Julia Child I am not

I have been enjoying reading "My Life in France" about Julia Child and her husband, living as ex-pats in Paris in the late 40s to 50s.  I know where she lived and the streets that she walked, but the identifying with her ends there.  She was a newly-married wife who plunged herself into Parisian life, learning the language quickly, and adored the shopping and French meals.

I am not there.

My speaking French still sucks, even after 18 months of working on it.  I shy away from the fresh markets because the overwhelming selection of fruits, vegetables, fish, meats, and cheese totally intimidate me.  I have a hard time asking for what I want, and am embarrassed about my child-like French.  I am not sure whether I am getting a bargain, or just getting "taken".  I know that not speaking French is the main problem.  I can't communicate what I want very well.

So, I'm afraid that much of my shopping is at the small little grocer's around the corner, or the bigger "Carrfour City" a few blocks away.  Neither are huge supermarkets, but the selections are clear and I can load up my bag with just enough to carry home.

I need to take a cooking class.  I have tried recipes from a French cookbook written in English, and have found some good ones that I can handle.  But when I sampled some "potimarron" soup (kind of like a pumpkin) and boeuf bourguignon at our last Bloom workshop, I wanted to try these recipes at home. Peeling the pumpkin was a bit of a challenge, especially with our dull knives, but it turned out well. By the way, all of their soups are started in the food processor.  No clear soups here!

Promising to make the "B.B" for Lyle, I went to the boucherie down the street and told the butcher, in French, that I needed 1 kilogram of beef for the B.B.  He smiled and brought out a beautiful chunk of beef from the refrigerator, cut it up, asked if I wanted a bone too (sure, why not...maybe that's the bacon part I am supposed to get?).  Price: 15 euros.....yikes!  Then headed over to my little store to buy some cognac and Burgundy wine (another 12 euros).  Add to that the mushrooms, veal stock, carrots, onions....well, that wasn't very much....but it was adding up.  All this for the two of us?  We needed to ask someone over to share it.  Frances and Steve could come Sunday evening.

The recipe actually was fairly simple.  I was a little hesitant about lighting the cognac, though, and told Lyle that was his part.  He did it with a match, as I did not want to spend another 10 euros for one of those torches.  Cheap and Cheaper were cooking!  Well, the fire from the cognac was tame, not flaming 3 feet high into our kitchen, just a little blue flame in the pot...

Mission accomplished....

It turned out great, except a little salty (did I really put in 2 tablespoons of salt in it, or was that my imagination?).  Lyle told me he would love eating it every week!

Not.

So, yesterday I thought I would try fish.  I found an easy recipe to follow, using leeks as a sauce, so I headed to the poisonnerie on Rue Cler.  I needed sea bass, which is "loup de mer" in French.  Looking over all of the fresh fish on ice, I didn't see any, so had to ask the fish man.  He pointed to a whole fish, which I wasn't expecting.  Nor did I want to cut off the head and fillet it.   Julia Child would have known what to do with that whole fish.  But my seventh grade cooking teacher  never taught me how to fillet fish, even though my mother did it often (my other cooking teacher).  I bought some salmon instead.

So.....I am a bit disgusted with myself that I haven't embraced this wonderful part of French life.  I guess I need to take the plunge and actually take a few classes before I go home.