comments |

Some random thoughts:

Paris's candidature for the 2012 Olympics is a huge deal here--it's advertised all over the place, including stickers on every metro turnstile and an enormous banner on the Eiffel Tower itself!. I have a feeling this is not the case in NY, but let me know if I'm wrong. We're going to London for a few days at the end of December, and I'll bet London is also free of Olympics signage. I must say, though, that I just looked at NYC's official olympics candidature website, and it's pretty cool. Love the logo, with the Statue of Liberty's torch and the olympics torch. Is this logo omnipresent in NYC, as the Paris 2012 logo is here? New Yorkers, please inform me. Now I'll have to check out the other cities' websites--who has the time?

I've got to go pick E. up at school (half day on Wednesdays). More random thoughts later.

E. and I had a fun afternoon: We had lunch at our favorite kosher sushi place, Sushi J West which is right around the corner from his school on rue de Longchamps (the location is one reason it's our favorite; it's also the only kosher sushi place we've tried, although there are a couple of others). Then we went to see "The Incredibles"--in French (they call it "Les Indestructibles"). The movie theaters in central Paris usually show American movies in English with French subtitles, but children's movies are shown dubbed into French during the day, and in English in the evening. The weather was cold and gray, we felt like seeing a movie, so we saw it in French. And we are so proud of ourselves: We understood everything! Aren't we cool?

 

posted by: pariskleinmans at 11:04 | link | comments (1) |