Oyster challenge 2007

Jonathan Swift thinks I’m cool. He once wrote “he was a bold man who first ate an oyster” and just the other night I proved myself to be the Fonzie of the bivalve scene by eating my first oysters.

The Aquitaine region is famous for its oysters, and Bassin D’Arcachon, the main oyster growing body of water in France, is like 20 kilometers from Bordeaux. What does that mean? I don’t know, I’m an American and was raised to believe that the metric system was for communists (To quote Grandpa Simpson “My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it!”). But basically it means its super close to Bordeaux so the oysters here are crazy fresh. I know its not a month with an R in it, but hey, its almost there and how much longer was I going to be in the right spot ready to eat some raw prehistoric sea creatures?

Now even though I had a marvelous time reading Mark Kurlansky’s novel The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/05/books/review/05royte.html ex=1299214800&en=e8625854ea39292a&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss)
I am pretty shamed to say that I had never eaten a raw oyster, so I was some what nervous. I had read that European oysters were slightly different from their American cousins, but when the waitress brought me my 6 huitres d’arcachon, the difference seemed to be as obvious to me as which one of the Olsen twins is the fat one.

So I took my fork, prayed I wasn’t secretly allergic to them, scooped loose the mighty Ostrea edulis and slurped it down. It tasted somewhat like a pleasant wharf. I then added the red wine vinegar and shallot sauce and a squeeze of lemon juice and low-and-behold they were pretty damn good. The tartness and onion-y flavor just went really well with the subtle salty sliminess of the oyster. Way to go France!

It was a good experience. I feel like I have now communed with the sea and can resume to eating things with faces. If you can’t tell, I am pretty damn proud of myself.

Like watching "Everybody loves Raymond" translated into the language of Moliere and Truffaut

So I went to a café with some new friends to get lunch. I was really impressed by the fact that even in the most touristy part of Bordeaux I could get a decent meal for only 8 euro. I got “un sandwiche jambon” which is a ham sandwich. It came with grilled bread and curly little endive, which was very nice. I lifted this perfectly toasted morsel to my mouth, ignoring the chicly dressed French businessmen and the rustle of the Plane trees, and dove right into what I expected to be French splendor.

Suddenly, I was shocked back into reality. Did I just bite into a cheese flavored Yankee Candle? I looked at the sandwich to find –quel l’horreur- a bright orange piece of American cheese style cheese laughing at me! Okay, maybe it wasn’t laughing, but while I expected cheese that Dean and DeLuca’s would sell for $45 a pound or maybe something made by monks in the Pyrenees through hours of careful cheese study and trying not touching themselves, all I found was a Kraft single.

At first I thought that maybe they were catering to the American tourists by offering me cheese that had in fact never been anywhere near a cow, but then I realized something that transcended my effete anger: the French are real people. While I love my stinky cheese, if at every meal I had to eat something that tasted like a reject demo of penicillin, I would maybe want something safe, simple and bland. After all, artisan French cheese is only special if it is balanced out against something that tastes like an effective patch for dry wall, right?

Frankly, it made the Camembert and blue cheese at dinner taste even more delicious. So what if American cheese, or its French incarnation, is idiotic? Some times you’ve got to watch a little Fox News to appreciate The Economist and sometimes you can find satisfaction in a cheese whose color is found nowhere in nature.

Bord-OH SNAP!

Getting ready to leave for and actually coming to Bordeaux was an exhausting experience. After spending a week hosting half of Vassar at my house, and then the next week in a mad dash to run errands, see friends before I leave, and basically get my life together, I finally managed to get all my belongings into my parents car for a pleasantly short four hour drive to Kennedy Airport. If you think four hours is far too long a time to drive the 100 or so miles to Kennedy Airport from Center City Philadelphia, you’ve never seen the distracting natural majesty that is the Raritan River, the New Brunswick Business Park or all of Staten Island.
When we arrived at the airport I was confronted with the same problem I face whenever I fly: Airplane food makes me want to kill myself and those sitting around me. Not only is it not great to eat, but I seem to always be near people who willingly order fish. I was once on a flight sitting next to my father and an ultra-ultra orthodox Rabbi. Unfortunately the Rabbi decided his Kosher meal wasn’t quite kosher enough for his standards and decided to eat canned salmon, which, I can only assume from the smell was either of the Friskies or Fancy Feast variety. In my book one of the most important rule for eating fish is to only eat it with both feet on the ground (here that, McFish Sandwich lovers? God never meant to eat fish on the run/in an airplane).
But after buying some beef jerky and water (lots of protein and liquids!) and drugging myself like Rush Limbaugh in a Mexican pharmacy, I actually had a nice flight.
I arrived in Bordeaux on Saturday (8/18) in the afternoon. The family I am staying with is lovely; they have 6 kids all with equally lovely French names that I have trouble remembering. They eat in a very French manner: tiny portions of fattening foods followed by tinier portions of even more fattening foods. Also, the don’t snack, except for a bowl of very nice ping pong ball sized green plums from Brittany that sit in their kitchen. Apparently, Americans are fatter than the French because while the French eat small amounts of things that are terrible for them, Americans eat a never-ending amount of food that is slightly less fattening but has way more sugar (and most American's wouldn't eat a plum for snack unless it was deep fried in salt and chocolate).
Bordeaux is definitely a gorgeous city. The whole center of the city is from the 18th century and is filled with extremely well dressed French teenagers on the last days of their summer vacation. If I can survive what will no doubt be an onslaught of wine and the roving gangs of Eleanor of Aquitaine impersonators, I should have a lovely time.

Que la lumiere soit!

Hercules had his 10 feats. Alexander had to conquer the known world. Tom Cruise was been commanded to destroy Xenu’s evil galactic empire by converting us all to Scientology. And once in a lifetime us mortals are given a great task, and this is mine:

This summer I worked as the intern for a fabulous show broadcast on NPR from WHYY in Philadelphia called “A chef’s table with Jim Coleman”. The show is about food and culinary culture (it can be found at http://www.whyy.org/chef); each week Jim interviews guests who discuss everything from deep-frying turkeys to table manners. Being their intern was a great experience, but alas I had to leave the WHYY studios to spend my semester studying abroad in Paris.
I know, my life is hard, right? What task could they possibly force that poor boy to do? Well, the producers of a chef’s table asked me, as a reward for being such a wonderful intern (I got carpal-tunnel and I’m not even going to sue!) to report back once a month for “A chef’s table” about my culinary adventures in France!

This blog will chronicle that mythically IMPOSSIBLE task having to find good places to eat in France. What’s that? Hercules had to kill the Hydra and I am just eating croissants? Well then I guess he was just a sucker.
In all seriousness though, I want to experience all that modern Paris has to offer: smell the stinkiest cheese, slurp best pho this side of Hanoi, taste the most decadent foie gras, and even wolf down some slimy garlicky snails. So come join me as I search for the culinary soul of this legendary city.

While I may gain 30 pounds or have to get a quadruple bypass heart surgery, I will accomplish my task, and I hope that you will join me in reading my blog and listening to my reports on “A chef’s table”.

Don’t you Wanna French (with Ben Grinspan)?