Monet's Giverny



Ask nearly anyone who has spent this winter and spring in France and they will tell you that it’s been unusually cold.  In fact, now in mid-May—even if we have abandoned our winter coats—we’re still putting on several layers of clothes before going out.  If there is a plus side to the cool temperatures, it’s that nearly all the spring flowers have bloomed at once.  Not so good for allergy sufferers, granted.  But on a recent trip to Claude Monet’s home at Giverny northwest of Paris we were able to admire the garden as we’ve never seen it before.

Art lovers are probably aware that four years after Monet’s wife Camille died, the Impressionist artist noticed a peaceable area in Normandy from a train window.  Just outside of the town of Vernon, he found and eventually purchased a property containing a two-story house and two acres of land.  Monet lived in Giverny for the rest of his life, taking joy in painting, planting, and tending to his flowers, including the famous water lilies.  Now under the control of the Claude Monet Foundation, the house and garden attract nearly a million visitors each year.  Since last Sunday’s weather was supposed to be sunny with highs in the 60s, we decided to take the forty-five minute train ride to Vernon from the Gare Saint-Lazare.  It turned out to be a very good decision.

While waiting at the entrance, we were already snapping pictures of flowers.  We had no idea that inside we would be bowled over by the quantity and variety of blooming plants in front of Monet’s house and in the water garden.  Fragrant lavender wisteria draped down from the Japanese bridge; red and white blooms were on the chestnut trees; sweet-smelling white and pink blossoms covered Japanese apple trees; rhododendrons, azaleas, and peonies were ablaze with color; irises and pansies added to the beauty.  Even though the daffodils were past their prime and the roses weren’t quite out, the tulips made up for them.  I’ve never seen so many different kinds and colors: red, pink, mauve, orange, yellow, peach, purple, you name it!  One variety seemed to have a green leaf surrounding each petal, but it was actually part of the flower itself.  Magnifique!


As part of the tour, visitors can see the inside of the artist’s home.  The large, bright house is filled with Japanese prints. The yellow-painted dining room is stunning, as is the blue and white kitchen with a long line of copper cookware displayed on one wall.  After relishing all that there was to see, we spent time sitting on a bench in the garden enjoying the beautiful views.  Put it on your list of "must-sees" in the Paris area.


 

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La Cucina siciliana



We had often read about the delights of Sicilian cooking and our trip there last month confirmed it for us.  Naturally, panini sandwiches and pizza are widely available and we tried them a few times.  Previous trips to Italy had introduced us to gelato, that luscious Italian ice cream, and we did our best to get a cone every day we were in Palermo!  All kinds of flavors from creamy pistachio and hazelnut to fruity sorbets are found on just about every street of the city.  After paying the prices in Paris, we thought the cost of all of our meals and snacks was quite reasonable, too.  Many treats are indigenous to Sicily and we took advantage to try as many as we could.

You can well imagine that fish is big in island cuisine.  Walking through the many outdoor markets, we saw all kinds of squid, octopus, mussels, and, interestingly, fish displayed with their tails tied up with string; we figured it was to indicate the freshness of the fish appearing to jump out of the water onto the display.  Some of the best dishes we tried had seafood at their base.  For lunch one day, my husband tried an octopus salad which was very good.  A little restaurant called Trattoria al Cancelletto—that we went to twice because we liked it so much—had several appealing offerings.  Mussel soup, which didn’t have much liquid in it, was an appetizer piled high with mussels covered in a tasty tomato broth.  Their grilled fish was simple, but fresh and flavorful.  Our second night there we had pasta with shrimp and arugula, a dish that I’ve tied to recreate back here.  Again, it was simply prepared with just olive oil and shallots.  At a fancier place one night we tried the salt cod with goat cheese appetizer, even though the waitress seemed to want to talk us out of it.  Glad we didn’t listen to her; it was just great.  On the negative side, I wasn’t too crazy about my main dish there, another regional dish: pasta with sardines.

There's a wide variety of specialties in Sicily.  As we found in Corsica, dried salted meats are popular.  I had a huge appetizer of bresaola with shaved parmesan.  The waitress explained that it is like prosciutto only made with beef instead of ham.  Very good.  Another interesting dish we tried for lunch is called arancini.  Not terribly appealing to look at, they are big rice balls that came with either cheese or meat in the place we tried it.  Pane con milza is, believe it or not, a spleen sandwich which—even harder to believe—my husband tried!  To mixed reviews...   It’s the specialty of Antica Focacceria di San Francesco, a restaurant which has been in operation for 174 years, despite threats by the Mafia of overtaking it.
 All in all, our culinary experiences in Sicily were terrific, adding to a wonderful, if short, vacation there.

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Sicily



Sicily is a land of contrasts: Catholic churches and the Mafia, delicious smelling food and piles of garbage, peaceful natural beauty and honking, swirling cars and motorcycles, dilapidated neighborhoods and luxury villas.  An ancient island with history dating back to prehistoric times, Sicily has been ruled over by the Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans, Vandals, Arabs, and Normans, to name but a few.  Because of the richness of cultures which have passed through it, the island is also filled with beautiful art and architecture.  Although we only had a brief stay in the northwestern part of the island, we were able to enjoy some of the best the region has to offer.


On our first full day in the capital city of Palermo we decided to visit the Palazzo dei Normanni, the Norman Palace.  Wouldn’t you know it, we arrived at the ticket booth at the same time as a class of high school students, making the wait in the hot sun to buy tickets long and rather uncomfortable.  Only the Cappella Palantina was available for viewing that day.  Even waiting outside the chapel, there were mosaics depicting saints and Biblical scenes decorating the walls.  Little did we know that inside we were to discover a real gem.  Luckily for us, the young people in line were not too interested in the chapel and cleared out within minutes, leaving us practically alone to examine its extraordinary beauty.  Many of the mosaics, especially on the right side as you face the altar, have been around since the chapel was created in 1132. Multicolored and shining with gold, mosaics cover the entire surface of the chapel walls.  Old and New Testament stories are represented: the creation of Adam and Eve and Noah loading his ark with animals, as well as the four Evangelists, prophets, and Jesus surrounded by angels blessing the people.  An Australian couple pointed out that even the decoration under each arch was unique.  A carved twelfth-century marble column stands near the pulpit.  The sculpted wooden ceiling dates from the Arab occupation of the city.  Seeing the Cappella Palantina was definitely worth a long wait in the sun.



The following day we rented a car—quite an anxiety-producing venture for both of us, given the state of traffic in the city.  A half-hour after leaving the hotel though, with GPS on board, we were safely out of Palermo, off to explore other parts.  Another highlight of our trip to Sicily was a visit to Segesta.   Located southwest of the capital near the port town of Trapani, this mountaintop spot was settled by the Trojans five centuries before the Common Era.  Somehow the ancient theater and even older temple have survived through the ages.  The well-preserved temple has thirty-six Doric columns and is really reminiscent of the Acropolis in Athens; it is believed that this temple was never completed due to wars of the period.  Its setting allows for beautiful views of it from nearby areas.  We missed the sign that mentions the possibility of buying a ticket for the bus ride from the parking lot to the theater and ended up trudging uphill for the better part of an hour in the sun.  The backdrop for the theater is the sight of the Mediterranean in the distance.  Really lovely as well, though I think riding the bus would have made it nicer!

More next time on Sicilian cuisine.

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Language Immersion: Italy



As a French teacher, I’m fascinated by all kinds of language acquisition--from babies learning to speak to foreign languages.  Since we were in Sicily the better part of last week, I was able to observe us firsthand as we tried to make ourselves understood in a tongue we are unfamiliar with.  Because we both speak French, it’s not too difficult to comprehend Italian, since both are Romance languages derived from Latin.  But when we have to produce the words ourselves, it’s quite a different story.  You can probably imagine that many results were quite comical. 
 
One thing is for sure: gestures are always our friend in these kinds of situations.  When the ice cream server at the Gelateria Spinnato in Palermo asked if we wanted to eat our cones on the terrazza we understood that meant at the outdoor café.  Unable to say we wanted them “to go,” we used that universal symbol of fingers making a walking motion!  Got the point across!  Later in the week we traveled to the tiny town of Contessa Entellina (pop. 2,000) to try to find traces of my great-grandfather.  Although we struck out in that effort, it did offer us an interesting conversation in Italian.  The office at the municipio (or “town hall”) was staffed by three women, doing absolutely nothing but smoking when we arrived.  I began by asking in my halting Italian if they spoke inglese o francese.  When the answer was no, I pulled out the list of phrases that I had fortunately prepared in advance.  The problem is that you can’t control where the conversation will go.  I tried to tell the women that our family had found a birth certificate of a woman from their town in my grandfather’s Bible.  Not knowing the word for Bible in Italian, I tried Italianizing the French word into la Biblé.  When that didn’t work, my husband made a praying gesture which did the trick.  Turns out the real word is Bibbia, if you ever need it!

Something I read ages ago is that, when you’re attempting to speak a new language, you tend to use words from the foreign language you’ve studied least.  That was certainly true for us, especially just after landing in Palermo last Monday.  At lunch that day we were both pulling out our German!  Thanking people by saying danke and using the numbers eins, zwei, drei for one, two, and three.  We were looking at each other and saying out loud “Why are we speaking German?”   I’m sure the wait staff at the restaurant was wondering the same thing.  Actually, we had many multilingual conversations—with a Mexican couple and their baby, a young Spanish man we asked directions of in the street, at the front desk at the hotel, even at the tourist bureau.  It was a lot of fun.

There’s so much more to say about Sicily.  I’ll be posting about it for the next week or so.

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French Game Shows



People who know me will say that I’m all about words—English and French.  I love learning them, looking them up in the dictionary, and playing games with them.  Scrabble has been a longtime favorite and the Bananagrams game (basically Scrabble without a board) I got for my birthday was a real hit.  The new Scrabble-like Words with Friends app on my cell phone has been a near obsession for the past month or so.  No surprise then that I like televised game shows like Jeopardy and their French counterparts.  The latest generation of TV games in France seems destined to attract a younger demographic: the hosts are young; the repartee is lively and full of slang.  For one and all, new words are there for the learning, plus quite a bit more.   






The game show with the unlikely name Harry is based on computers.  Harry himself is a smiley face on a big screen and the four contestants log their answers via PCs on standing desks in front of them.  The corny gimmick aside, it’s a good game.  At first, the host, Sebastien Folin (who used to do the weather, by the way), gives a clue and the contestants must rearrange rings containing one or more letters into a word as quickly as possible.  After several rounds, the slowest participant is eliminated and phase 2 begins.  Depending on the day, remaining players may be required to remove one ring of letters in order to form the desired word, or they may have to add letters, or interpret a rebus as part of the word.  For instance, there may be a picture of a doghouse, niche, whose sound combined with the letters in other rings indicates the word cornichon (“pickle”).  Whew! Not easy at all!  Then comes the semifinal where two contestants face off.  The rings come in slowly one at a time and the fastest to interpret the clue and get the word right goes on to the final.  Longer and longer rings of letters appear on the screen which the finalist has to solve; the number of correct answers determines the winnings for the day.  Interesting for me is not only the use of synonyms and antonyms, but allusions to history, literature, and culture that the host patiently explains after each word.

 

Another thing I love is doing and creating crossword puzzles, so the game show  Slam is right up my alley.  Cyril Feraud, the host, asks three contestants to compare two words.  He may ask what vowel or consonant is the same in two different terms, or what letter follows its neighbor in the alphabet in a certain word.  Trickier than it sounds!  Then the letter goes onto a projected grid; the contestant is given a clue and tries to guess the entry.  Like good crosswords at home, the clues are often misleading, playing on words.  Again, the host explains the meaning of the terms, often concerned with topics as varied as geography, cinema, animals, etc.  The same procedure continues with just two participants and the final with the last remaining person.  The show is called Slam because at any time contestants can slammer, that is, they can buzzer and try to complete all remaining entries to gain points and win.
 
Both are fast-moving games, but the friendly hosts also take time to ask the contestants to recount personal stories… how they got engaged, met their spouse, or what they do for a living.  The shows are good ways to learn about French language and culture as well as universal trivia.

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