April 2023 Newsletter
Dabbling with my debatable skill in French, art and TV recommendations and pesto scones
To watch:
Dix Pour Cent
By now I think everyone has heard of Dix Pour Cent, or the English translation, Call My Agent, so this may not seem like the most profound recommendation. What if I beg that you try it?
This four-season TV series is set in a Parisian film agency and depicts the absolute drama behind the scenes of fictional world-famous French films and shows. It seems that more drama occurs off-screen than on camera. Iconic French actors appear as themselves with episodes dedicated to potential film opportunities, and each of them merrily take the mick out of their own reputations. As the series progressed, increasingly famous people made appearances (oh hi Sigourney Weaver!).
Dix Pour Cent was so successful, a carbon-copy has been made in English with the likes of Helena Bonham Carter, David Harewood and Dominic West appearing as themselves, so if you’re not a fan of subtitles, give it a try.
To read:
If you’re anything like me, someone who is a bit obsessed with food and sharing it with others, you will have had the dinner party fantasy – conjuring a menu of perfectly complementary courses along with the perfect guests who gush about your food for weeks afterwards. Rosie has taken that fantasy and made it into a newsletter. Twice a month, she sends out a dream menu depending on the season and even includes styling guides and time plans to aid your scheduling. Here you’ll find inspiration and detailed recipes to impress. It’s thanks to Rosie that I might actually have that dinner party at last.
Rachel is a travel writer, and these newsletters are short snippets, postcards as she calls them, from France. Her writing is so chatty and conversational it reads as though she’s sitting next to you in the pub and she’s describing some hilarious incident or that time someone skied into her on the slopes. And definitely bookmark this post for the best second-hand clothes shops in Paris.
To check out:
It was Nia’s spaghetti print that caught my eye when I stumbled across her page on Instagram. I was transfixed – how could such simple images, often of hands grasping wine glasses or forks, reaching out to a plate of tiramisu, or kneading a pimpled focaccia dough, speak to me so deeply? Why did my walls suddenly feel bereft without her art? Evidently Nia has her finger on the pulse of what it means to love food, and the skill to capture a moment in time, the eternal anticipation of reaching out to take that first forkful of something delicious, or clinking wine glasses before diving into a bowl of pasta.
I highly recommend her entire collection, and she has two new prints up including this tiramisu so go check them out. I know exactly where I’d put each of her prints in my flat – the almond croissant is perfect for the bedroom for instance, excellent motivation for breakfast – and she also does commissions; her bagel one left me with cravings for weeks!
Check out her website here and her Instagram here.
Hello! I write this from Paris (or at least a suburb of Paris, the Eiffel Tower is sadly an inconvenient pitstop so that romantic weekend will have to wait), and I write this propped up against pillows on the bed with two cats at my feet (one on top of the covers like a normal cat, the other one under them).
Anyway, onwards to April, French speaking, a two-week French class, and some very poorly timed public transport strikes…
April in Toulouse was limping along after the ramifications of strikes last month, and as a result the metro and public transport around the city has been having a minor crisis. Two weeks ago, full of nerves and anticipation, I left for my first French class at Alliance Française - one of the French language schools in the city - to find the metro was suspended for the entire day.
Naturally, the roads were clogged. Buses and cars jammed their lanes with the traffic at a standstill, rarely exceeding 5 mph. I found I could walk much faster, yet it still took me two and a half hours to reach my class on the south side of Toulouse.
I arrived, perspiring and apologetic, having planned my ‘désolé’ for my lateness, then when I burst into the completely silent classroom to see everyone working on an exercise, nerves took hold and my well-practised sentence came out in chokes and stammers. That is my fatal flaw when it comes to speaking French - I can do it perfectly well by myself, oh my goodness, on my own I am fluent, then as soon as someone dares to look at me I can barely string two words together. Maybe I should start handing out blindfolds. Or converse only with the lights off.
Alliance Française
Learning French goes with the territory of moving to France. There are various reasons why my French education slowed to a snail’s pace over the last two years, but the most evident is that I live and work in English. While I am grateful for Gaylord’s fluency, meaning I can say anything weird and he won’t bat an eyelid, and for my English-speaking friends here, it means my progress in French has chugged to a resolute stop.
There is no one to blame other than myself! I can converse in shops and cafes, I go to yoga which has helpfully taught me the names of all the body parts - a good start but there aren’t many conversations you can have about your thighs - and the rest of the time, I get by. However, there are always little surprises.
Last night at a bar, someone behind me called over ‘Excuse-moi?’ That I can understand, so I turned around, ready to assist in any way I could. This young man proceeded to say blublublublublu. ‘Pardon?’ I said. ‘Blublublublublu?’ he repeated. Turned out he was asking to use my table’s ashtray, and I realised only because he had to get up from his table to come over and point at it. So, let the French commence, and it had a great start with these two weeks at Alliance Française!