View through a Keyhole http://davidskalak.com/ <blog> en-us Nucleus CMS v3.50 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://davidskalak.com//nucleus/nucleus2.gif View through a Keyhole http://davidskalak.com/ Meta Resto Summary and Resto Summary http://davidskalak.com/index.php?itemid=60
And I cannot content myself with the mundane aesthetic bromide, "Well, I know what I like." I don't know why this sentence so grates my raw nerves. Is it that knowing what one likes is passed off as some kind of uncommon virtue? Is it that the phrase is implicitly completed by a self-contented "and therefore I don't feel it's necessary to learn anything more" ?

These Sunday-brunch thoughts aside, I have to agree with friend Sheila who says that it's much more fun to read negative restaurant reviews than positive ones. It's also more fun to write them.

Dei Frescobaldi Ristorante, Via de' Magazzini, Florence is not the worst restaurant we've been to in Europe. But it provided us the least value for the money.

Don't go. But it was pretty damn clean.






]]> Restaurants http://davidskalak.com/index.php?itemid=60 Sun, 27 Apr 2008 08:10:16 -0400 S.S. Minnow http://davidskalak.com/index.php?itemid=59
My point is not to link the plight of the castaways and our situation here in Aix. Really. I just want to relay a fun fact to know and tell.

The show's cognoscenti report that Sherwood Schwartz, who co-wrote the theme song, named the S.S. Minnow not after the fish, but after the 1961 FCC Commissioner Newton Minow. Angering Schwartz, Minow had called television "America's vast wasteland" and had give more programming power to the networks.

By the way, one of the original Minnows was found and sold not too long ago (sitcomsonline, gilligansisle.com )]]> Funny http://davidskalak.com/index.php?itemid=59 Sun, 27 Apr 2008 06:05:18 -0400 One quick pump only, hand held not too firmly. http://davidskalak.com/index.php?itemid=58
For example, I usually shake the hand of our gardien (superintendent), Monsieur F., when I see him.
But he's often engaged in some thankless dirty task.
And so there's a protocol here in France when you think your hand is not clean enough to shake.
You curl your hand down so that your wrist is at the end of your forearm. To do a virtual handshake, you then touch the back of your hand to the other's back-of-hand, close to the wrist.

But you have to see this move coming. Otherwise, you do what I did the first time, and that's to try to shake the other person's wrist with your hand. It feels pretty silly.
]]> France http://davidskalak.com/index.php?itemid=58 Sun, 20 Apr 2008 05:32:13 -0400 Looking for a warm subway grate in the Luberon: Part II http://davidskalak.com/index.php?itemid=55 area in Pertruis on their way to Lourmarin for a mid-February day of
bicycling, exploring and eating in the hills an hour and a half north
of Aix.

We arrive in Cadenet to start the bicycling. We'll explore
Cadenet, a dramatically situated hill-town (I have only a few quibbles
with the description provided by
beyond.fr.) We'll take a quick ride
up the road to Lourmarin and then through the backroads to Lauris,
Puget and beyond, before returning to Lourmarin to catch the bus back
to Pertruis and then a separate bus from there to Aix.

The route that the bus takes and these surrounding towns are mapped [out?] here.

This being France, where things must be "official" and where a dedicated red inkpad and accompanying stamp accompany every imprimatur, there is
actually an official list of France's most beautiful villages (plus beaux les villages). Lourmarin is one of them.

[Ed. note: So is Les Baux-de-Provence, which we will visit later in the spring, courtesy of French friend Michael. Yes, "baux" refers to bauxite, in case you were wondering.]

We pass an adventurous day cycling, half-riding, half-carrying our new
bikes up to the top of castle-topped hills, climbing the foothills of
the Luberon hills, and trawling through the vineyard plains. We
return to Lourmarin with a little time to spare before the bus arrives
at 5:50 pm. We drink two pots of tea --- it's starting to get cold
--- and ride quickly down to the bus stop at the edge of the village.
The tourist office had told us earlier in the day where to get the bus.

There's a bus shelter on one side of the street and road signs that
point to Cadenet (where we got off the bus on the way up) and Pertruis
(where we have to change busses to get back to Aix). We quickly fold
up our bikes at the shelter.

Right at 5:50 pm, we see a bus appear quickly from around a
corner. Unfortunately, the bus is going in the opposite direction.
It roars past us on the other side of the street. The bus doesn't
stop, and the bus driver, who looks angry and a little familiar, doesn't
glance left or right. He is down the road before we can fathom what
has happened.

Claire, as always, is the first to recover. "This is not good," she
says quietly. Claire knows from having studied the bus schedule that
there's not supposed to be any bus passing through Lourmarin at this
time other than the one that we want.

We whip out the bus schedule. Yep, that was our bus. When's the next
bus? Tomorrow, Sunday, 5:50 pm, some, 24 hours later.

(How could this have happened? We've since realized that this
particular bus visits several small villages before taking a different
route to Cadenet and Pertruis.)

It's mid-February. It's almost dark by now. We're quickly getting
chilly in our cycling clothes that we've labored in all day. We have
no lights on these bikes, by the way.

OK. How about a taxi to Pertruis where we can intercept the bus? We
have a list of taxi companies on our bike-route map. Two are far
away. We call the other two. Neither can come.

OK. I'll go back quickly to the tourist office to find out about
accommodations. I run back. The tourist office is closed.

OK. We stop a couple walking their dog. It's now dark. They know of
one guest house and a larger new hotel a short walk away.
Is there a police station here, incidentally? No, they say. We go to
the guest house, lugging our folded bikes on our shoulders. There's
just an intercom at the outside door. Do you have a double room,
please? No. We are full.

OK. We half-heartedly ask a couple of safe-looking tourist-types
getting into cars if they're headed to Pertruis. No one is.

OK. We'll just shelp to the larger hotel. We find ourselves walking
along a fairly large road under a clear cold sky. Our bikes are
getting heavy and awkward. It's a little farther than the couple had
thought.

When we get there, we see that it's a medium-small, decent-looking
3-star hotel with alot of dark windows. Ah, this looks good. Hotel Bastide de Lourmarin. A
glass-enclosed dining room is brightly lit from the inside. There's
just a couple of waiters there. Looks like we won't have any trouble
getting a room.

We peel our bikes off our sore necks and shoulders and ask the
receptionist for a room. We are full, she says. Full?! How can that
be? Well, she says, this is the Saturday following St. Valentine's
Day. Lourmarin, being known as a romantic, beautiful village, is a
popular destination for couples celebrating the holiday. (Recall from
Part I that the director of Claire's lab got married here.) Do you
know of any other places to stay, we ask? She asks if we've tried the
guest house. We have.

OK. No rooms. No busses. No taxis. No tourist office. No police
station. Is there anyone we can call? No, we can't think of anyone.
[Ed. note: We've since had offers.] At this point, I'm beginning to
wonder how late the cafes close and how early they open, and just how
cold it gets at night. I begin to try to think of a place where we
could keep warm in the interim.

We run into a bit of luck here. The receptionist takes pity on us.
She begins to make calls. But she can't find any place to stay
either. She calls some unlisted guest houses she knows about. They're
all full, too. But one guest house owner knows a guy who occasionally
rents rooms. I call the guy who occasionally.... I can only leave a message.

Eventually, she finds a hotel in Pertruis with a room available. I
make arrangements for the room. And, operating from a decent hotel,
the receptionist has access to taxis. She calls one. We wait 20
minutes in the reception area and the taxi shows up. We thank her.
(Later we write a note to the hotel manager, expressing our thanks to her.)

We glance at our watches. We realize the bus is supposed to leave
Pertruis to go home to Aix at 8:00 pm. It's now 7:35 pm. We ask the taxi driver if he can get
us to Pertruis by 8:00 pm? He says that he can. We speed in the dark
to the bus station in Pertruis. We get there at 7:55 pm, five minutes
to spare. Nice tip for the taxi driver. I call to cancel the hotel
in Pertruis. We're home in Aix within the hour and turn up the heat.
]]> France http://davidskalak.com/index.php?itemid=55 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 09:11:49 -0400 A Change is Gonna Come http://davidskalak.com/index.php?itemid=56
To my chagrin, the statue-people have commenced their (in)activity. This year one of the entries is a completely beige cowboy. Maybe he's supposed to be dust-covered. I don't know. Go figure. I don't find this stuff interesting in the least. My favorite statue-guy was a seven-year-old kid in an outdoor square in Regensburg, Germany, who was standing on a chair pretending impromptu that he was a statute-guy. He didn't expect us to press a coin into his hand.








]]> France http://davidskalak.com/index.php?itemid=56 Sat, 5 Apr 2008 14:05:55 -0400 Moto Mojo http://davidskalak.com/index.php?itemid=42
Both here and there, motorcyclists will often ride on the sidewalk. They'll ride on the sidewalk for a bit to find a convenient parking place. Convenient for them, not for pedestrians. Teenagers on motorbikes (often two on one tiny bike) will sometimes nearly run you down on the sidewalk. But at least you can hear them coming.

Moto's --- two-wheeled motorized vehicles --- trade off noise for fuel economy. But it's not as simple as that. The driver gets the benefit of the gas economy, but, in the language of social welfare economics, (s)he "externalizes" the noise costs. The rest of us pay by having to listen to the noise. The driver gets to pay for less gasoline. But he doesn't have to pay for creating a more hostile environment that is polluted by noise. So the rider is only assuming part of the social cost of motorcycling. In fairness, he should have to pay for the costs of his activity.

To my surprise, noise pollution was an issue raised by the recent municipal election campaign in Aix.

And --- to press the issue a bit too far --- even light pollution stems from motorcycles. Here's how it works here. Motorcycles will often pull right up to a restaurant terrace or cafe and park (on the sidewalk, usually), front-end in, facing the cafe tables. But at night, when the motorcyclist comes and goes, their headlight shines right in the eyes of the patrons sitting at the tables on the terrace. Typically, it takes the motorcyclist a little while to get settled, and during that time people are blinded by the light. On our main street, Cours Mirabeau, we've taken a minute to stand with our backs to a particularly slow-settling motorcyclist to block the exposure of two old women who were obviously disturbed by his hostile beam.

]]> France http://davidskalak.com/index.php?itemid=42 Sat, 5 Apr 2008 12:56:50 -0400 Looking for a warm subway grate in the Luberon: Part I, Aix-Pertruis http://davidskalak.com/index.php?itemid=52
We decided to head up there in the third week of February for some bicycling on a Saturday. It was cold in the evenings, but almost warm during the day. Claire has found a bike route in this hilly Luberon region. We're trying out our new BikeFridays, our fabulous new folding bikes from Oregon. We don't have a car, so we have to take the bus. It doesn't run very often, but it does go right where we want to go, about an hour and a half away in bus time.

So we ride our bikes to the Aix bus station at 8:00 am on a Saturday and find the right bus. On the wide but dirty sidewalk next to the bus we fold up our bikes and put them in the custom plastic carrying bags with a shoulder strap. (Each bike can also be broken down to fit in a single suitcase, but it takes a while to pack and unpack them. We're just doing what the BikeFriday folks call the "quick-fold" today, for this short haul.)

Since we never take the bus in the US, I don't know how baggage works, but here there are large baggage compartments underneath the bus where passengers themselves are responsible for depositing their luggage. (And presumably for removing only their own luggage.) I climb into the compartment so that I can put the bikes well out of the way of any baggage other folks may be toting. Claire lifts and hands me the bikes, one-by-one, I stow them, and I climb out with the stiff difficulty accorded to 50-year olds who never stretch and therefore can't. We close the compartment doors so the bikes are less apt to disappear when we are sitting on the bus.

After all this, the busdriver steps down off the bus and tosses an apple core onto the litter-strewn embankment behind where we've been folding up our bikes. He wags his right index finger at us. Oh, no, my heart sinks a little, there's a problem with our taking our new folding bikes on the bus, and we invested in them in part for this very purpose. (You don't merely buy these bikes; you invest in them.)

"This bus goes to Apt," he informs us, in garbled Provencal working-class French.

But we have done our homework, careful and experienced roadies that we are.

"Yes, we know. We are going to Cadenet," we say, in second-grade French. Cadenet is on his route to Apt. The plan is to ride the bikes from Cadenet to Lourmarin and then tour around Lourmarin on the route Claire has found. We'll then take the bus back to Aix from Lourmarin late that afternoon.

The driver shrugs, saying nothing. I look at the other passenger waiting with us on the sidewalk, an older North African man. We in turn shrug at each other. Claire and I are almost learning the art of conversing in France through gestures. A finger wag. A shrug. A shrug back.

We board the bus. The fare is surprisingly cheap. Like 2 euros ($3) each for a trip that lasts over an hour. The busdriver takes out a little book and to our amazement commences to write out in longhand a receipt. "Bus Receipt Form 63b. To Cadenet, from Aix, 2 passengers, 4 euros, February 18, ..." The busdriver has his small dog leashed on the seat immediately behind him. While he's filling out our receipt, we ask the name of the dog. The response sounds something like Tippy. We greet might-be-Tippy. Tippy is happy to see people but seems a little nervous to us. The busdriver turns out to be a little heavy on the brakes.

Those of you on the friends and family plan may recall photos of Pertruis, a picturesque village. Pertruis comes before Cadenet on this route, and the bus stops in Pertruis at the railroad station. It's across the street from a regional vintners' cooperative. Big tanker trucks, presumably full of grape juice, pull up there. The busdriver turns off the engine. He and something-like-Tippy get out and disappear down a bushy path off the parking lot of the cooperative. We look at the other passengers sitting with us on the bus and exchange shrugs.




]]> France http://davidskalak.com/index.php?itemid=52 Sun, 30 Mar 2008 08:38:58 -0400 Out of the mouths of Daves http://davidskalak.com/index.php?itemid=51
I ask for a baguette. I sometimes ask for it "bien cuite" (well cooked), so the crust is crunchy. The French alternative usually is "pas trop cuite" (not too cooked). But I skip all that this morning.

A standard weekend treat for us is a long thin bread that is embedded with chocolate chips. From my non-baker's perspective, the dough is like a brioche's. Kind of like challah dough, except with less egg, maybe? Anyway, it's chocolate-y and only 2 euros 50.

It's called "un pain viennois [vee-en-wa] au chocolat".

I move to motion vaguely toward the pain viennois on the counter. As I do so I glance at her looking at me glumly and impatiently. Our eyes meet. I rise directly to her implied challenge.

I hear myself politely asking her for "un pain nicois au chocolat." Nicoise means the same thing here (at least as a cooking term) as it does in the U.S. --- prepared with garlic, Nicoise olives, tomatoes, green beans, and anchovies.

]]> France http://davidskalak.com/index.php?itemid=51 Sun, 30 Mar 2008 05:49:32 -0400 Thriller? http://davidskalak.com/index.php?itemid=49 have missed something, which admittedly is quite possible. But failing that, the cultural chasm between the US and France runs deeper than I thought. ]]> France http://davidskalak.com/index.php?itemid=49 Tue, 18 Mar 2008 18:30:43 -0400 Honey, Angelina and Brad are here. Would you get the door, please? http://davidskalak.com/index.php?itemid=48
(Ed. note: Ask me if I care. Have all generations been so concerned with the lives of celebrities? Isn't this excessive concern just a symptom of cultural dyspepsia? )]]> France http://davidskalak.com/index.php?itemid=48 Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:39:47 -0400