Where to get it (Part I)

So we'll assume you want to avoid Géant.  We've done a lot of exploring in the center of Poitiers, and after a little help from the yellow pages, and lots of walking and biking, we've got a pretty good handle on where to get what you need in our neighborhood. We offer you this guide for those in search of spicy food, a good tailor, a wind-resistant umbrella, and the perfect croissant.

You've probably noticed that we like to cook many different kinds of food, some of which are not available at the regular grocery store.  We have given up on some of these things for the time being (for instance, real, gluten-free corn tortillas are nowhere to be found, WTF?). Nonetheless, this Asian/African Grocery store is a great place to get spicy peppers (Scotch Bonnets), various kinds of lentils (we like red lentils), corn flour of varying coarseness (so you could, in theory, make your own tortillas from scratch), and a few "exotic" vegetables (ripe plantains and okra).  

Asian, African, and Middle Eastern Grocery

More importantly, it is open 7 days a week (gasp!) til 10 p.m. (impossible!!). This means that you can also get yogurt, cereal, and a few other "everyday" things on the weekend if you're desperate. We're guessing that their biggest money maker is alcohol as they are the only shop open on Sunday (not counting bars, tabacs, and restaurants) where you can get beer and wine.

Had friends over and drank up your weekend allotment of wine on Saturday night?  Now you need a bottle to go with your Sunday roast chicken?? Come on over!

When we were living in Urbana, we had two sewing machines (one each, which we got before we met each other). We used them for major projects like curtains, as well as lots of little jobs like hemming pants, adding velcro to things, reinforcing Jefe's pants for biking, and making hats. Not long after arriving in Poitiers (sans Singers), we required the services of a tailor. We found a few in the yellow pages and Jefe rode by to check them out. We settled on Arsène Couture, as the other nearby tailor seemed overtaxed (they advertised sewing-related jobs on everything from clothes and curtains to beads and accessories). However, when he dropped off the sweater with Arsene, he ended up in a political discussion with the owner that ended with her grumbling about her daughter getting pregnant by a Jew in New York (sheesh). Needless to say, the next piece that required tailoring went to Rapid Couture, scatterbrained as they might be. We were hoping that "Rapid" meant "No politics." They did a great job, hemming three pairs of pants in two days, which is pretty fast for all the tailors we've visited.

Since Poitiers doesn't get much snow, the winter precipitation comes down as rain, so you want an umbrella that can stand up to constant use and serious wind. Luckily, there is the nearby François Frères, an umbrella shop. They make and repair all sorts of umbrellas, with a few ingenious versions that I'd never even thought of. There are square umbrellas, children's umbrellas, compact umbrellas, and umbrellas with flexible ribs that don't break when the wind catches and turns it inside out. They also have a vast array of styles, sizes, and prints, so you will be sure to find an umbrella to match your outfit and your personality.

Who doesn't love that the French word for umbrella is "parapluie" (pair-uh-ploo-ey)?

Speaking of umbrellas, you can't swing one without hitting a bakery around here. The real difficulty is finding the "best" one. The trick is to look for a line that stretches out the door during weekday lunches and most of Saturday. Testing the croissants is another way to gauge a bakery. When eaten plain, this simple pastry can tell you a lot about the quality of ingredients and the amount of care taken in their baking operation. 

La Grange à Pain (The Bread Barn) satisfies both criteria. Their croissants are unbelievably delicious, with just the right amount of creamy butter flavor; their chausson aux pommes (apple turnovers) are filled with something similar to apple pie filling while many competitors merely use an applesauce-like paste. Their baguettes are good enough that people buy them by the armload, and their array of savory sandwiches and mini quiches are what make that interminable line out the door during lunch.

mmm, gluten

In other news, Rebecca's students will be taking their first semester final exams next week, but since there is no final exam in English, we are off to Bordeaux and Toulouse.  We'll be back in a week and a half.  See you then.

La Haine...Snark, Part 1

Or...Things that sometimes make us want to poop on the sidewalk

We recently decided (after much debate and pouting) to include a little more snark (parents: that's what we kids call a snide remark) in the blog. While we will still be rhapsodizing new discoveries and the delights of France, there are a few things we feel the need to address. Such as, for instance, certain things so poorly designed that we continue to hate them, even after trying really hard to find their redeeming qualities. Note: this is not mere homesickness for a certain brand of cookie or the lack of a specific type of beer, these are things that anyone--even the French--should be complaining about.

So without further ado,

Snark, Part 1: Géant Casino

For starters, it's called "Giant Casino". Just the name makes me think of an onslaught of light, noise and irritation. Sometime I wonder if France is playing a cruel joke on us. The Americans create things like Walmart, McDonalds, and blockbuster movies (which I don't like, in case you didn't know), and the French see these things and morph them into something even more outrageous. For example, the French word for "corporation" is "exploitation". It's as if they are taking the aspects I dislike the most and shoving them back in my face in the form of monstrous stores, food that makes my skin crawl, and movies that make me cringe just thinking about them. Perhaps they are doing this in an elaborate attempt at cultural critique?

Géant is a large commercial center located near the University of Poitiers. Similar to a Super Walmart, it houses a huge grocery store along with lots of other smaller shops. In addition, all under the same roof, there is a bowling alley, three restaurants, many clothing stores (such as H&M, Zara, Jules, Bershka, Esprit, Stradivarius), several shoes stores, three banks, a Sephora, a hair salon, a pharmacy, a gas station, and a car wash.

Of course, it's different closer to the center of Poitiers, where there are a lot of quirky shops (a custom umbrella shop, communist bookstore, etc.), but there are certain items, like socks, that you can only find at the hypermarché.

We've been to Géant a few times, mostly because it is near Rebecca's office at ESIP. At first it seems really convenient. The bus, which typically comes by every 15 minutes, drops you off just down the street. But then you start to walk toward the building from the bus stop, and the sidewalk abruptly disappears. You end up in a pavement purgatory, walking through a narrow entrance (the western one just off Avenue JFK) to the parking lot with limited visibility, jostled by other pedestrians as well as cars, bikes, mopeds, and volatile middle school students. Oh yeah, and once you get to the entrance, you are greeted with exactly no places for bike parking.

It is hard to see how this complex could have been designed so poorly. Perhaps if it had been built 20 or 30 years ago when there weren't many bike riders in Poitiers, I could understand. But it's only 10 years old. Besides, with the university so close, how could they completely fail to anticipate the possibility of pedestrians?

OK. Supposing you finally make it inside, you get your 5 kilometers of exercise while shopping in this giant store and you're happy because almost everything is super cheap. You then have 40 checkout lanes to choose from: the traditional sort with a real person there to scan your items. Oops, only 3 of those are open.

Should you go through the self-checkout? Not unless you want to wait for the newbie to figure out that they have to set the item down on the counter after scanning it.

How about the self-checkout plus? You get to carry around a cool handheld scanner and zap all the stuff you want, then just dock the scanner and swipe your card. Nice idea, but it requires advanced registration and your first born child.

Maybe the credit card checkout? They scan all your items and give you a barcoded receipt, then you proceed to a separate machine to pay. This works on the theory that paying is the part of checking out that slows things down. Interesting hypothesis, but it doesn't stand up to testing. You still have to wait in line to get all of your items scanned. And paying is still a hassle, especially with American style credit cards that require a signature. This option is a last resort.

Oh wait--there's an opening in one of the traditional check-out lanes *sigh of relief*. The checkout person is scanning all your items and everything is great. Oh crap, where's that little sticker that was on your red pepper?

"Oh no, please don't tell me that your red pepper doesn't have a little sticker on it. Here at Géant, we don't keep a list of all those exotic vegetables at the checkout counter, so I'm sorry but you'll just have to walk back 300 yards to find a new little sticker and bring it back. No, I'm sorry, we can't just call someone and ask them what the code is. This is Géant, we don't do that here. Do you want to go get the sticker or just forget the red pepper?"

So, dear reader, unless you enjoy torturing yourself (as many people seem to here, given the popularity of Géant), or you like to bowl while your significant other does the shopping, I would try to avoid this hypermarché hell.

Side note: This post is conspicuously devoid of pictures. The last time I went there with my camera, I left too frustrated to think about taking pictures. In any case, pictures rarely achieve the same snarkiness as a well-placed barb.

Historic Poitiers

Poitiers is really old, at least that's what the Wikipedia entry says. But sometimes it's hard to wrap your mind around what 'old' really means; dates and numbers, rather than elucidating this, sometimes just make your vision blur.  For many of us, tangible things are easier to appreciate.

Take for instance the electrical wiring in our apartment, which seems a little sketchy, or the fact that rainwater drains inside our building.  That means the place was built before people worried about things like electromagnetic pollution and toxic death mold.  So that's a pretty tangible marker of age, but then again, the same kinds of weaknesses were present in the poorly-maintained 80-year-old house we rented in Illinois.  

What we're trying to get at is that to US "old" is nothing compared to European "old".  Lately, we have been noticing the patchwork nature of the construction here. There are, for example, university buildings less than 20 years old sharing a common wall with a 500-year-old half-timber house.

One side of the house...

...and the other.

And with so many layers of renovation and new construction, I can't even begin to imagine the headaches faced by all the engineers and architects involved in these projects over the last few hundred years.

Fortunately for the curious-minded, Poitiers reveres its history, and has marked out three historical walking routes (red, blue, and yellow; so far partially translated by Jefe) that people can take to see various interesting houses, churches, and city buildings. While taking these self-guided walking tours and translating all the associated information on posted plaques, he began to notice how few of the buildings stick to one style of architecture (e.g Classical, Romanesque, Gothic, Flamboyant Gothic, Renaissance).

The closer you look, the quirkier things become. For example, most of the windows have actual working shutters (instead of the decorative shutters we have in the US), which people actually use daily. Built into the exteriors of the walls near those shutters are small iron latches that keep them from swinging freely when open. There are numerous designs for these tiny shutter latches, but the one below was surprisingly common:

I haven't figured out who, if anyone specific, this is supposed to represent, but I'll be asking around (or please let us know if you have any guesses).

The other minor detail that people have preserved over the last few hundred years are the doors. Since so many periods of construction coexist, it seems like no two doors (even in their dimensions) are the same. Short rounded medieval doors stand next to giant entryways for carriages, which neighbor stubby blocked-off doors that must have been deemed too low for human use and decommissioned. But at least these still seem to work...

Antique (or just really old) door knockers

After walking around on foot and dodging all the dog poop on the sidewalks, you may wonder where all the parks are. Besides Parc de Blossac, most of the grassy spaces are hidden within courtyards and gardens behind the walls of formerly aristocratic homes (which have since been converted to apartments). However, occasionally you think you are walking into a parking area behind a building and you end up here...

The truth is that it is easier to find the parks using Google's satellite view than by walking around. Some parks are right in your face, but with entrances that are locked. This park looks great on Google. Unfortunately, it is completely private. Maybe they didn't want to deal with the dog poop (yes, that's the same link as before.  It's just really funny).

La Cocotte Gets a Makeover

You may remember the story of how we acquired this indispensable piece of cookware, which we have used virtually every day since. We have two cast iron pieces at home in the States: one is a vintage country-style cast iron pan from Jefe's family. As our good friend Eric has impressed upon us, nothing will ever come close to this vintage pan (one word: cornbread); if you find a cast iron pan in good condition, treasure it and it will last forever. Even a pan in bad condition can often be restored.

Our other cast iron piece is a 9inch Le Creuset iron-handle skillet. The Le Creuset skillet (which we bought after trying out Trevor's) is another excellent piece of cookware; it's enamelling is silky smooth and remarkably easy to clean. And this is why we were so enthusiastic over finding a new Le Creuset piece for so cheap (a new one would have been prohibitively expensive).

It might seem like we are making a big deal out of nothing, but the Le Creuset brand has a rich history and is a highly respected brand amongst foodies and chefs (and it's a must-have for many traditional French meals--the cassoulet, for instance). The cocotte was the very first product offered when the company started back in 1925. Our pot, which we picked up at a used furniture store, is one of the smallest and lightest versions, the 27cm (or ~4 litre) size (which is good because our oven and stove are quite small). The color is "flame" (one of the first, introduced in 1934).

The cocotte, an enamalled cast iron "french oven" (aka dutch oven) with a lid, is great both for stovetop and oven use. It produces wonderful frittatas and casseroles and risottos. We even use it for vin chaud. Some readers may remember that the first time we put it into the oven, we melted/incinerated the plastic handle, and had to replace it with a bolt from the hardware store. The bolt worked fairly well; we got used to placing a kitchen towel between our hands and the bolt in order to pick up the lid. One downside is that we couldn't put the lid upside down on the counter top. Another is that the bolt didn't really go with the whole Le Creuset aesthetic.

Well today, thanks to Jefe's brother and fellow foodie, Josh, the cocotte got a makeover...

before, and after

Now our little cocotte is perfect, both aesthetically and functionally (thanks Josh!). Originally, when we moved to France, the plan was to accumulate as little stuff as possible, and to assume that anything we did accumulate was going to stay in France when we went back to the US.

Yesterday, we both agreed that the cocotte is coming with us when we leave.

yes, that's a brand-name handle. don't hate.

Oysters

(Baked oysters with bacon and leeks)

Though we have yet to travel very far west of Poitiers, toward the sea, the piles of cheap oysters for sale may be the surest sign that saltwater is only a quick (high speed) train ride away. In the case of Poitiers, we could take the train in one of three directions to prime oyster country: south to Marseilles and the Mediterranean coast, west to the Bay of Biscay, or north to the English Channel. At the Saturday market, we have found oysters available from the first two locations, and since France is the largest harvester of oysters outside of the Far East, there is an ample selection in terms of size as well as origin. The South is comprised of one growing region, but the West contains four (South Brittany, Central West, Marennes-Oléron, and Arachon). Regardless of origin, oyster sizes seem to range from the size of your palm to the size of a saucer.

After being in the Midwest, living in the midst of such an abundant selection of fish and shellfish is not something that we will soon forget. The sheer variety, not to mention the nonchalance with which the fishmongers clean, prep, package, and sell this seafood makes it seem dream-like. For normal people like us, the reality of preparing and cooking fish is not a fairytale: there are a lot of new rules and a LOT of ways you can screw up (cooking it too long, not cooking it long enough, not knowing how to open the shells, not using the meat in time...remember the soupe de poissons disaster?). Nevertheless, we only passed up the oyster vendors a few times before we bought our first dozen La Rochelle oysters, a little over a month ago.

Since the oysters are so cheap and plentiful, we knew we would be eating them often. So, as soon as we got home from the market we went looking for a proper oyster knife. A good oyster knife is fairly dull, short and stiff with a thick handle. The local highfalutin kitchen supply store (think Williams Sonoma with a tenth of the floor space) sells lots of nice of knives and other kitchen tools, and they had a pretty serious oyster knife for sale. Too bad it was almost $40. We weren't going to have anyone over for dinner that we needed to impress, so we went to the grocery store and got a $6 knock-off (the bottom one in the picture). Since the holidays are when most oysters are consumed, the fancy kitchen store decided to stock a more moderately price $10 knife (the upper one in the pictures) that was a big improvement over our previous one (note the much thicker blade).

After watching a few youtube videos about opening oysters, Jeff went to work. The first one took around 5 minutes, with lots of grunting and swear words. Once he figured out a systematic, albeit still slow, way of opening them, the rest went much faster. This method is called the sidedoor method, and is better if your knife is sharper and thinner. The upgraded knife was stiff enough to open the oysters in the traditional manner, by attacking the hinge first and then working your way around the shell and cutting the adductor muscle that holds the top of the shell closed.

Wanting to truly taste the oysters, we decided to eat them raw along with some other hors d'oeuvres. Besides some toasted slices of baguette, there was butter with shallots, lemons, avocados, three kinds of goat cheese, and roasted beets.
The picture at the top of this post was our second batch of oysters that we decided to bake in the oven with bacon and leeks. It turned out really well, the creaminess of the sauce combined with the saltiness of the oysters and bacon was really tasty.

Of course the oyster experience is not complete (at least not in France) without wine (dry, white) or champagne. Guess where we went to get the wine. Normally we go to William to ask for wine that breaks the stereotypes of what certain wines are supposed to go with, but this time, he urged us to go the more traditional route for this most traditional of French meals.

While France has been harvesting oysters for hundreds of years and has a lot of regulations in place ensuring the sustainability of the oyster beds, there have been two cases of infections (one, and two) in the last few months which are wreaking havoc on oyster production in the Atlantic. Hopefully, the areas of oyster production in France not hit by these maladies will be able to meet demand. Actually, the slump caused by the infections has brought about a surge in harvesting, which will temporarily result in a surplus here. More (and cheaper) oysters for us! So we will definitely be trying them again.