Family Easter Tradition in France -A Table in Normandy

Though, Gérald and I, as empty nesters, will dine tête a tête this Sunday, our hearts are filled with memories of holidays past when our children were younger and we were surrounded by family. As with every celebration in France, Easter begins and ends à table.

Normandy is appreciated the most at mealtime when land and sea are perfectly marinated. Mamie cooks the traditional Easter favorite, leg of lamb. At the head of the table, Papie carves the tender meat fresh from a newborn romping on the rolling green hillside only days before. But back up, each course is an event worth savoring.

toasting champagne

First a toast of champagne and a light amuse bouche aperitif. Next act is naturally an egg based, a soufflé as light as cotton candy, followed by a platter of seafood: shrimp, crab legs, clams, oysters, bullot, something for everyone’s palate.

The main lamb course is always served with flageolet, a mini lima bean, that reminds me of the word flatulence and of course, bean jokes inevitably enter the conversation, sending the children into gales of laughter. Mamie always has a special dish for every family member, so a garden of vegetables -beans, broccoli, potatoes, spinach, tomatoes – also grows out of the linen tablecloth.

The children eat with the adults where they risk being reprimanded to sit up straight. However, I never notice table manners; my fork and knife are usually in the wrong hands. Softhearted Mamie excuses the grandkids early and they scamper upstairs to read Lucky Luke or Astérix comic books until called for dessert.

Each course is accompanied by wine, a light white Burgundy for the seafood starters and then a heavier Bordeaux for the meat and cheese. Every big meal is followed by a green salad and cheese platter with triangles of creamy local cheeses like Camembert and Pont L’Evêque.

family feast

Dessert always includes seasonal fruits, which in the spring means luscious strawberries. Like little elves, the children reappear to gobble up berries dipped in fresh cream. The kids magically disappear again when they smell the coffee brewing. Papie ceremoniously opens the antique Normand hutch and pulls out his bottle of Calvados offering, “a little taste.” True Normands swear that the fiery apple brandy aids the digestion. During weddings and christenings, the “trou Normand,” a shot served on sorbet in the middle of the feast, is customary.

Throughout each course a lively repartee of sarcasm, word play and arguments ensue that to a soft-spoken Norwegian American sounds like verbal abuse, but is only part of the French art de vivre and their love of language and debate.

Just when you think your belly will burst, Mamie rings a bell and the children race downstairs, for in France, bells, not bunnies, deliver eggs. As a token of mourning for crucified Christ, church bells remain silent from Good Friday until Easter Sunday. On Easter, when the chimes ring again, children rush outside to see the bells fly home to Rome, after dropping chocolate Easter eggs from the sky.

boy with Easter basket

finding eggs on the balcony

The children crowd onto the wrought iron balcony to find eggs tucked behind the potted geraniums and tulips. While they devour the chocolate figurines, the adults, too, savor a delicacy from the local chocolatier. Everyone moans of stomachaches and swears they will never eat again, but a few hours later after a stroll by the sea, we are à table again discussing the favorite French topic, food.

101st Anniversary- International Women’s Day-« Connecting Girls Inspiring Futures »

March 8 marks the 101st international women’s day! Bear with me guys, you may be weary about hearing about women`s rights, but when you’ve been the low ” man ” on the totem pole of life for so long you never forget. Unfortunately, in many parts of the world women are still denied equality in education, careers, income and medical care, but in my homeland, we have come a long, long way. So thanks guys for your support. This is not a rant about men, but rather a chest bump for women.

From childhood to motherhood to middle age from the Midwest to the East Coast to Europe, throughout physical relocations and emotional upheavals, each stage of my life has been shaped by women, who helped me make the transition.

I am especially grateful to the grandmothers I admired; even moreso to the mother who gave me life, then offered me to the world. To my sisters who taught me to give and take, forgive and forget, talk and listen, twist and shout !

To my college basketball coach, who dared me to become all that I could be.

I am thankful for female friendships spanning different generations, time zones and continents. From childhood, high school and college pals, part of the past that shaped me and connect me to my roots, to my French hosts and German teammates, who adopted me into their homes and hearts when I first moved abroad. To my international friends from Africa, Australia, Scandinavia –England, Ireland, Scotland, Switzerland and Other Lands I could never place on a map, who shared their stories and an understanding of their culture. .

To my noisy friends, quiet friends,

old friends,new friends,

black, white, brown friends.

To my tall friends, short friends,

big friends, small friends,

to my athletic friends, to my intellectual friends

to my coaching friends, my teaching friends, my writing friends.

To my blogging buddies, to my cyber pals.

To my girlfriends here, there and everywhere.

No matter where I settled, women of all sizes, shapes, and colors have befriended me. They helped me feel a sense of belonging not only to the farm community of Sterling, to the Illinois State college town of Normal-Bloomington, to romantic Paris, to Middle Ages Marburg, to international Geneva, but to something greater.

Merci mille fois to the women who shaped me, so that one day, I could become a role model to my nieces and the young girls I have taught and coached.

Special thanks to my daughter, my link to the future, who achieved her goal of becoming a doctor, a dream made possible in part, because of the courageous steps women took in the past to help pave the way.

So on International Women’s Day 2012, I raise my glass to the ladies ‘round the globe in my ya ya sisterhood!

Chillin Out in Switzerland During Europe’s Record Freeze

Last night as I walked down a boulevard in Geneva, a young man passing by nodded his head and wished me a « bon froid » instead of good evening. Can a « good cold » exist ?

frozen lake front (lake Geneva 02.10.2012)

ready for a swim ??

We are having a record breaking cold spell in Europe. Parts of the Danube, Europe’s busiest waterway flowing through ten countries, closed due to ice blockages. Canals across Holland froze turning the entire city of Amsterdam into an open air skating ring. Strong winds whip across Switzerland, reminding me of back home in the Windy City and open plains of the Midwest. Once a tough kid, I turned into a big sissy. I love winter, but hate cold. Even though I am part Norwegian, I lack the fortitude of my Viking cousins living up by the North Pole.

In Switzerland, a northeast wind, called the Bise, blows shutters off houses and branches from trees. Everyone knows I love to exaggerate, but no kidding, docks on Lake Geneva look like chiseled ice sculptures, cars turned to blocks of ice and steel train tracks froze halting traffic.

car or ice sculpture ?

The cold even penetrates the walls of our concrete home and I am literally chilled to the bone. My lips turn blue, my fingertips grow white and my feet never thaw.

Snow and ice, crunch and crackle, underfoot, as I trudge to school reflecting on childhood when snow drifted as high as window ledges. As it nips my face and stings my eyes, I lean into wind. I feel rugged like Grandpa Mac who cleared a path through five-foot high snow banks to light a the fire in the pot belly stove of the one room school house where my grandma first taught.

The howling wind rattles the window frames of my school room under the tiled, mansard rooftop in the attic of the one hundred year old international school, where I teach without heat. Each room has a space heater, but if we plug in more than one appliance at a time, the lights go out and computers shut down. My colleagues and I toss coins to see who’s turn it is to freeze. On my Ice Day, I wear a hand-knit Norwegian sweater, three sweatshirts,long underwear, wool mittens and a scarf.

Brrrh. I don’t want to leave my house ; I don’t even want to leave the bed. Like the ground hog who sees his shadow in stark sunlight in a cobalt sky, I long to retreat to my burrow under a down comforter and hibernate for another six weeks.

My joints ache ; my fingers and toes go numb. I think I am suffering. Me, with a layers of clothes, heated lodgings and a hot meal every night. I wonder about the unemployed, poverty stricken street people without a roof over head or food to eat. How do they survive the night? Many don’t. Already over 600 people have died in Europe from the extreme weather.

I stop grumbling about winter and feel grateful. I am gifted. I have a home.

more winter pictures of Lake Geneva, Switzerland: http://gallery.me.com/geraldlechault#100343&bgcolor=black&view=grid

Cross-Country Skiing in Switzerland Precarious for a Flatlander from the Snow Belt

If you grow up in Switzerland, skiing is a birthright. Like riding a bike, no one forgets how to do it. Forget the thrill of school closing for inclement weather. Here we have the ultimate snow day! We even bus kindergarteners up in the mountains for skiing during regular school days and better yet have a ski week vacation in February.

cross-country skiing in the mountains

No one here can believe I don’t ski even though I grew up in the Snow Belt.

Maybe if I learned to ski when I was a child, I wouldn’t be so afraid. Where I grew up in the flatlands of Illinois, only the wealthy could afford to fly halfway across the continent to the nearest mountain.

Besides, no American coach in his or her right mind, would ever condone skiing for a star hoopster. A teammate and I broke training one season and attempted to ski on a golf course on campus where the highest elevation was a two-foot bunny hill on the back nine. Heck, I still fell down.

I am not afraid of heights, but I am downright speed phobic. Anytime the velocity picks up, I envision my previous accidents, flying over my bicycle handlebars on a hill in Germany or careening out the window of an air born car off an autoroute in France.

I still might enjoy skiing if my back never cracked, my knees could bend or I had a solid base to stand on. Just try balancing on a two inch by 6 foot slabs with bad feet. With my high arches and ankle pronation, I might remain upright if I skied barefoot and hung on by my claw toes. Strong thigh muscles, able to hold the squat position also help, but I lost those when I quit doing defensive slides back in the seventies.

Ah the great irony of life! In youth, when I was nowhere near a mountain, my greatest dream was to alpine ski; now in middle age I live at the foot of the Alps yet break out in hives just looking at the slopes. However to appease Le Frenchman, an avid skier extraordinaire, I don my skis once a winter. But in the mountains, cross-country skiing is a misnomer. It should be called up and down skiing and the only thing worse than sailing 25 miles an hour on sticks, is flailing at top speed downward on a curve!

Oups !!!

Luckily on groomed trails in the mountains, they strategically prop bright red, two-inch thick, gym mats against trees at the bottom of curving slopes.

Hey, I learned to drive in Illinois, I am no dummy. As soon as I see the red warning sign in the distance, I stop, remove skis and proceed with caution. Then I put away my gear for another year.

World’s Oldest, Greatest Vice – Chewing Gum Good for You

As soon as I got my first tooth, I fell in love with gum. At my grandparents’ summer camp, I begged the boys « Got any gum? » Then I swallowed it as fast as I could chew it until my parents forbid campers from giving me another stick.

If gum chewing contests existed, I would win. In grade school, learning to blow bubbles with a pink wad of Bazooka rated right up there with sinking my first jump shot. As a teen, chewing gum in class on the sly, made me feel rebellious. Before college basketball games, I chewed bubble gum to psyche up before battle. After the French teacher caught me chewing gum in the language lab, when I supposed to be busy rolling my r’s, I learned to hate to parler francais.

Remember good ol’ Bazooka Joe, who became one of the most famous 20th century advertizing characters for Bazooka gum marketed just after WWII in red, white, blue symbolized USA and patriotism

But the joke was on me – I wound up living in French speaking countries. When l first moved to Europe, gum chewing was a dead give away to one’s nationality, a trademark of being American like the stereotypical baseball cap and tennis shoes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZXRaVBf0pY

But, Le Frenchman I fell in love with considered it a disgusting habit, so I used to smuggle gum in my luggage on transatlantic flights. Now I purchase packets of my vice across the border in France, where surprisingly more gum is consumed than anywhere else in the world besides the U.S.A.

In June 1944, U.S. troops first brought chewing gum to France along with freedom. However, French chewing gum wasn’t launched until 1952 when former GI, Courtland Parfet, introduced the chlorophyll green mint stick, called Hollywood Chewing Gum.

Now much to parents’, teachers’ and Le Frenchman’s chagrin, it turns out that gum was good for us along.

Recent US studies (where else in the world would analyze statistics about gum’s virtues) show that students who chewed a piece before exams increased the blood flow to the brain helping with memorization.

Chewing also calmly helps relieve stress and control appetite by reducing hunger.

The xylitol in gum helps stop the progression of cavities and inhibits the growth of bacteria.

Finally something taboo that is actually good for you. However, Le Frenchman under ze roof still finds my gum chewing revolting, so like the little kid at camp, I sneak gum into the house. The illicit activity only makes it more enticing.

One and Only New Year’s Resolution

Get organized.

I made only one vow this New Year. That way I figure I would succeed. I started early before the holidays. But it is not going to be easy. My sister, Sue, was born with all the organizing genes in the family, so I got short changed in the tidy up department.

Never mind. I do try. Like the experts suggest, change doesn’t happen overnight. Start simple. Clean one drawer.

I start with the kitchen drawer. What really precipitated the resolution was my husband coming home from work yelling when he sets off the burglar alarm, « Where did you put the alarm deactivator. »

A decade ago, after being burglarized twice, we bought a sensorized sound system. We once had four alarm deactivator buttons the size of erasers ; we now have one. Every time the alarm goes off, DAILY, we conduct a « scream and search. »

My husband says he changed the battery months ago and swears he put it in the kitchen drawer. Thus my quest for self actualization through organization begins there. Most people store eating utensils in kitchen drawers. Not me. I find twenty pens, ten pencils, five highlighters, three board markers, two whistles and one sticky piece of bubble gum. See my priorities. In addition to writing tools, I discover pocket notebooks, Post-Its, a card from my daughter written in 1990, and a party list for my son’s fifth birthday. But that’s not all. I also uncover a Swiss army knife, a bottle opener, a pack of Kleenex, a glue stick, a scissors, a piece of chocolate, band-aides, pain killer, anti acids, matches, a mini flashlight, my cell phone, gym keys and cash in five different currencies.

No need for me to pack a safety kit to store in the car for inclement winter weather, I’ll just carry my kitchen drawer along every time I go out the door.

When my husband comes home from work, he doesn’t say, « Honey, I’m home how was your day ? »

No. When the siren starts screeching, It’s the usual, « Pot ! (Pat in French) WTF did you put the alarm? »

The trouble is that as all women know, one magic drawer exists in every household. Whatever you put in it, disappears. My new year’s resolution is doomed to fail. How can I get organized, whenever I am not looking, the drawer fairy strikes again. Somewhere in the house, my little leprechaun has a stash of treasures.

Yet get this, FYI, the Frenchman found the alarm in his camera bag where he left it after our last trip to the states, so much for tidy kitchen drawers and New Year’s Resolutions!