October: Return to Form

Tsk tsk. What a delinquent post.

Oct 24, 2024

Bonjour à tous! Ça fait un moment, mais non?

Turns out moving continents, going back to school, and being in your second language 60% of the time takes a toll on one’s energy levels. So I took une petite pause on the newsletter (perhaps not 100% intentionally…) but never fear, I am back and newly committed to getting these out more regularly.

Things in general have been great, if a bit hectic. School is a grind—6 to 7 hours of instructional work in the kitchen lab, an hour lunch, and then 2-3 hours of classroom work. Classwork is split between a few subjects–”techno”, where we review future recipes and learn more about the chemistry/science-y side of baking; art class to help us with plating and dessert design; French language class; and my favorite (to no one’s surprise): oenology, or wine class. At the beginning of our first wine class, our instructor delivered a very stern lecture about the importance of not swallowing the wine and instead spitting it into the small buckets on each of our desks. This lecture was, delightfully, followed by a wink and an eye roll, with a gesture to the ceiling to indicate “The administration says I have to say this”. C’est la France, after all.

Commemorating my splurge purchase of a 2015 Blanc de Blancs champagne on our class trip to the Nicolas Feuillatte headquarters in Reims

Des mots particuliers

My musing today is the pedantic utility of the French language. The nature of sentence construction in French, and specifically how adjectives are attached to nouns, makes for some of the most cumbersome phrases you will ever see. Next time you see a French translation of an English phrase (toiletries bottles are excellent for this), notice how many words it takes the French to express something versus English.

“Rose scented natural hand soap” becomes “Savon pour les mains de source naturelle parfume a la rose”

There are, however, some key areas where the French have condensed into one word concepts that it takes the English language several syllables to puzzle out.

The quintessential example is the verb flaneur. The act of walking around a place with no particular destination in mind, just enjoying the scenery. In French: On flâne, Je suis un flâneur.

Another good one is “frileux/frileuse” or a person who gets cold easily. This word has come in handy to describe my warm climate classmates, who insist on wearing running tights and turtleneck tech shirts under their chef whites the minute the temperature drops below 17 (65F) degrees.

But my favorite? Has to be le quignon. The pointed end of a baguette, typically in the context of it being torn off and enjoyed as a snack on the way home from the bakery.

Here is my baguette for tonight’s dinner–sans quignon, of course:

Du Pain et Des Gâteaux

An area I have been particularly lacking in lately is the proper documentation of my class creations. Our units on loaf cakes, puff pastry, and layer cakes flew by, with nary a photo to show for it besides what I managed to snap onto my IG stories once a week or so.

This past week, however, provided a photo that managed to encompass all of the hard work we did over the prior 4 days:

The items on the table are petit gateaux, or the individual cakes so iconic to French pastry shops. These are the type of cakes I will have to make for my final project, with my first testing session coming up next week! My current idea is a pear-ginger-citrus mousse cake, inspired by the ginger ale and biscoff cookie combination that reigns supreme as my favorite airplane snack. Some Great British Bake-Off style illustrations of my cake construction to come!

The petits gateaux in the above photo are, L to R:

Douceur exotique: White chocolate mousse, tropical fruit compote, coconut cake, and a plain biscuit base
Mont Blanc: Vanilla whipped cream, rhubarb compote, chestnut frosting, and a plain biscuit base
Verrine au cerise: Sour cherry compte, mascarpone cream, citrus cake, and pistachio crumble topping
Mille Feuille Remix: pistachio cake with strawberry jam filling, puff pastry sides, mousseline cream topping
Blackcurrant and Chocolate: Chocolate cake base, chocolate and blackcurrant cream ganache, blackcurrant jam topping, plain biscuit side pieces

This week is highly anticipated–Viennoiserie! Week of the croissants!! I will not forget the photos on this one.

Grand, innit?

I am gearing up for a wonderfully long stretch of reunions in the coming weeks, and kicked it off with a quick jaunt over La Manche (English Channel) to London, where many Chicagoans were gathered for the Chicago Bears vs Jacksonville Jaguars game at Tottenham Stadium.

First on the list was my gracious host Carly, whose living room was my campsite for the weekend. Carly is a newly minted official tour guide, and I had the privilege of receiving a private rendition of her first walking tour of the Regent’s Canal and Limehouse Basin. With this being only my third time in London, I had never ventured further west of Tower Bridge, and loved seeing a totally new side of London, including Ian McKellan (Gandalf from LOTR)’s pub, the Clinton Street historical district, and Regent’s Park itself. The tour turned us into gongoozlers, or “those interested in observing canal life, but not participating”. Turns out English has some fun ultra-specific words too!

Saturday night was a long-awaited reunion with my dad, who had come over for the game. His friends from Scotland came down to meet us as well, with some funny-in-hindsight logistical mix ups, because a vacation can never go too smoothly. While they hiked out to Tottenham for the game on Sunday, I met up with another group of Londoners, including fellow Ignatius alum-turned-expat Marilyn, who were celebrating those who had completed the Royal Parks Half Marathon earlier that morning. Figuring they could use some sustenance after a cool 13 miles, I did bring a chocolate and tonka bean cake from school, which I assume does a lot to replenish one’s electrolytes.

I didn’t take a photo of the cake I actually brought so have this one instead. It was a Black Forest cake with cherries soaked in enough kirsch to actually give us a little buzz

On Monday, I returned to Paris bright and early to attend French class, and my dad wasn’t far behind me on the Eurostar. We were able to spend some time catching up over two dinners before he headed back home for a much needed vacation from his vacation. Though it was quick, it made me so excited to see my entire family when they come this way again next month!

If you C1, you C ‘em all

When I insist to my American friends that I am not fluent in French, I’m typically shouted down with a chorus of “Oh, stop being modest!”. So I do need to write it here for posterity–I really am not fluent. The Common European Reference Framework, or CEFR, is the standard for measuring one’s level of proficiency in European languages, with three groupings of two levels each:

“Fluent” is generally considered a strong B2 and above. I am squarely in level B1, a skill level that delights most French people until they hear I’ve been speaking French for almost 15 years, after which their enthusiasm dampens considerably. I’ve hovered around B1 for years, never making much progress after the considerable improvement I saw during my study abroad semester in 2016.

Since I’ve been back, I’ve run rapidly into the ceiling of my language skills, stumbling pitifully through things like expressing uncertainty, explaining abstract concepts, and anything remotely approaching a cerebral topic. While frustrating, this inability to fully express myself has given me new motivation to improve my language level, and maybe even hit C1 by the end of my time here next summer.

I made a small step in that direction today, purchasing French translations of Roald Dahl’s Matilda and the first book in the Harry Potter series. A common recommendation for learning a new language is reading translations of children’s books that you’ve already read, before moving onto children’s books you haven’t read, and then repeating with standard novels.