Getting into good habits early on

I recently read an article about parents overfeeding babies.  When I first realised I was expecting a baby, one of the first thing Bilal and I discussed was what we would do regarding feeding habits when the baby arrived.  Obviously, it is good for new parents to have aligned attitudes about things involving children.  We agreed that feeding habits would be consistent for the initial period in the baby's life, as it is important for babies to get the food they need to grow properly.  No diligent parents would want to leave their children malnourished.

However, we agreed that at a certain age, there would be divergence according to gender.  Ideally, if our baby had been a girl, the first expression she would learn would not be "oui", "non", "papa" or "mama", but "la moitié, s'il vous plaît".  As indicated by the book "Why French children don't talk back" by Catherine Crawford, we French know a thing or two about how to raise children.  We like to get our children into good habits early on and beauty is one of the primary ways I plan to do this with any daughters I have: - I don't want them to grow up looking fat and ugly.

There is all sorts of talk in the Anglo-Saxon world about how women are bombarded with unrealistic images of what women should look like, to the extent that they have tried to make fat women legitimate by introducing a "curvy Barbie".  Apart from the fact that cartoon (or otherwise not-real) characters are exaggerated in how they are constructed, I think they should be ashamed of themselves for encouraging women to get fat like that!  With any daughters I have, I plan to promote the skinny ideal to them so they grow up to look like a pretty Frenchwoman, not a fat and dumpy Anglo-Saxon woman!  Quelle horreur!

However, none of this matters to us at present, as our baby turned out to be male.  To me, my ideal situation would be for him to grow up with the suave urbane sophistication of a traditional Frenchman, but with all the ruggedness and muscularity of Bilal, who plans to teach him how to run the farm he recently purchased in the mountains to the north of Marseille, making visits to his family's farms in Mali where possible to teach him about farming in an extreme climate.  I have no doubt that Bilal will want to introduce him to La Savine's culture, which I admit I have some reservations about, but I know Bilal will be more than capable of protecting him.  I have no doubt that our son will be irresistible to women if he manages to acquire both French sophistication and Malian ruggedness!

Anyway, if he is to have all these things, he will need a large food intake.  My food intake is fine, as I have a medium-intensity exercise routine (not considering using the lift unless my destination is more than 20 floors away and walking as much as possible).  However, our son will need more than that, so I am thinking of how to expand his dietary repertoire beyond Bilal's chicken and jollof rice!  MDR!  French cuisine has plenty of options for accomplishing muscle growth with high-calorie diets: - there are lots of dairy, meat and fish products that have been discussed in previous articles.  There are also lots of nice healthy fats in the area around Marseille, most notably olive oil, which will enable him to fulfil his calorific requirements without putting undue strain on his heart.

Anyway, all that is a long time away and I am still getting used to baby stuff!

L'Occitane en Provence is now coming to St. Pancras International station

I was recently in St. Pancras International station: - regrettably, I had to attend to a business engagement in London.  Tee hee!  When I was there, I noticed that L'Occitane en Provence is opening a store in the station on the 20th of March (two days' time at the time of writing).  I thought I would educate my readers about this chainstore, which seeks to bring the finesse of Provençale culture to the rest of the world.  Given Eurostar's plans to offer direct services to Marseille next year, I am hoping that Provençal tourism authorities and Eurostar will use this opportunity to tie up with L'Occitane en Provence to promote the area as a tourist destination, perhaps in the St. Pancras International branch.

Me personally, I don't tend to buy from them unless I am buying a cheaper alternative for a business client as a present if the person in question is too unsophisticated to know the difference between this and the highest quality stuff.  Sometimes, this has been necessary, on account of not finding out in advance of my arrival in the UK that I plan to visit the people in question.  In terms of what I personally use, I will spend whatever money is necessary to get the finest hand-crafted products locally in Marseille: - I'm the bee's knees (meaning that nothing but the best will do for me) and I must always look my best.  However, this doesn't mean that L'Occitane en Provence's products are poor quality: - it just means they aren't right at the very top of the quality scale, MDR.

If, for whatever reason, one is not able to travel to Marseille to buy the finest quality local handmade products and one doesn't want to do mail order, then I just adore going to L'Occitane en Provence.  When I lived in London, I sometimes had to do this.  Sometimes, I was working very long hours (despite my instincts as a Frenchwoman that efficiency was more important) and didn't have the time to travel to Marseille.  Under such circumstances, my parents would often send beauty products to me by post, but sometimes things didn't arrive and sometimes I was away overnight (e.g. attending post-show fashion show parties) and therefore unable to pick up the packages as normal.

A Frenchwoman just adores verbena perfume from Provence!  As Mireille Guiliano said, "French women know one can go far with a great haircut, a bottle of champagne and a divine perfume".  Verbena perfume is exactly that: - divine (in the non-religious sense of the word).  The aforementioned woman also correctly said that we would never forget to dress up, even for taking out the rubbish: - added to my list of things to never forget would be my verbena perfume.  Mireille also advises caution about which perfumes to use in which circumstances: - of course, all this is second-nature to a sophisticated Frenchwoman such as myself.

I would also never be without Savon de Marseille, one of the things that make Marseille so sophisticated and without equal.  As L'Occitane en Provence explains, there are several criteria that soap must fulfil in order to receive the classification "Savon de Marseille", most notably 72% of the content being olive oil.  L'Occitane en Provence sells something vaguely related under its "Bonne Mère" label, though they have craftily worded some of the variants as "Bonne Mère Marseille Soap", presumably to get around the fact that it doesn't fulfil the criteria for Savon de Marseille.  I have no doubt that this is an attempt to dress an industrial product up as a small-scale hand-made product.  This is exactly what is done with Bonne Maman products: - they use packaging and a name to create this image, but the image they create is decidedly phoney.  If one wants to find the real thing, one should visit various provençale market towns.

I have a whole list of toiletries that I would not like to be without.  This is one of my reasons for my continued enthusiasm for travelling by train: - I like to have all my luggage with me and there are extreme restrictions on the quantities of liquids that can be taken aboard a plane!  Carrying around her lipsticks, perfumes, soap, shampoo, conditioner etc around with her is one of the ways in which dainty Frenchwomen such as myself get passive exercise that helps keep us dainty: - we don't drive around everywhere and keep them in the "trunk" (an American corruption of "boot").

In summary, L'Occitane en Provence's St. Pancras International branch will not sell things that are good enough quality and stylish enough for me, but I hope it will help bring Marseille and the provençale culture to the uneducated masses and inform them about Marseille (and indeed the whole of Provence) as a tourist destination.  Tee hee!

Aioli

After my negative article criticising our incompetent president, I thought I would write an article about something a little bit more happy.  One of the culinary products of Provence with an absolutely beautiful flavour is aioli.  Aioli has a flavour that is absolutely divine.  A Frenchwoman knows that only French cuisine is of sufficient quality to eat if one is the bee's knees.

There are various factors that go into this distinction.  We have very capable farmers, even if they are dinosaurs receiving far too much in the way of agricultural subsidies via the Common Agricultural Policy.  We have very finely tuned senses that can discern which ingredients are of the highest quality.  We have chefs that are very skilled at their craft, making food that is a feast for all the senses.  We have consumers that have finely trained senses that create a marketplace in which only the highest quality of food will be successful.

One delicious condiment that exists in France that goes into making our cuisine effortlessly perfect is aioli, a garlic mayonnaise.  Please note that this isn't the low-quality stuff in the bargain aisles of supermarkets made from vegetable oil.  This is the real McCoy, made from olive oil, mustard, garlic, egg yolk etc.

As I have been keen to point out in numerous previous posts, one of the reasons a Frenchwoman has such a dainty appetite (and is therefore effortlessly thin) is the rich foods she eats.  Real aioli made the proper way has an extremely rich flavour.

There is another variant that is commonly consumed in Spain, which is spelled "alioli".  From what I can gather, it is fairly common in the province of Catalonia (as well as the Balearic Islands and Comunidad Valenciana), which forms part of the French-Spanish border.  Catalonia's proximity to France means that it isn't complete garbage, but it is still nowhere near as good as traditional provençal aioli.

A little piece of information for people who are ignorant about French cuisine: - there is also the name "aillade" in existence.  In Provence, this refers to a garlic-flavoured vinaigrette, whereas in other regions of France, e.g. Languedoc-Roussillon, it refers to aioli.

In my beloved Provence, there is a complete dish known as Le Grand Aioli, which normally includes boiled vegetables (commonly including carrots, potatoes, green beans, cauliflower courgettes and raw tomatoes), boiled desalted cod (though other fish are sometimes used as well), boiled eggs and sometimes also snails and mollusks.

Many of the aforementioned ingredients are very typical of Mediterranean regions, e.g. olive oil, garlic etc.  

As with chocolate, a Frenchwoman likes bitter flavours in her food sometimes.  One example is olive oil: - when making aioli, it should never be the mild version, but the extra virgin variety.  This will give the aioli a lovely bitter and rich flavour.  Please note that anything a Frenchwoman doesn't know about cookery is not worth knowing: - a Frenchwoman knows that there are very few circumstances where mild olive oil (rather than extra-virgin olive oil) is the best choice.

 

One of these examples is when using it for frying.  Extra-virgin olive oil is a poor choice for frying, as it can easily fill one's house with acrid smoke.  However, mild olive oil is a good way to enjoy the benefits of olive oil without doing this if frying.

Another example is bakery: - it is possible to bake cakes with extra-virgin olive oil, but unless one uses a Frenchwoman's intuition to work out the interaction of the flavours, the cake might end up tasting funny.  Given its strong flavour, extra-virgin olive oil often overpowers the other flavours.  However, with a properly worked-out flavour combination (which only a Frenchman/woman is remotely capable of doing), extra-virgin olive oil can produce cakes with absolutely beautiful flavours.  A good example of this is a pastis-flavoured cake: - a recipe can be found at http://www.jujucuisine.com/recette.php?recette_id=73 .  I love all the Mediterranean ingredients, such as pastis, olive oil, almonds etc.

All in all, ailoli is one of those things that go into making we French inexplicably special.  So there!