Of France and Other Wandering Observations

I may not have mentioned it but the current and previous two posts have been written from France where Steph, Anselm and I are vacationing. One of Steph's more than thirty cousins was getting married last Saturday so we came for that and decided we would stay for a couple of weeks for our summer vacation. This gives us some much needed R-and-R and allows the family to get a good eyeful (and earful) of young Anselm.




Moment of truth just before boarding for Anselm's first airplane ride. He came through like a champ. No crying, no fussing, slept right through the whole thing.



On the TGV to Angers. Again, the guy is a born traveler (gypsy?)



Anselm "Nature Boy" Frazier lets it all hang out on the day after the wedding


For the benefit of those of you who have never been to a French wedding, or to France for that matter, I think it may be worthwhile to spend a little time describing what a week in this country means from a culinary standpoint among others. By my rough estimate, I figure we spend about a third of our waking hours at the dinner table. This is for lunch and dinner only not counting breakfast which, despite popular regard as the most important meal of the day, I don't consider a real meal. My reasoning is that if there is no wine and/or desert involved, then it can't be granted full meal status.

But I digress. a full third of one's waking hours eating, not counting preparation and cleanup, is a fairly conservative estimate. On special occasions involving formal family gatherings the time-share can skyrocket to upwards of 50%. During the Christmas season, one could easily spend a string of days in which the entire 100% of waking activity is dedicated to eating, preparing to eat, or recovering from eating. This reminds me of what Stacy recently wrote in her blog (http://family-of-five.typepad.com/family_of_five/) about New Orleans: A city in which at any given time all its residents are either preparing for, attending, or recovering from a party. It may not be any coincidence that the most French city in the US displays such extremes in the search of the sensual pleasures. Jesus (The Spanish name hehSOOS, not our Lord and Saviour) is a good friend of our's from Galicia who is fond of saying of eating: "It is one of the few pleasures from the waist up".

And that's what makes France so cool: the amount of attention to detail that is paid to ensuring one draws the maximum from the simple pleasures of life. On my first trips here from the US, this was one of the first things I would notice: the emphasis placed on form as well as function. The style of how something is done elevated to a level of equal relevance to the act itself. The result is an elegant beauty that is noticeable to anyone who has visited Paris or a simple country village in France.

The pics below are from the village where the civil ceremony took place. Nothing fancy, but there's been some obvious attention paid to proportion, color, texture, etc. This is typical and would be ordinary where it not for its pervasiveness in French daily life. The combined effect can be quite striking.

While I've been here many times before, this is the longest stint I will have spent since moving to Barcelona. Compared to the chaotic exuberance of Spain, France gives off a vibe of cosmic order that leaves me with the sensation that they've somehow figured out how things are supposed to work: with consistent elegance and beauty. If one must nourish the body, it should be done with the palate in mind. And the same goes for the other four senses as well.

I hope to continue exploring the remaining senses over the next week. Tomorrow we're off to Mont Saint Michel (see http://www.ot-montsaintmichel.com/histoire_gb.htm or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Saint-Michel) and perhaps some of the Normandy and/or Brittany coast. I'll be sure to report on my findings there.