Cassoulet: - a very naughty French dish (supposedly)

One thing I have noticed is that Anglo-Saxon women like to talk about "naughty" foods, i.e. ones that contain fat.  This shows a very poor understanding of how to eat properly.  A Frenchwoman does not go around thinking about forbidden foods and which foods are "naughty" to eat.  Silly Anglo-Saxon woman talk about "naughty, but nice", as shown in the advertisement below (whose saying was popularised by Salman Rushdie) for cream cakes that featured a now-mostly-retired washed-up soap and Carry On actress (Barbara Windsor, who played Peggy Mitchell in the silly trashy British soap opera EastEnders, where vem characters off of it don't neva talk wiv no proper grammar).

As Mireille Guiliano pointed out, a Frenchwoman doesn't watch much television, so I can't really comment too authoritatively, but anyway, I digress.  A Frenchwoman doesn't do this "naughty, but nice" group.  It is mostly true to say that a Frenchwoman does not abstain from any food types, not even fatty ones.  As a reformed baptist, I am aware of at least 10 parts of the New Testament which say that all foods are fine (Matthew 15:11, Acts 10:9-16, Acts 11:1-10, Romans 14, 1Corinthians 8, 1Timothy 4:1-5, Titus 1:15, Mark 7:14-23, 1Corinthians 10:23-33 and Luke 10:8 for the readers who are interested to look them up).  The only exception to this rule is when the foods are excessively sweet.  As I often say in this blog, as far as an impossibly dainty and sophisticated Frenchwoman is concerned, a dessert should only be as sweet as it needs to be to cleanse one's palate of the previous dish.  Any sweeter than that and it becomes increasingly less sophisticated.

Onto the main point of this article, ignoring the disgusting-looking cupcakes above.  A few days ago, I was contacted by a reader in Barcelona who said that though tapas were available, it wasn't always possible to find the rich foods that would enable her to eat like a dainty Frenchwoman.  I could have told her that cassoulet is vaguely similar to the Spanish Fabada Asturiana, but I don't want her to think anything is even remotely comparable with French cuisine, so I suggested that she visit France more often, MDR.  She said that France wasn't all that accessible, given the low quantity of direct daytime trains, mentioning that the night service to Paris was due for imminent abolition.  I replied by pointing out that earlier this month, RENFE and SNCF started offering more cross-border services this month (previously, the French TGVs only went as far as Figueres) and that two of the new destinations served are Carcassonne and Toulouse.  These two settlements plus Castelnaudary are rather blasphemously referred to as the Holy Trinity of cassoulet, a very well-known dish that helps make we French people as stylish as we are.  Carcassonne is accessible in 2h22m from Barcelona using the new service and Toulouse in 3h07m, which uses the RENFE S-100 rolling stock (notably built by Alstom, a French manufacturer, tee hee), which can be seen below in Seville's Santa Justa station.

All in all, it is very easy for residents of Barcelona to travel to two of the three locations where cassoulet is native to.  Cassoulet is a very, very rich French dish.  On account of its very rich flavour, a dainty Frenchwoman feels no great need to eat large quantities of it.  It is almost the case that a Frenchwoman can take a few dainty nibbles and feel full, savouring each nibble to the fullest, as I have described doing with chocolate in earlier postings.  I have been in Carcassonne and seen stupid Americans ordering four cassoulets per person (because they look around and see how small the dishes are and assume this won't fill them up) and then finding themselves unable to get beyond the second helping.  Still, at least most of them had the good sense to appreciate the beauty of Carcassonne.  As today's weather forecast was relatively good, I suggested a visit to Carcassonne with Bilal.  As the regular readers of my blog will know, Bilal is a solitary character and has therefore not always found much occasion to travel to other areas of France, so he appreciated the change of scenery.

The main ingredients of cassoulet are meat (e.g. pork, goose meat, duck meat etc), pork skin and white beans.  This is one pleasure that a Frenchwoman can therefore enjoy whilst being relatively free of Muslims and Jews: - being a reformed baptist who believes in the principle of sola scriptura, I refer to the above parts of the Bible when someone asks me how I can gain so much pleasure from cassoulet, knowing that supposedly forbidden foods feature so heavily in it (ditto Saucisson d'Arles).  For a few years after his conversion to Christianity, Bilal continued abstaining from pork and restricting himself to halal food, so as to avoid compromising his witness with his family.  After a few years though, he eventually stopped bothering to abstain, as he realised that it is a minor issue in the enormous gulf that separates him from his Muslim family members, though he avoids doing so in front of his family still.

Bilal tried cassoulet for the first time during our visit to Carcassonne today and he also gained an enormous amount of pleasure from the incredibly rich flavour, though this is not something Bilal plans to eat regularly.  The reason for this is that Bilal is an extremely heavily built guy and needs a lot of protein to fulfil his needs, meaning that rich foods of which he feels only able to eat dainty quantities are not ultimately in his best interests.  As ever, Bilal wore his tagelmust/chèche to Carcassonne and this provoked a few stares (I also got a few stares from foreign men not used to seeing dainty Frenchwomen like me, MDR).  However, this was a wise decision, as it was fairly windy and I felt a little cold, while Bilal was wrapped up comfortably warm.  Below is a picture of a Touareg man who appears engaged in thought.  This is not Bilal, but he can often be seen with such facial expressions.

Bilal and I enjoyed our trip to Carcassonne today and I am looking forward to several such days out with him on Saturdays in future: - when one is able to engage Bilal in communication, he is a very personable man with a lot of insightful things to say.  One weekday evening, I would like to show him how to cook cassoulet, tartiflette and all the other wonderful dishes that make we Frenchwomen impossibly perfect and thin: - he was not previously used to it, but he enjoys the culinary variety.

French Christmas dinner is more stylish than any other

This year, I ate Christmas dinner with my own family plus Bilal: - his stupid parents won't have anything to do with Christmas.  Granted, some reformed Christians had no time for Christmas either, viewing it as an extra-scriptural obligation.  Charles Spurgeon dissented from this view to a small extent, saying, "However, I wish there were ten or a dozen Christmas-days in the year; for there is work enough in the world, and a little more rest would not hurt labouring people."

Eating Christmas dinner (known in French as "Le Gros Souper" and "Lou Gros Soupa" in Provençal), I thought to myself about how stylish we French are when it comes to what we eat at Christmas.  Le Gros Souper is traditionally eaten before Midnight Mass (which we don't have, as it is too Roman Catholic).

A recent survey showed that the British Christmas dinner was the least healthy in Europe and the French Christmas dinner the healthiest!  See!  Even the British media can't help but tell everyone how impossibly perfect we French are.  We don't want to put rubbish into our bodies, but we really do go to town when it comes to preparing proper Christmas dinners.  As I was born and raised in Provence, we naturally had the Thirteen Desserts.  No!  I do not mean thirteen excessively sweet desserts such as cupcakes as some stupid Americans might be inclined to think upon reading this!  In Provence, we are far more sophisticated than that.  Sweet things are not completely off the menu: - I make mention of Calisson, a Provençal dessert which is made of candied fruit and royal icing.  As you can see below, they are naturally made in dainty sizes that are appropriate for French women with dainty figures such as myself.

For people who cannot get by without sweet foods, a Frenchwoman also likes nougat blanc and nougat noir au miel at Christmas.  As for main courses, we have things including smoked salmon, chestnut stuffed turkey, roast chicken and that delicious French dish Foie Gras.  Hopefully nobody was daft enough to think we Frenchwomen would go fat-free at Christmas!  A Frenchwoman loves rich foods like Foie Gras and would never consider low-fat low-flavour options!

We do enjoy some healthy options as part of a traditional French Christmas dinner though.  These include melons, oranges, apples, pears etc.  Nuts are also included, particularly in Les Treize Desserts.  The British and Americans tend to buy them in huge quantities and so they are no longer regarded as a delicacy like they used to be.  It is the same with fruit.  In the immediate post-war era, British children were content with things like oranges in their christmas stockings, but now they want the latest X-Box One, PS4 and Wii-U games.  I would refer them to the book "Why French Children Don't Talk Back" by Catherine Crawford to remind them of the fact that we French know what we are talking about in everything, even child-raising.

As you can see above, Les Treize Desserts tends to include that delicious Provençal bread fougasse.  When I visited Asda in Gravesend a few weeks ago to teach the chav single mother how to feed her children properly, I came across some really awful imitations of French bread, but I am glad that I am in Marseille with proper fougasse easily available.  I couldn't stand being away from real bread for too long.  I don't know how I managed to get by in London being away from all these stylish foods as long as I did!  A Frenchwoman just adores (in the non-religious sense of the word) fougasse!

Let me not forget another dish (discussed somewhat out of sequence I know) is aigo boulido, another delicious thing that results in me feeling homesick when I am away from Provence for too long.  We French do not like to waste food and this is something we do with stale bread.  The ingredients are stale bread, fresh garlic, olive oil, salvia and water.  The end result is the stale bread soaked in the delicious juices made from the other ingredients.

One French tradition I am not so happy about is le cacho fio.  This is roughly equivalent to the British tradition of the Yuletide log.  The reason I don't like this is its very clear links to paganism, especially as it includes a libation (the pouring out of an alcoholic drink in honour of a god/deity or someone who has died).  Yes, it mentions God's holy name, but it is too heavily steeped in the occult for me to take it seriously as a religious prayer.  Also, the idea of pouring out a drink for God is pointless: - firstly, he created it anyway and secondly, as Jesus has offered his sacrifice once and for all on the cross (as Hebrews 10 makes clear), libations are absolutely pointless.  The ceremony involves the youngest person present reciting the following words (who is old enough to talk, MDR): -
"Alegre, Diou nous alegre, Cachofue ven, tout ben ven, Diou nous fague la graci di veïre l'an que ven Se sian pas mai que siguen pas men." (Provençal)
"Soyons joyeux, Dieu nous garde joyeux, Cacho feu vient, tout bien vient, Dieu nous fasse la grâce de voir l'an qui vient, Si nous sommes pas plus, que nous ne soyons pas moins." (French)
"May we be happy, God keep us happy, [if] Cacho's fire comes, every good thing comes, may God grant us the grace to face the year ahead, whether we be nothing more, or whether we be nothing less." (English)

But anyway, apart from le cacho fio, everything we French do when it comes to Christmas is infinitely more stylish than anything anyone else does, even if French society has become too atheistic to remember anything about why we are celebrating Christmas in the first place.  I am so glad I am not celebrating Christmas in a decidedly unstylish country such as the USA or UK.  I remember the Christmas I spent in the USA on business.  Apart from the substandard biscuits and sweets at parties, I remember a disgusting drink called eggnog.  I was shocked to see a photo of an eggnog carton with French writing on it in Wikimedia commons.  It appears that my francophone cousins in Québec have regrettably fallen for some awful American customs.  Why couldn't they keep in touch with their stylish French ancestry?  Who knows?

All in all, a lovely traditional French Christmas, minus le cacho fio.  Bilal enjoyed it.  He has always been a solitary person and as mentioned, his family has little enthusiasm for celebrating Christmas.  However, he said he really enjoyed the company of myself and my family.  In the unlikely event we want something different for Christmas next year, we could ask him to cook, though as Mali has always been a majority pagan nation (yes, Islam falls into that category), there isn't really any such thing as a traditional Malian Christmas dinner.  However, some Malian foods sound lovely and natural, such as Meni-meniyong, foutou banane, foutou igname etc, even if they aren't as stylish as French cuisine!  MDR.

Remaining impossibly thin during the Christmas season

People have often asked me how I remain an impossibly thin during advent, the season to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.  They talk about all the sweet foods and hearty dinners they attend at this time of year, basically indulging in gluttony during what was traditionally a penitential season.  As a supporter of reformed Christian doctrines, I have no time for all these imposition of fasts, penitential seasons etc by the Church of Rome (I don't like the term "catholic", as that word means "universal", which the pseudo-Christian Church of Rome is not). 

The reformed Christian readers of this blog might have heard of something called the Affair of the Sausages, where Ullrich Zwingli protested against the Roman Catholic fasting during lent as being an extra-scriptural obligation, following which Christoph Froschauer hosted an event to eat sausages during Lent in protest.  I don't know which type of sausages they used.  I hope they didn't use those disgusting sausages that one finds in British "fry-ups", say Lincolnshire sausages or chipolatas (that one feeds to dogs); yuck!

Sausages are something that we French know how to make far better than anyone else.  As a sophisticated Frenchwoman, I only eat French sausages.  Being from Provence, the type of sausage I view as being absolutely divine (in the non-religious sense of the word) is Saucisson d'Arles.  It is an absolutely delicious sausage that has some origins in Boulogne, a town in the far north of France.  However, it was brought to Arles (the home of Jeanne Calment, the longest-living person in the world) by a charcutier named Godart.  Traditionally, it was drunk with local rosé or white wine, though the people of Arles would accompany the sausage with pastis instead.  Yum!

Anyway, back to the topic.  As said earlier, being a subscriber to reformed Christianity, I don't do penitential seasons.  As a stylish Frenchwoman, I am always seeking to have as much pleasure as possible, hence another reason why I don't dig penitential seasons.  So how do I stay so skinny?  Simple.  The same way I have always done.  By eating extremely dainty portions and only of food of the highest quality.  I was once in the USA over Christmas and when I attended parties, I would see fatties munching their way through mediocre sweets (known as "caaaaaaaaaaayndy" there") and biscuits (known as "cookies" there).  Apart from my dislike of hearing Americans murder the English language, it made me feel physically sick, MDR.

So how did I stay thin?  Simple: - apart from the fact that most American confectionary is simply too disgusting to allow between my lips (often on account of being too sweet for a sophisticated Frenchwoman such as myself), the strategy I use is as follows.  Instead of spending the whole evening munching my way through substandard sweets and biscuits, I restrict myself to one or two chocolates tasting absolutely divine!  Often, such chocolates were hard to come by at American Christmas parties, so I often used to sneak a bar of very dark chocolate into the party in my handbag, or perhaps something posted over from Marseille from my local chocolatier in Marseille, MDR.

On one occasion, one of my hosts noticed me sneaking a chocolate from my handbag and she was 'avin' the 'ump with me, asking me, "Is my cooking not good enough for you?  Would you rather be at Buckingham Palace instead of here?"  I told her it wasn't my fault she didn't know how to cook and exercise proper discernment about food, which resulted in her having kittens (another interesting phrase my mother taught me), which resulted in me just turning my back to her and resuming my conversation from which I had been interrupted by her.  So rude!  Thankfully, some high-class people in the USA mercifully invited me to their parties and they were sophisticated enough to import Belgian chocolates, so that Christmas wasn't all bad.

So what to do if you are attending lots of Christmas parties?  Apologies for the late nature of this advice, but one can use it on Christmas Day I suppose.  As mentioned, only have one or two absolutely divine chocolates.  If you are going to have more, make sure the portion sizes are suitable for a dainty Frenchwoman and if not, say, "La moitié, s'il vous plaît" ("Half of that, please"), if halving it is what it would take to get it down to a suitable size.  Just in case your host doesn't know how to cook and you are in an unsophisticated country like the UK, I have done a quick price comparison for Lindt & Sprüngli 90% cocoa chocolate: - http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/asda-compare-prices/block_chocolate/lindt_excellence_dark_chocolate_supreme_90_cocoa_100g.html .  The comparison mercifully shows that Waitrose is selling it at the lowest price at present, so what I recommend is buying this and secretly keeping some in one's handbag in case all the food is low-quality.

All in all, anyone following my advice (not just here, but throughout my blog posts) should emerge from Christmas and New Year no less dainty than before.  Merry Christmas everyone!

My new boyfriend

I have recently received e-mails criticising me for not being politically correct, given my comments about hip-hop culture, suggesting that I am old-fashioned (in spite of the success of my fashion magazine) in my views on trendy multiculturalism, totally forgetting that I deal with trendies all the time.  In my line of work, whether or not you like it, you have to deal with silly people who like to think they are the bee's knees because they hold fashionable views.

Well, I have got some news for such people: - there has been a change in my life.  I recently acquired a boyfriend who is a member of a very trendy ethnic group.

In the church I attend, our custom is for a man who is interested in a lady to approach her father for permission to court her. The father then asks the suitor to open his books to him, by which I mean he asks him to assure him that he is a suitable prospect for his daughter, i.e. he is financially stable, he can support a family, he is a spiritually fruitful man, he is diligent in his day job and labours for his church etc.  He also has to convince the man that he understands that courtship should be no longer than necessary for both people to make a decision about marriage and that as long as he is in a courtship with the man's daughter, he is to be constantly attempting to move himself to a decision on whether or not he wants to make a proposal of marriage.  If he can convince him that he is a sound prospect in all these areas, the father will then ask his daughter if he is happy to be courted by him.  If the answer is "yes", then he gives his permission and then he is at liberty to commence a courtship with her.

Being the impossibly dainty, glamorous, fashionable and stylish Frenchwoman that I am, I am very regularly approached by men.  Obviously now, my answer will simply be that I am spoken for.  However, up until now, what I did was I placed bulk orders for business cards with my father's contact details on (say 1,000 at a time with companies such as Vistaprint).  When men asked me out on a date, I would simply give them a business card with my father's details on and say, "Here are my father's contact details.  Direct your request at him.  If you get past my father, then you are probably somebody worth considering."  Sometimes, the man would persist and in such cases, I would normally repeat my answer.  With some men, I found myself saying, "What part of the phrase "contact my father" do you not understand?"  Up until now, the problem was that I was handing out huge quantities of business cards to interested men, but up until now, I haven't been asked by my father if I am happy to be courted by a man.  Obviously, I don't know if Daddy has been excessively picky on behalf of such a stylish girl such as myself, or if very few of the men I gave business cards to were serious enough and man enough to contact my father, or if many of them did, but were totally unsuitable prospects.

The full name of the man who has finally gotten past my father and claimed the much-coveted prize of being able to court a stylish and impossibly dainty Frenchwoman such as myself is is Bilal Ataubaq Ag Abdul-Khaliq.  In case anyone wants to know the meaning of the names, Bilal means someone who satisfies thirst, Ataubaq means handsome, beautiful, helpful, generous with got a lot of love to share and Abdul-Khaliq means servant of the Creator.  Ag means "son of": - his last name is Abdul-Khaliq, his father's name, because where he comes from, the father's name is often used in place of a surname. Bilal is a Touareg from Mali and is well known in the church for his extreme diffidence.  Although there are photos of Touareg peoples in this posting, none of them are of Bilal, as he was not happy about any photos of him being public and anyway, it is easier to just pick things of Wikimedia Commons.

I have been aware of Bilal's existence since he first started attending our church at the age of around ten.  He would come in all by himself at that tender age and he would be dressed in whatever hip-hop clothing was fashionable at the time and he had a strong preference for hooded tops.  The hooded tops would tend to have the drawstrings pulled tight, so as to show as little of his face as possible.  He would always sit at the back of the church in a slightly hunched posture.  If a female approached him and tried to start a conversation, he would simply ignore her: - cultural conditioning, I suppose.  Since the start of our relationship, he has made an exception for me, but otherwise, that is still the way he is now.  If a man approached him, he would reply to him in a monosyllabic fashion, though as time went by, if a man started a discussion with him about theological matters (e.g. the sermon the pastor had just delivered), it was possible to engage him in conversation.  The church could not and would not stop him attending the church services, but without parental consent, the church was unable to allow him to participate in Sunday School, which was a shame, as Sunday School might have made him less solitary.

I found out that the reason Bilal was always alone when coming to church was because he converted to Christianity in the face of extremely strong disapproval from his family.  His conversion happened when he was back in Mali: - he attended a church there, hoping to point out the supposed absurdities in Christianity and why only the word of Muhammad was accurate (*cough*), but his soul was soon won for Christ after a few weeks of attending the church.  When his family moved to Marseille, he searched out a church with similar doctrines (i.e. ours) and that is when he started attending.  One Sunday, the police turned up to take him home, as his parents had found out about his church attendance and falsely reported him as having run away (not true, as he would turn up on Sundays, stay all day and then go home).

His parents tried to stop him attending and even went as far as throwing him out of the family home.  He turned up on the Sunday looking very scruffy (this was aged 11 I think), as he had been sleeping rough.  One of the elders spoke with him and ascertained what had happened, took him to his parents' home, told them that he had several high-profile contacts in the police force and social services and threatened that he would have them arrested for dereliction of parental duties if they did not take him back.  They said that they would do so only if he renounced the religion that the Westerners had corrupted him with (a load of nonsense, as the pastor of his church back in Mali is a local man).  Bilal told his parents that he still loved them and, as far as practicable, was determined to honour them in accordance with the fifth commandment, but that he would openly disobey them to attend church on Sundays.  He also cited the words of Acts 5:29 ("Il faut obéir à Dieu plutôt qu'aux hommes" according to Ostervald and "We ought to obey God rather than men" in the KJV) and the words of Matthew 19:29, Mark 10:29 and to them.  The words say that whoever has left his family members for the sake of the Gospel will be abundantly rewarded in the future.  Bilal also added that if he had to sleep rough, he would, for he was used to harsh conditions back in Mali and reminded his parents that the family livestock would not last long in the very hot summer months without someone physically strong enough to take care of them.  In the end, the elder kept up his threats against the parents and his parents took him back in.  This I only found out a few months ago, though I remember the day he came in looking scruffy: - obviously, a stylish and impeccably-dressed Frenchwoman like me will not struggle to notice something like this!

About a year after this (age 12 or so), Bilal started wearing a tagelmust (aka a cheche), a head covering that Touareg men wear when they reach puberty.  The way he wears it, it only shows his eyes and the top of his nose.  For reasons of practicality and for the sake of blending in (he lives in La Savine, Marseille's roughest area), Bilal often wears hip-hop clothing (say a sweatsuit with a hoodie to obscure his face), though he wears a tagelmust and other Touareg clothing when this is reasonably practical.  In Touareg society, men will generally wear the tagelmust except in the presence of close family members and they feel shame in showing their full facial features to a stranger or person of higher social standing than themselves.  I am aware that for this reason, when teaching his Sunday School class, he will remove his head covering (as it is understood in our church that being a Sunday School teacher is a position of authority), so as to be able to gain rapport with the children, but he will only do this behind closed doors.  Being alone with children is a bad idea from the perspective of child protection issues, so he has a younger adult male perform classroom assistant duties during his class.  If someone knocks on the door, he will replace his tagelmust before telling the person to come in and he gets very funny if people come in without knocking.

These days, he is very heavily involved in the church.  Teaching Sunday School is the only "frontline" duty he has, but I know that he has many "back office" duties, e.g. preparing the elements for communion, ensuring the baptismal pool remains clean and is filled with warm water on the evenings when baptisms take place (our church is a credobaptist one), ensuring that the church's IT systems are well looked after, ensuring the electrical affairs of the church are in order, typing out letters on behalf of the pastor when he leaves a recording for this purpose on a dictation machine etc etc.

One other miscellaneous thing he is involved in concerns music.  My church recently released a CD with organ plus solo renditions of all the hymns in our hymnal and I bought a copy sometime last spring ago.  The first hymn on the CD was "Jésus mis à mort pour moi" ("Jesus put to death for me", a translation of "Rock of ages, cleft for me").  The photo below shows the rock that the hymn is believed by some to have been based on: - this is near a garden centre in Burrington Coombe in the British historical county of Somerset (a county regrettably composed of people deluded enough to think they are capable of producing as good quality cheese as we French).  Immediately, I was taken aback by the beauty of the haunting singing voice on the CD and as the CD progressed, it was clear that the singer had a range of at least four octaves.  I decided to look on the cover and see whose voice it was: - it was Bilal's.

I also learned of a story a few weeks ago where the pastor had to visit La Savine (Marseille's roughest area, which is also where Bilal has lived throughout his time in France) on account of a pastoral emergency (the wife of a church member who lives in La Savine dropped dead suddenly).  Bilal accompanied him as a bodyguard.  He dressed up in hip-hop clothing in order to blend in, pulling the hoodie drawstrings tight to hide his face, as is his custom.  Someone then approached the pastor to demand his valuables from him, threatening him with a knife.  Bilal stepped in front and politely told him to kindly leave them alone.  This didn't work, so the attacker lunged at the pastor with his knife.  Bilal picked him up by the front of his shirt and threw him a bit like one would throw a javelin.  The pastor's attacker then landed about five metres away and ran away, obviously scared and not willing to persist.

Last summer, we had a church day out one Saturday and we visited a small sandy beach (there are no natural sandy beaches in Marseille) that is just off the Avenue Pierre Mendès France.  At the beach, there is the Skatepark du Prado and a go-karting track, which the younger children who attend the church enjoy.  Part-way through the day, panic set in when it became apparent that one of the children swimming a little too far from the shore for comfort was getting into difficulties.  Bilal (wearing full-on Touareg dress and reading a book at the time) became aware of this and walked towards the sea, undressed down to his swimming trunks, swam out to the child in distress and brought him back to the shore.  There was rapturous applause upon the child's return and someone said to Bilal, "I thought you couldn't swim", to which he replied indifferently, "Well how do you think you rescue livestock stranded by flash floods in the desert in Mali when you are miles from anywhere?", before putting his clothes on and resuming his book.  Some people started crowding round Bilal to congratulate him, but luckily, the pastor stepped in and explained that giving him unwanted attention like this would be like shooting a mocking bird.  For those readers not au fait with English literature, this was an obvious reference to what Scout said about Mr. Radley in Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird".  My mother insisted that I read this to help with my English fluency, but quite why my pastor decided to cite from low-quality literature, knowing that we French are the best at everything, I don't know.  Anyway, this was the first time I had ever seen him even with his head uncovered.  He had these beautiful naturally curly locks of black hair (not the sort that gets knotty, more like a perm, though natural in his case), with a skin tone somewhere between white northern African Arab and black African.  The other thing that was noticeable about him was his extremely heavy build and enormous muscles: - I used to read silly girlie magazines that contained pictures of heavily-built men, but they all seemed rather scrawny by comparison to Bilal.

This brings me onto the next point about him.  Growing up, he laboured in the family business of being a herdsman.  Sheep, goats and camels were his specialism.  He is from the Timbuktu area, which is drier than southern areas, meaning that farming cattle is not desirable there (given how much grass they consume).  During summer holidays, we would not normally see him in church, as he would return to Mali to look after the animals (no easy task, given that average daily maxima in Timbuktu are above 35 degrees between March and November).  He would do whatever he needed to do, be this engaging in one-on-one combat with animals or people attacking his livestock, herding them to areas with food and water (in the mountains if necessary, of which there are some to the west of Timbuktu) etc.  When he arrived in France, he did well in his studies and went through the university system.  He now works as a rolling stock engineer with the Marseille Metro and he has the long-term aim of starting up a business as a high-speed open-access railway operator along the lines of NTV (Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori, the Italian open-access high-speed operator) and is taking steps to lay seeds for the fulfilment of this aim.  I have no doubt that this went down well with Daddy, although the fact that Daddy works for SNCF means he is unlikely to welcome the competition that Bilal's proposed open-access high-speed operator would offer!  MDR!  Bilal has told me that he is into online share trading and it is rumoured in the church that he is a very wealthy man.  I am not interested on finding out the precise extent of his wealth at this stage, as Daddy has already ascertained that his financial maturity is sufficient to start a family.

Anyway, the event concerning him I found most notable was when I was walking past one of his Sunday School classes in progress a few weeks ago.  He was giving a talk to some secondary age children about the Five Points of Calvinism: - remember, John Calvin was born in Noyon in Picardie, which is further evidence that we French are the best at everything, which includes producing theologians!  MDR!  I loved Bilal's passionate and theologically sound explanation of the doctrines of grace to the children and how he expertly dealt with all their questions.

Coming to the conclusion of this blog post, Daddy told me that several years ago, Bilal approached him and asked his permission to court me.  Daddy then said any black man who came anywhere near his children would suffer very serious consequences.  Bilal then said, "Sir, Marianne is under your authority and I fully respect that.  I can see that I don't have your approval now, but I am willing to wait until I do receive your approval.  Oh, and just a little diversion, don't bother threatening me like that.  I've lived in La Savine since I was 10 years old and for many years, I have had to fight wild beasts and livestock raiders in order to protect my family's herds.  If you think I'm even batting an eyelid at a threat like that, then you obviously don't know me very well.  However, as I said, I won't court Marianne without your approval, but I will wait until I receive it and I will work to earn your approval."  Daddy added that there were a few other instances where he asked between now and the first request.  In the past few days, Bilal approached my father asking to court me again.  This time, Daddy asked me if I was willing to agree to it.  I don't know him very well, but I decided I would at least see what he had to offer, so I said "yes".  Daddy therefore went back to him and said, "Bilal, you are 100% welcome to court Marianne.  There is nobody in the church who is more worthy than you to do so.  I would be honoured to have you as part of my family if this courtship results in marriage."

So there you have it: - I have my first boyfriend.  Bilal told me I am the type of girl he always aspired to court.  Conversely, Bilal is not the suave Frenchman I always dreamed of in my youth (Serge Gainsbourg minus the cigarettes is the archetypical example, I suppose), but I am open-minded.  A few days into the relationship, I am very happy.  Watch this space.

French lunchtime rituals

One thing that has been cause for concern as of late is the decline of French lunchtime rituals.  A Frenchwoman knows that rushing one's meals, particularly in the Anglo-Saxon style, can lead to what Mireille Guiliano calls "mindless eating", i.e. where people consume huge amounts and have become so distracted by things around them that they forget to concentrate on their food and end up consuming more of it, given that it has escaped their attention that they are consuming it.  A Frenchwoman likes to savour the moment and mealtimes are no exception.  The picture below is named "Pereza Andaluza" ("Andalusian laziness") and was painted by Julio Romero de Torres around 1900 or so.  I recall seeing it during one of my visits to Andalusia (known as "Andalucía" in Spanish and "Andalousie" in French), though Andalusia is a subject for another blog post.  Though it is a shame I cannot think of a similar painting done by a French artist about France, I think this painting captures very well the way a Frenchwoman loves to savour the moment and enjoy it, rather than rush around American-style saying "time is money, time is money".

The article describes people falling into American ways of working, i.e. rushing for a quick bite to eat and then wolfing it down in a couple of minutes and then resuming one's work.  It is very worrying that French women are falling into American habits.  If living like this, the only way to have an impossibly dainty figure like mine (or that of another quintessential Frenchwoman) is to starve oneself or take dieting pills or something else that is disagreeable to a Frenchwoman seeking to have as much pleasure in life as possible.  France needs to protect itself against American imperialism by keeping its own habits.  Yes, one needs to get a large amount of work done to maintain one's standard of living, but a Frenchwoman knows how to work efficiently, so that she isn't drawn into American habits.

But you don't know what is necessary to have a successful business, I hear people cry.  I do not run my workplace in the Anglo-Saxon style, though I must admit I am nevertheless a diva like Miss Anna Wintour, the British-born editor of the US version of Vogue, one of my competitors!  MDR!

At my workplace, we are not completely rigid about our working hours, as some people make French people out to be.  Obviously, if there is an important fashion show taking place outside of office hours (many of them seem to be mid-evening), then we need to make sure we are properly represented.  However, employees of mine who work beyond the standard 35-hour week tend to receive negative attention from me for not being competent and efficient enough at their jobs to get their work done within 35 hours.  I invest in various things to ensure that my employees can do this.  I send them on organisational skills courses to help them manage their workload and strategically work out what does and does not need to be done in the first place.  Touch-typing courses are a favourite with me as well, given that writing is pretty much what we do (not forgetting photography though).

Ok, so fashion shows require us to do stuff out-of-hours, but on a normal working day, we do not rush lunch or stay in.  French schools are known for having very long hours and some schools run from 8AM to 6PM.  When new employees start with me, just in case they have children, I give them a list of local schools that have timetables from 8AM to 6PM, so that we can observe proper lunchtime rituals the way Frenchwomen do.  In our premises, we have a list of markets and when they are on.

The market picture above is French, though it is in Cherbourg (a place with a much cooler climate, hence the coats), not my beloved Marseille, but never mind.  Anyway, regardless of whether or not it is a market day, we will normally start the working day at 8.30AM, leaving the employees with children half an hour or so to get into the office after dropping off their children.  If there is a market that day, we will take an hour for our lunch break (12PM-1PM) and have a light lunch, normally in a café on the edge of the Vieux Port: - when I say light, I mean light by French standards!  MDR!  This means we finish work at 4.30PM to allow time for combing the markets for the choicest ingredients before picking children up from school.  If there is no market that day, we will take a two-hour lunch break (12PM-2PM) and finish at 5.30PM (leaving half an hour for employees with children to reach their childrens' schools).  During the lunch break, we tend to eat at local brasseries.  I know all the restaurants in the local area and when it comes to the ones with the best food and atmosphere, I strike up relationships with them, meaning that they feed us a low price to my business (sometimes, good food costs less; a slogan for a horrible British supermarket chain) in exchange for regular custom.  Free meals is a perk I give my employees and if one is tough in negotiations with the restaurant, a perk like this need not cost the earth.  During these brasserie meals, we enjoy all the local culinary delights that Provence offers.  Such as what?  Bouillabaise for starters!  Corny pun I know, MDR!

Bouillabaise is probably the dish that Marseille is most famous for.  It is traditionally made up of a large number of different types of fish and is, for want of a better word (English culinary vocabulary is limited), a fish soup.  It is absolutely delicious and when living in London building up my fashion career, I found I needed to go back to Marseille every so often and get my bouillabaise fix!  MDR!

Pissaladière (a dish vaguely related to pizza) is closely associated with Nice, though it is fairly common in many areas of Provence.  Unsophisticated Americans might compare it to a deep-pan pizza!  Yuck!

Aïoli and olives are two things we like to eat as part of meals, though only the Provençal varieties are of sufficient quality for our palates.  Another thing we like to have as a side is Fougasse, that very Provençal bread.  Yuppies visiting my magazine's premises from the UK and USA tend to bleat about being gluten intolerant or having coeliac disease when this comes along, but I ignore their grumblings regarding their phoney yuppie diseases and order more!  MDR!

Did I forget to mention that we always have such things in local brasseries/cafés accompanied by Pastis de Marseille?  No meal in Marseille would be complete without Pastis de Marseille.  Anglo-Saxon visitors with inadequately developed palates tend to moan endlessly about its strong flavour, but I say that an inability to like Pastis de Marseille is a sign that one's palate is not sophisticated enough!

To conclude this blog, all I need to say is that lunchtime is a time for intense pleasure and no business objectives could possibly be important enough to sacrifice the pleasure a Frenchwoman, with her sophisticated palate, gets from eating lunch in a high-quality brasserie or café.

Readership

I have been closely watching the readership of this blog.  From what I have seen, readership is concentrated in a fairly small group of nations.

Not surprisingly, in first place is the USA, with 53.6% of pageviews coming from there.  Obviously, American women (who I assume have previously been stuffing their faces full of food) are keen to know about the immense wisdom that we effortlessly perfect French women possess.

Also, not surprisingly, the UK, my mother's homeland, comes in second place, with 26.6% of pageviews.  Apart from the fact that this blog is written in English, it is clear that Anglo-Saxon women are starting to recognise how effortlessly perfect we Frenchwomen are, hence why they are reading this blog.

In third place is Russia, with 9.2% of pageviews.  Maybe it is the population there?  I don't associate Russia with immense obesity, but then it is not a country I know well.

A surprising country is in fourth place.  One of France's former colonies: - Vietnam, with 4.0% of the vote.  In the CIA's 2008 statistics, France is shown in 108th place with 18.2% of its population being obese, with Vietnam appearing in 186th place (6th from the bottom of the table) with 1.7% of its population being obese.  Vietnam has been through a very unpleasant war, but it is fast becoming a prosperous nation and I'm not credulous that this statistic is the result of people starving.  Vietnamese women, I salute you!  You are among the few people who we Frenchwomen can learn from!  I am keen to hear how you guys remain so thin!  If any Vietnamese people are reading this post, please get in touch.  My e-mail address is mariannegaboriault@gmail.com .

The remaining countries in the list are the Netherlands, Germany, France, Ukraine, Canada and Poland.  I am surprised there aren't that many viewers in Canada (0.7%), but I'm not surprised that France's percentage is only 1.3%, because after all, we Frenchwomen are effortlessly perfect already and my blog is just teaching Frenchwomen to suck eggs.  A Frenchwoman knows very well that eating less is the best strategy for losing weight.

Indeed, I'm keen to hear from anyone who has any comments on my blog posts, be they positive, negative or indifferent, though I do fill with pride when I receive e-mails from people telling me that they lost loads of weight and became effortlessly perfect as a result of slavishly replicating the example of dainty Frenchwomen such as myself.  MDR!  Again, my e-mail address is mariannegaboriault@gmail.com and I'm interested to hear from all viewers of my blog, whatever their opinion.  Given that I am running my fashion magazine during the day and hunting the markets for obscure and high-quality ingredients and cooking in the evenings, I cannot guarantee that I will get back to you immediately or that I will respond to every single e-mail, but rest assured that I am interested in what you have to say, even if I might be virulently opposed to some points made.  So go ahead, I look forward to hearing from you.