Dear French restaurant,

I'm not quite sure why, but I seek you out, French restaurant, and especially in cities where I do not live. I think, in fact, I may never have actually eaten at the French, or French-ish, restaurants in my own town. But I am drawn inexplicably to the bistro as a category when I am away from home, and particularly when I'm on my own.

When I'm on my own, I want food with a tradition, food that's not afraid of its own commitments, food that is simultaneously a little bit snobby and, paradoxically, also as comforting as soft clothes and comfortable shoes and butter. Lots and lots of butter.

It's a bonus when the staff are kind. This has happened to me two times, but each of those was a memorable time. Once in San Francisco, the waiter, who had either a real or a really, really good faux French accent, asked me if I wanted "still or fizzy" water, and told me that the sauce on my salmon was "delicious," pronounced with extra French syllables. Tonight, the guy was not remotely French, but he was really nice, and he brought me extra bread when I asked for it, because the saffron sauce on my moules safran was so unbelievably, stunningly delicious. And a spoon when I needed it to eat the sauce.

And he did not look askance when I had dessert on top of that, a Normandy apple tart. With some sort of extra special whipped cream and salt caramel sauce, just the right amount of each.

French restaurant, you were everything that I needed and wanted in a restaurant tonight, and more.

And that sauce was so, so good, it made me grateful. For sauce.

htms

In a French airport: a consideration.

Yesterday I got on the airplane. But first I stood in a really, really, really long line. And then I bought a heavy magazine, by which I mean a magazine full of pages. But before I bought the magazine, I packed a lot of things, like striped shirts and jeans, and two heavy books, by which I mean books full of pages. And I also charged batteries for things like my camera and my laptop. So, while I was standing in a really really really long line before I bought my magazine and before I got on the airplane, I was full of things: contemplations about whether I had packed the right things, and whether there would be internet on the airplane (no), and all the things I hadn't finished and whether I should worry about them, and the thought that I would be on an airplane facing an unknown dinner and many many many hours in a window seat.

All this precedes my arrival this morning at the French hour of onze heures in Charles DeGaulle Airport. Whereupon I had to figure out precisely where my connecting flight was, but then had several hours to cool my heels. But first I had to stand in a really, really, really long line with my laptop and two heavy books and not my heavy magazine which I left on the first flight, but even so, all that stuff had attained a specific gravity that was somehow heavier than when I left Salt Lake City. Maybe because of the hours on the long flight in a window seat.

Well, when the heel-cooling started, I was able to obtain for you the following observations:

• airport food is expensive, but there is some good airport food in a French airport. But it is expensive. I had a baguette with crevettes et pamplemousse et epinards and some spreadable fromage. And that, ladies and gents, mesdames et messieurs, was a pretty good airport sandwich. But the exchange rate!
• the French--speaking now about the entire culture, history, arts and design and economy --have some pretty impressive luxury goods. Some of which you can buy at the airport, but whoa. The exchange rate! not to mention the original cost of things!
• pastries.
• macarons. (I am not a fan of eating the macaron, but I think they are adorable and very, very pretty.)

It is possible to lose track of what's going on in a French airport when you have hours to cool your heels and you've previously spent many many many hours on a trans-Atlantic flight in a window seat and--I think this goes without saying--not enough sleep, plus the steward guy kind of woke you up by shoving a heated-up bagel in your face because you have the special, aka ovolactovegetarian, meal. For instance, you might think your flight is leaving from one gate because that's what the kiosk robot told you when you got off your trans-Atlantic flight at onze heures, French time.

But then, after the heel-cooling and the light dozing in fits and starts you did because of all the aforementioned, you might drag your heavy bag and your heavy self to another display to decipher that your heel-cooling locale is, in fact, not your actual gate. So then you depeche-toi to your actual gate, and get on your airplane, and despite the fact that they're speaking French over the airplane's intercom and that the crew seems to be, in fact, bona fide French, the flight is sans amenites. Nary a pastry nor a baguette with jambon, nor a macaron (I think this goes without saying).

But this is, paradoxically, not so bad. Because the lack of amenities means that, for the first time on this trip, you sleep. For the whole flight. Two hours of excellent airplane French-inflected sleep.

Brioche, a love story.

Isn't it a pretty word, brioche? Frankly, I find the names of all French pastries lovely, although I do not think that I am alone in this regard. My darling readers, mes petits vacherins. Or whatever. But brioche! with its darling little topknot. Its pans with baroque flutings. Its wash of egg and its many eggs, its butter, &c. Right, rich bread, you get the picture.

Once upon a time, I bought a brioche mold--just one--at Williams-Sonoma, for a far off day when I might get myself and my eggs and butter together to make this Richie McRich of breads, this extravagant dough, this homage to my longing for Frenchness. (Right, rich bread with extra rich on the side, &c.)

The day did arrive, and I did get it together, and I made the dough, lovingly, paying careful attention to the details of the recipe as if it weren't just bread which I have made a thousand times, but not with such a profligacy of ingredients, such a festival of fat! To be baked in a darling pan, but still--just dough.

I set the blessed dough to rise, and rise it did. I deflated it, and put it in its buttered tin to proof. Flour, milk, butter, eggs and more eggs, some sugar--that dough was about as gorgeous as it's possible for dough to be. I left the kitchen for the yeast to do its magic.

And upon my return, was there a fully proofed pan of brioche ready to go into the oven? And would there be brioche that day? There was not, and there would not. Instead there was a slightly gassy dog. That's right: the dog that ate my brioche.

(These are tearstained words, even at this remove: "The dog ate my brioche." Obviously, I could have made brioche again, but once I'd broken that many eggs and lost the dough to my dog, my faith in the whole process was a little bit damaged, to be absolutely honest. I just didn't have the heart.)

However, at the farmer's market this Saturday, our favorite baker had brioche. Not baked in a fluted pan--baked in a regular old loaf, all the better to slice it for toast or even French toast. French! It is lovely, and it is French, and yet it was baked in Logan, Utah. Is that exotic or what.

"Luxuriant sex opera" or big fat French waste of my time? Discuss.

Tonight, the historian and I went to see Claude Chabrol's A Girl Cut in Two.

This film has Gabrielle, played by Ludivine Sagnier, a lovely and very well-coiffed, made up, and dressed weather girl, falling for a writer who, from all evidence, is an insufferable, personality-less, mot-spouting prick. Apparently, though, he's gonna teach her the sexual ropes, because, well, he's experienced. And old. Married, a degenerate, and did I already say jerk? Jerk.

On the other hand, a sociopathic heir to a chemistry fortune (that sounds pretty hilarious, when you put it that way, but it is not played for laughs in this movie) also falls for her. Dandy-ish, in foppish clothing and a tousled, moppy hairdo, he is scary and stalker-ish. Add to that that his family is insufferable (insufferability is a theme in this film), snobbish . . . the mother has the complexion of a vampire.

With whom will she fall in love? is a wedding in the offing? what will the consequence be? to what depths of depravity will poor Gabrielle fall? what will her dress look like when this happens? and who cares? That is my summation of this good-looking yet tedious film. At least it was set in France--I enjoyed watching the France go by, frame by frame.

I also happen to feel that this film is a little bit overrated, since lots of people are saying things like "impeccably made," "beautifully directed," and "the work of a master." Manohla Dargis says that it's an "erotically charged . . . story of a woman preyed upon by different men and her own warring desires." Charged? Preyed upon? Warring? Okay, but then why did I feel so blah about it, in the end?

I have a friend who claims that there are no good French movies anymore, and at this point, I'm prepared to concede that there is some justice to this . . . check this link for an incomplete listing of French films, decade by decade to decide for yourself. As for this film, you can see for yourself if Wesley Morris is correct about La Fille being a "luxuriant sex opera" or if, as the lights come up, you might find yourself remarking to your viewing companion, "Hmmph." Or perhaps, "Those crazy French." Or even, "Maybe we should have seen Role Models."

The shopper reports.

The last ten things I bought:

1. loaf of pain au levain at Pierre's
2. shrimp pad thai
3. potato chips
4. frozen lemonade
5. walking shoes (gray in case you're interested)
6. black nightgown
7. set of drinking glasses, with one missing
8. embossed tin box
9. USA Today (for the crossword!)
10. packet of Poppycock