(This is a Turbot. He is important to our story please read on).
A French friend corrected me yesterday upon reading my post.
"No, shopping is done on Saturday morning, because most shops are closed on Sundays".
Alors, Sundays....how to spend? (You will see Singlish from time to time, as my friends here started to get tired of reading "English" after some years in Singapore).
"Sports...." he had a little smirk on his face.
There......is another bio-sphere of "art de vivre", or "art de survive", for organizing kids' sports events/competitions in one of the Parisien clubs is a discipline itself which we shall discuss in a separate post.....
Yes, point taken. Only the shops near Avenue Victor Hugo are opened on Sundays (until 1pm only), the Chinese and Arabic shops are opened everyday until 10pm. (Though some shops are closed for traditional holidays, there are always bound to be others who are opened in the allies). Sorry, I did hang out exclusively in 16th for too long and relied on my husband to do the grocery shopping with me and he preferred Sundays. (My husband cooks on weekends and insists, like any cook with a bit of self-esteem should, on choosing the ingredients himself: herbs, meat, fish vegetables, cheese, fruit, etc.) He never decided before reaching the fresh grocer or the fish mongers what he wanted to cook.
"What is fresh that day will be on our plate".
(Moi, I am more like, "what is on special that day will be on our plates"....see, I am admitting my thriftiness to strangers and being very Southern-Chinesely proud of it).
He would talk with the fish mongers about where the fish was caught, turned the gill like how my grandmother used to in Taipei (she was born in 1903, passed away at age 103) and every Singaporean Grandma at the AMK market did to the dish, squid or any ocean creature with a soft texture that is out in the open air and were too "fatigue" to have minded about being poked, squeezed, kneaded, pinched, and turned over and over. I was once present at such a ceremony where a group of 10 or so Grannies formed a standing circle around a metal plate of dead fish. Each held out a forefinger to try egregiously waking up one or several of members of this foreign species who, it was claimed, arrived from Indonesia that morning. By this time, they were sharing a common pool of jelly-like liquid and some luckily ones were lifted up by an auntie, weighed and eventually transcended to their second life/existence as a well-prepared lunch for a family. There was a great deal of work and pride in the selection process and the ladies settled the transaction, wiped their fingers on the piece of wet cloth provided by the fish mongers and continued their daily tasks of providing the best nutrition for the family. (I found it difficult to put fingers on the semi-living creatures myself, and always had to find a plastic bag to ensure that my hand did not come into direct contact with the fish family, but I do appreciate the work that my grandma had gone through with her fish fingers when I was young).
Anyways, back to my husband. The fish mongers were quick to turn every single gill and did all the touching, poking, patting, pinching and whatever manourvres that he anticipated a connaisseur customer would have done to his fish, and eventually lovingly caressed my husband's chosen fish before sending the latter to the scale and the gutting table. All this time, discussions about different recipes and timing and accompanying vegetables, stocks and even garnish would have taken place. (They talk very fast and, with the same references, ideas get passed through quickly). Then we continued our merry way to buy what was necessary to make this spa of fish.
To my surprise, my husband bought only the dessert and salad instead of following the fish monger's advice.
".....that guys doesn't know much about cooking, with a turbot of this size, the only way is to grill it, with some salt and pepper...."
"What will be the taste then?"
"Taste of the Atlantic, nothing more, nothing less!"
Last summer, we spent three weeks in the Loire Valley in a chateau where we had a kitchen at our disposal. It was heaven to us, homemade food, park, garden, historical monument, friendly people, little creek with ducks, cows grazing on the grass, horses in the shade and swans. A farmer's market near by and fish mongers with their catch of the day from Atlantic and some from the river Loire. First day we arrived, we ordered a rabbit from the butcher in the small town of Craon.
(This is the castle where we spent our holidays...with a rabbit).
(Yes, rabbit is food, not a companion or a friend to French. I had trouble eating it at the beginning, but then, I had eaten kangaroo, frogs, life prawns/lobsters, owl (what the seller in the ZeJiang province of Chinese claimed it to be), fish eyeballs.....so I didn't resist for long.)
"How do you want to cook it? It will be ready by tomorrow afternoon, I can do the marinating for you if you like...." the butcher proposed, "...and order the stuff if you want to cook with, so you can pick up everything in one go". They are always so helpful and nice in the French countryside.
"That's wonderful, Cheri, what do we need....eh...." To me, "convenience" is the only art de vivre....but my husband was already out the door. "A demain!"
"Why don't you want to buy them all from him, the cost would not be that much different"
"I am not going to share my family recipe with others, if he knows the ingredients, he might work it out himself" My husband was looking all serious.
Why am I talking about my husband at length? Because he is the product of his mother, who prepared lunch for him and his three siblings every school day up to the end of Year 12 ( as they went to a neighborhood school and were able to walk to and forth for lunch), who still does her fois gras from scratch, who carries out her own grocery shopping and designs the menu meticulously and efficiently, who insisted that my husband, like his three sisters, must also learn to cook (or, at least eat) well.
Ok, that is the physical well being taken care of. Now, the intellectual side of the things.....
Children between 3 to 12 years old have Wednesday afternoons off from school. (Some even have Friday afternoons off). My two little ones go to French school, so you will see that I am much less active on Wednesdays and Fridays. What jobs can a mother do that gives Wednesday and Friday afternoons off? The fantastic thing is that there are plenty of activities and workshop tailored for kids of every age at all museums including Musee d'Orsay and Musee Louvre. I used to do all my museum visits on Wednesday afternoons while waiting for Vivienne to finish her atelier. It is time consuming and the best way to spend time with kids. There are no "enrichment schools" like what you would call in Singapore, or BuShiBan like in Taiwan and China. Wednesday afternoons are for kids and that is the national "quality time".
Besides that, French schools have some of the longest school holidays in the world - only 160 days out of the whole year. Who is around when kids are not at school? Mothers.
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