French Appreciation Month - Day 6 - Bastille Day

Day 6 - Bastille Day

Hey, everyone! Happy Bastille Day! The French definitely have something on the Americans with this holiday. This is a passionate event celebrated passionately. The event, the storming of the Bastille, a fortress-prison, was the flashpoint of the French Revolution and the uprising of the modern nation of France and the beginnings of the overthrow of a monarchy. Almost a hundred people died in this event that threw all of Paris into a chaos of barricades and armed demonstrators and ended with the beheading of the governor of the Bastille and led to an epidemic of beheadings over the next few years.

Contrast that with America's celebration of Independence. We celebrate on July 4th. This date commemorates, effectively, a bunch of rich old white dudes putting quill to parchment. Now, don't get me wrong. The document itself is a passionate document that has world-wide significance and repercussions that are still feeling felt today. But the event of sitting down to sign a piece of paper kind of pales in comparison to mobbing a garrison while cannon fire is blowing through the crowd around you. And the actual date of the signing of the Declaration of Independence is not exactly clear - it could have been as early as July 2nd and as late as August 2nd.

In fact, most of America's holidays could learn a bit from Bastille Day. We celebrate passionate ideas and passionate people, but we don't really celebrate passionate events. Memorial Day originated with our Civil War, but the date was specifically chosen to avoid an anniversary of any battle. President Grover Cleveland picked a day for Labor Day to specifically avoid the more internationally accepted date for Labor Day of May 1st. May 1st? A good day to riot. 1st Monday in September? A good day to barbeque or get a last trip to the beach in before school starts. Even Veterans Day celebrates the signing of paperwork rather than a key battle.

It would be really hard to change the dates of American holidays at this point, but I suppose we could all learn something from the French and perhaps we could celebrate those dates a little more passionately.

Thank you, France.

French Appreciation Month - Day 5

Day 5 - Avez-vous du beurre?

Those of us who have taken a foreign language class, particularly the first year class in high school have somewhat mixed emotions about some of the phrases we were made to learn. I suppose if you believe the theory that the most important part of learning is actually learning how to learn, then it is not so important what foreign vocabulary you learn so much that you practice memorizing it. And it is not so important which verb you are conjugating, so long as you are learning about gerunds, past participles, present indicatives, and imperfect subjunctives. Somehow we got through 8 years of English classes without hearing most (or any) of these terms, but yet we are expected to pick them all up in the first semester of a foreign language. And, yet, through all of this, there are a few phrases that can lodge firmly in our minds, much like corn on the cob sticks in our teeth. Such as:

• Mi aerodeslizador está aparcado fuera. (My hovercraft is parked outside.)
• Los cactus púrpura necesidades de agua. (The purple cacti need water.)
• Welche Farbe hat der Bleistift (What color is the pencil?)
• Der Bleistift ist blau, nicht war? (The pencil is blue, isn't it?)
• Avez-vous du beurre? (Do you have butter?)

The last one stands out the most for me because of the story that went with it. Apparently, my brother didn't pronounce it quite right when he was asked to recite it in front of class. The original attempt to pronounce beurre as rhyming somewhere between 'sir' and 'fur' was dubbed as sub-par. By the time my brother was telling the story that night, the 'u' sound had been stretched out to about two seconds and the 'r' sound had been mostly swallowed and replaced with a weird sound that was somehow a combination of a gargle, a gulp, and a phlegmy throat clear. It was hysterical. So hysterical that about half the conversation that ensued between my brother and I in the next two days consisted of asking each other about the availability of butter. Every time it got annoying for our parents, we were able to say, "But we're learning French."

Flash forward twenty-odd years. We were at the beginning of a family vacation and my nephew was asking for butter for corn on the cob. Seemed like a great time to teach some French. Apparently what I think of as funny translates very well to the three-to-five year age group. We had my two daughters, my nephew and my niece all suddenly very interested in whether they might be any butter. Repeatedly. For the rest of the week. Hilarious for me. Not so much for the rest of the adults.

Thank you, France.

French Appreciation Month - Day 4 - Amuse-Bouche

Day 4 - Amuse-Bouche

The term "appetizer" has to be one of the more horribly named things. In the simplest definition of the word, it would mean "that which appetizes." Now think for a moment to the appetizer section of the menu of your favorite local American restaurant. (I hope for your sake you didn't just think about Applebee's) I won't even begin to argue whether the menu items you're thinking of are tasty - they usually are. But I definitely have to argue that they are not "that which appetizes." Bloomin' Onion? Delicious, but that's got to be 4 solid pounds of batter. Chicken Wings? Quesadilla? Fully loaded Nachos? Again - all delicious, but all heavy, filling plates that could serve as your actual dinner order. Sliders? That's not even trying - now they're just shrinking down actual menu items and serving them as appetizers! Maybe long ago appetizers used to be something different, but nowadays they are effectively meals in themselves. You have to wonder if the people who write up these menus even had mothers, because every time I order an over-sized appetizer off their menu, I swear I can hear my mother chiding me with "You'll spoil your appetite."

But if you are told there will be hors d'oeuvres, you instantly know it is something different. Hors d'oeuvres and cocktails implies something completely different than appetizers and beer (Did you want to get the large, 22 oz. beer for just $1 more?). Hors d'oeuvres implies a certain level of sophistication and might actually act to stimulate your appetite.

And the amuse-bouche is the cooler, hipper version of the hors d'oeuvres. The phrase translates into "mouth pleaser" which comes off as ridiculous in English. However, it works in French. I'm not sure quite why, but it has a certain, um, I don't know what. Somehow they've shrunk down an hors d'oeuvres, tossed a little exotic flair on it, saddled it with a name that would be hard to live up to, and yet pulled it off. Some razor thin slice of meat wrapped around a hunk of cheese burdened with an eight-syllable name, speared onto a vegetable you are pretty sure you have never seen before and drizzled with a chipotle southwest black bean pesto southeast peanut sauce puree? I have no idea what I just ate, but it was delicious. And the only way you could possibly ruin your appetite with those would be if you could somehow get the constantly circulating waitstaff to stand still long enough for you to pull more than one off their trays.

Thank you, France.

French Appreciation Month - Day 3

Day 3 - Kronenbourg 1664

To say that the French are not known for their beers would be an incredible understatement. However, that probably has to do a whole lot more to do with how much emphasis the French put on their wine and less to do with how capable they are as brewers. Just sheerly based on geography, you would expect decent beer chops to somehow diffuse into France from the neighboring countries of Belgium, Germany, and England. Before you argue how easily beer brewing could diffuse across the English Channel, I would point out two things: the French invaded the British Isles often enough to have picked up a thing or two; and with the Chunnel, we no longer require prospective brewers to resort to swimming the channel.

Still, there aren't a whole ton of French beers to choose from. Indeed, the coffee table book, "Beers of the World," by David Kenning doesn't even give France a whole chapter; they have to share a chapter with Luxembourg instead. Luxembourg? Under 1000 square miles and smaller than Rhode Island? Sorry, not a country. And even the Italians, Swiss, and Czech each got their own chapter. The British Isles got three chapters. But I would argue that quantity isn't everything. I rather enjoy Fischer, and several of the other French offerings could be better classified as barley wines, with alcohol contents of up to 13%.

And I can very strongly recommend Kronenbourg 1664. I will forgive you if you thought this might be a German beer, based on the name. I made the same mistake. But it is most definitely French, and definitely delicious. It is a lager, relatively light in color but sufficiently strong in taste. A hint of fruit and a reasonable hop content round it out. It is not a complex or challenging beer by any stretch, but there is nothing wrong with having an enjoyable beer that you aren't required to pay a lot of attention to.

Thank you, France!

French Appreciation Month - Day 2

Day 2 - French Fries

First of all, they are delicious. Do you think America would have the health problem it does, or if the documentary Supersize Me would ever have been made if they tasted like oiled turnips? No, it wouldn't.

And I don't care that everyone is trying to rename them, calling them country fries, or steak fries, or even "Freedom Fries." We all know what they are - you can dress them up all you want and put on airs, but they are French fries, plain and simple.

And before you get pedantic and point out that they are actually Belgian and that the French don't call them French fries, but rather pommes frites, I would argue that both of those points actually work to make the French more awesome for making French Fries as follows:

1. Stealing an idea from someone else and making it yours. This is what America is all about, so when another country does it, we have to give them props. We don't talk about the first company to come out with an MP3 player, but rather the company who did a better job marketing it.

2. Not sticking your country name on a product within your own country. Quick, start thinking about food products named after countries. OK, what's the worst product you just thought of. You might have thought of English muffins. Those things are awesome. How the heck do they get all those nooks and crannies in there? Swiss Cheese? Equally awesome. I have to assume they are using some 4th dimensional wizardry to place the holes in the middle of the block of cheese. Spanish rice? Way better than white rice. Which brings us to American cheese. WORST. CHEESE. EVER. In order to get worse, you have to drop down to "cheese food" labelled products. So, in France they are called pomme fritte, but outside of France, they are French fries.

International marketing and screwing over the Belgians at the same time? Double bonus points! Thank you, France.

French Appreciation Month - Day 1

I don't know quite when it started, but at some point I realized I was taking too many jabs at the expense of the French. Not that I think that anyone is above (or below) getting a jab, but it should take some work - it shouldn't just end up being an automatic reaction. I tried to switch it up into something more exotic and tried making fun of the Belgians for a while, but it was just a little too obscure. Plus, over beers it's hard to work in jokes for a government that makes Italy look stable.

I think it dawned on me that I had a problem when we were out to lunch, someone brought up the French, and the conversation silenced while all heads swiveled towards me, waiting for me to make an inane comment. To be clear, almost all my comments are inane. But they were specifically waiting for an inane comment about the French.

So, in an effort to break a bad habit, I'll be blogging daily for the next 30 days about "Things I like about the French." Your solicitations and input, as always, are welcomed and appreciated. I already have a backlog of a couple dozen things, but might need help rounding it out to 30.

(And, by the way, just because I am declaring French amnesty, please don't take this to mean that I am letting the French-Canadians off the hook. I'm not. I'm talking to you Québécois!)

Day 1 - Phoenix

Simply said, this band rocks. You can check them out here, but if you listen to alternative rock, they are probably already a familiar sound for you, with such songs as Lisztomania and 1901. Of additional note is their lack of an accent. Not that I think that all music should be sung in English, but since I can barely talk in a foreign language, their ability to sing in one is outstanding. And lest you think I am exaggerating, I was given detention for my horrible pronunciation of taxímetro. And then, eventually, a "D" in Spanish 4.

Just to prove that they really are pulling off something impressive by singing sans accent, here is a clip of them accepting a Grammy this year. (fast forward to 1:00)

Thank you, France!

4 out of 5 Marriages End in Divorce, says Apple

Recent results from Apple scientists indicate that 4 out of 5 marriages end in divorce. Additional studies showed that 4 out of 5 Americans were Republicans, that 4 out of 5 Americans were watching the World Cup, and something to do with iPhones.

However, in a dramatic turnaround, yesterday Apple issued a retraction:

Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many people were affected is totally wrong. Our graphs, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more things than it should for a given data set. For example, we sometimes display 4 people divorcing (out of 5) when we should be displaying as few as 2 people out of 5.

To fix this, we are adopting AT&T’s recently recommended formula. The real data remains the same, but the Apple scientists will now report it far more accurately, providing users a much better indication of the data. We are also making people 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see.

Two issues here are troubling me here:

1. Apple is somehow making shorter people taller. As a tall person, I view this as a threat.

2. Apple is adopting something from AT&T? That seems like bad idea. 4 out of 5 fanboys absolutely hate AT&T. However, maybe Apple can adjust the fanboy signal strength as well.