|
601. Jenerator - 4/29/2006 2:48:47 PM Webfeet,
The Queen of Sheba is the quintessential French cake. I find it amusing and ironic that belle-mere was able to mess up something so traditional yet simple to make - I imagine that in her mind she blames our nationality (our inability to taste and our lack of real food) for the rejection of her gateau.
Ha ha ha ha
My MIL is a wonderful woman and despite her culinary quirks and idiosyncracies I am charitable with her cooking. Besides, I believe that all older woman have at least one great recipe in their repertoire. She insists on teaching me everytime she's down to visit. Last time she wanted me to learn how to make the best enchiladas this side of the border.
Ingredients - canned sauce, canned chiles, corn tortillas and velveeta.
!!!
I wonder what we will teach our daughters? 602. Jenerator - 4/29/2006 3:31:19 PM And since it's early and my brain is prone to random thinking let me tell you an amazing story about my friend's parents.
Dad [Jacek - the father of my American friend Dan] was a small boy with three siblings when Hitler invaded his country. Jacek's father was an officer of some sort and the family had been preparuing for invasion "just in case".
Jacek was shown where the family's personal weapons stash was hidden (in one of the walls) and all the kids new where the best hiding places were in their home. They all just assumed it would be easier than how it turned out.
Mom and dad both practiced a secret knock for the children so that worst case scenario, if they were split up, they would recognize one another by the secret knock.
Jacek's home *was* raided and the stash was found and the family heirlooms and jewels were sent to Germany. Their father was immediately taken into custody because of who he was and then the wife and children were shipped off to various camps.
Jacek was sent with his mother (wish I could remember where), and his sisters were sent to Dachau. That was the last they ever saw of each other.
Anyway, Jacek went on to tell me that he was in the camps with his mom for years and he watched with horror all of the atrocities we read about in our WWII books. He and his mom became emaciated and louse ridden. Children starved to death, and old men and women just died around them. Nazis treated them all with rude indifference if they were lucky, fatal hostility of they weren't. In total, he and his mom spent time in three camps.
It was hell.
Eventually, the camp he and his mother were in last was liberated and they found themselves in Russia! Once "free", they moved and hid like nomads among the people who wanted to help them. No family really reached out to them emotionally because all were still afraid of what might happen.
I cannot imagine what it must have been like for them - speaking a different language, depending on the mercy of strangers who may or may not be their enemy, not having had any souce of income and really not knowing if they were safe, ever.
There had been rumors of retaliatory killings and raids throughout the part of Russia they were in and so Jacek and his mother were more cautious and nervous than ever. They had survived the camps, they had survived starvation and disease - yet now, they faced the possibility of being recaptured or killed on the spot.
The family they had been staying with kicked them out for fear of Russian military intervention and so they gave them a loaf of bread and sent them on their way. They luckily found a sympathetic farmer and stayed with him for the next two months.
One fall night, as the farmer and his family sat down to dinner with Jacek and his mother, they heard footsteps on the porch. The entire family froze dreading the worst. Jacek said that he could taste his heartbeat - and then the secret knock came.
Jacek's mom literally passed out and he ran to the door!
There stood his father, noticeably thinner and with completely white hair. He had found them after looking over a year in Russian countryside!!
---------
I just cried and begged him to write down everything he remembered.
603. Jenerator - 4/29/2006 3:32:52 PM I forgot to mention that the family was/is Polish. 604. Jenerator - 4/29/2006 6:15:49 PM Webfeet,
I meant to ask you, how did you find this out about Maurice Sendak?
I have the copy of Where the Wild Things Are that my mom bought me when I was little, it was my favorite book. I had no idea how prolific he was or how intense he was.
Have you been reading this childhood classic to your kids and did it pique a curiosity in you? Or do you smart literary types always know who the geniuses are?
;-)
I would have never known about Sendak if you hadn't brought all of this to the table. It's fun - thank you.
605. webfeet - 4/29/2006 8:18:18 PM First of all, I'm extremely moved by that story, especially the part about not seeing his sisters again. Maurice often discusses the courage of small children. I think in that interview, which is all accessible if you google Sendak, he mentions Max's courage in "Where the Wild Things Are." The monsters were actually his eastern european relatives. I think many of them were killed. I say I think because those two thoughts are cobbled from two different interviews.
Secondly, that was a great subtext for discussing Sendak. It fit right into the emotional context of 'milk' and 'cake'.
Did maurice pique my curiosity? Not always. "Where the Wild Things Are" never really did it for me, to be honest. We bought "Gather Round' Songs from Kids and other folks' at Starbucks (that's what you get for calling me a 'smart literary' type. Im bound to disappoint you.) and on it Carole King, who does the music for Sendak, sang 'Chicken Soup with Rice.' To music, the lyrics really stood out. And by familiarizing myself through the entire video anthology of 'Little Bear' the themes stand out. There is also a little video of Sendak explaining how he draws little bear and I just saw him as a vital, sexy person all of a sudden. It took time.
But Roald Dahl? We spend a lot of time with him, too, but the same generosity of spirit never comes through. And he's quite a sadist. You feel like you've bit into a cupcake and are picking out the pins.
You know, I'm not in grad school anymore. I have a job but it's inside my head, so I don't know if that counts. It's up to us to generate ideas and keep discussions going since we no longer have college. That 's why it's great to have such a forum.
606. webfeet - 4/29/2006 8:30:37 PM Alistair, I thank youfor recognizing the comic minefield that characterizes my relationship with belle-mere. She figures so prominently in my novel, in fact, that I'm afraid I'm going to have to join the witness protection program--if it ever gets published.
As 'Odile' in 'Sleep Camp', she is thinly disguised as a cosmetics saleswoman at a "Marionnaud" (you must know it--but it's that perfume and cosmetics chain that is in every single city in france I've ever visited from the blue collar like Narbonne to--well, everywhere.) Obsessed with my diet, obsessed with outdoing me at every turn, BM is a kind of star in this novel; she is a champ at clobbering my spirit, but at the same time, in the novel at least, she can hold the fort together.
Fortune has presented me with a nice package deal this summer: a week in a mobile home at some fucked up lake in Lelandes with belle-mere, ta-ta, beau-frere and his Italian girlfriend, Graziana, who is an art restorer. And don't forget les cousins! Those naughty little peeping toms who eavesdrop on my phone calls and make fun of my tits. I think "big mama" is what I was called. You can imagine what is in store for me. And then, I have like a month in the alps alone with mylaptop until michel comes.
The only tragedy is that my laptop doesn't have internet.
607. alistairConnor - 4/29/2006 8:51:46 PM Les Landes -- one of the few French departements I have never been. Purely out of lack of interest. As flat as Kansas, with fuckin' pine trees everywhere.
Just think of it as raw material. Really, really raw.
What do you mean, your laptop doesn't have internet? We will find you a workaround. Every laptop in the world has a phone jack. If it's busted, get someone to lend you a modem, nobody uses them any more now they've got DSL. 608. judithathome - 4/30/2006 1:32:26 AM It was possibly the most awful afternoon I've spent with anysingle group of people in my life ever. Dimanche apres-midi in hell.
How wonderful that the in-laws can provide such amusement...to think, the bitch mother-in-law, trying to provide a nice dessert for the pretentious assholes who thought to bring the wrong flowers...I guess these ignorant people should be properly ashamed of themselves. What fools!
Have you ever thought how you might appear to them?
609. Jenerator - 4/30/2006 4:14:20 AM I remember when you told us about how belle-mere basically starved you to death at her place - dinner of salade du rien.
Make sure you bring treats for yourself when you're stuck in a trailer with the herd. You could even keep them hidden in a box of tampons in case their curiosity extends farther than you know. I mean, give them something to work for - ha ha ha.
Does she refer to you by any nicknames? I'm curious. 610. Jenerator - 4/30/2006 4:19:21 AM My grandmother (the one I mentioned awhile back) insists on knowing how much people pay for the gifts they buy her and she must know where they were bought.
This used to frustrate me but now I play with it a bit.
Wondering how far she'd go to know how much I spent on her one Christmas, I intentionally hid the price tags in with some nasty wet garbage.
After I went back home, she called to thank me again for the gifts but said that one didn't fit so she was taking it back to the department store - she named the correct one that was on the tag!
Neurotic! 611. judithathome - 4/30/2006 5:03:17 AM Which one? 612. alistairConnor - 4/30/2006 9:25:08 AM Ding!
(counting points here)
Did I mention that I met Belle-Mère? But I have very little to report on her. She delivered Webfeet to my door and barely took time to shake hands before leaving again. I was mildly offended, put it down to snobism (bourgeois chez les ploucs) and lack of curiosity and elementary politeness. I thought I might have tamed her, had she consented to stay for a drink.
But, to be fair to her, she'd just spent four hours trapped in a car with her DIL, and no doubt was eager to start the four hour trip home rather than spend another ten minutes in her company... 613. alistairConnor - 4/30/2006 9:29:01 AM One thing to bear in mind with Webfeet's writing is that it is necessarily slightly larger than life, for satirical effect, while remaining entirely plausible in the details. Evelyn Waugh comes to mind.
Thus, the culture-clash thing. She plays on the mutual cultural incomprehensions in a pretty deadpan way, as if she were entirely a foreigner in France and destined to remain so eternally... which obviously isn't so. (surely?) 614. Jenerator - 4/30/2006 8:22:07 PM Speaking of oblivious, yesterday I was driving around for thirty minutes looking for a Chuck E. Cheese that we had been invited to for a birthday party. It was way out in a town named Rockwall which is by Lake Ray Hubbard.
After driving up and down the street the map said it was on, I decided to call the place. I couldn't get any reception and lost the call three times. I circled a parking lot hoping to find reception and finally found it.
I was out in the farthest possible area of this parking lot pressing the buttons.... "Press one if you would like to hear information in English"... out of nowhere came a royal blue porsche. Its driver circled *me* while I strained to hear where the damned Chuck E. Cheese was.
Then the passenger motioned for me to roll down my window.
I did and looked at the couple.
"Could you move please!?" the man shouted at me.
My jaw dropped. Out of the hundreds of parking spaces available, he wanted the one on the outer rim (furthest from the store.)that I was half-in. 615. webfeet - 5/2/2006 4:14:32 AM that's really very funny.
616. webfeet - 5/2/2006 4:22:05 AM Alistair-- I knew Lelandes was going to be dull, but if I have a bag of books, some crack and my laptop I won't be bored. As far as the laptop goes, I did it deliberately. Ididn't want internet access so I wouldn't be distracted.
So, the larger more pressing question is who are we going to set you up with? I crossed out my sister, because she already fell in love with a New Zealander and it would be in poor taste to set her up with another kiwi. so soon, at least.
I know a really lovely brunette in boston who works for harvard, writing science articles. Green eyes, good bones, an even finer mind. How are we going to get you to a city? Any city. 617. alistairconnor - 5/2/2006 9:14:42 AM Good bones eh? Bring 'em on.
I'm in a city every day, my dear. And in the country at night. I am working out how to turn this to my advantage. She's got to live in Lyon. So we can meet for lunch, and so I can whisk her away for a weeknight in the country now that the days are long and the flowers in bloom in the spring, tra la. (but I must beware of the lazy man's tendency to shack up at her place during the week to save on transport, that's what killed my previous idyll.)
I am pretty much resigned to the fact that she's got to have children. Though this adds exponentially to the logistical complications, it hugely simplifies things on the psychological level, believe me. Also, with age comes wisdom, and the realisation that sex isn't a daily necessity. But a miraculous weekend when both are childless... I had forgotten about sex in the afternoon. It's the real thing.
Please bear in mind that I'm looking for someone to spend the next forty or fifty years with, obviously; but I'm (tragically) resigned to the fact that there will inevitably be some adventures on the way there. 618. alistairconnor - 5/2/2006 9:17:50 AM New Zealand men. Gah.
A beautiful, vivacious 20 year old neighbour recently spent a year in NZ, and came back with no firm attachments. This confirms what I've always known. None of 'em are any good.
Pimping your sister on the internet? Really! How could I ever look her in the eye? 619. webfeet - 5/2/2006 1:56:43 PM Pimping your sister on the internet? Really! How could I ever look her in the eye?
But she's spoken for, la salope! She would have been worth at least a donkey and a few euros.
I hope whatever femme enters your life, that she have really good horsepower on her little Renault...to make it up that cursed hill! 620. webfeet - 5/2/2006 1:59:45 PM Message #608
First it was the t-shirts, now it's the flower arrangements. Why that could rouse such ire is a mystery to me. You're like a child shooting your bows and arrows around somebody's lawn, hoping to hit any mark, anywhere. Why don't you cross over to someone else's yard and play?
This is a fiction thread created for entertainment. Not for some heckler in desperate need of attention.
|
