A la Brigitte Bardot and Butter

French food. French fashion. Butter. Brigitte Bardot.

When I think France, I think of skinny jeans and oysters, pale pink aperitiffs, crusty bread and jam. Of course, I think also of crossants and silk dresses, trench coats and full carafs with red wine tears dripping down their sides. I do not think of the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre; I imagine bustling Sunday markets and bearded mussels, the pop of corks and the soft crunch of my first pistachio macaron. I remember wearing red, from my head to my lips to my knees, for the very first time and the most perfect creme patisserie. France was a land of firsts--Goose liver to vinegar-drowned mussels; 1,000 dresses all lined up in a row for me! (...to try on, as they were organized by size during the famous--ahem, infamous--spring sales). (photos: Brigitte Bardot; Gallette de rois-King's Cake)

On food: My first trip to Paris was to visit my childhood best friend, who had studied abroad in Nantes during high school. I remember the broken plates at our feet, when we walked through the Latin Quarter and old, spankily dressed waiters smashed thick porcelin as evidence of their sacrifice for our business; the plates had no food on them (and thus, in my mind, no Parisian gold). I recall the heat, butter and hazelnut of crepes eaten outside of the Loivre (am I damned to admit I did not mind that the museum was closed the moment the crepe touched my tongue?). And the crossants, of course: flakes stuck to my hands, my chin, my lips--la buerre, the butter, baked into magnificent pastries I had read about, eaten poor imitations of, and wept upon (ok, perhaps the weeping arose from my being lost, at 16 and unable to speak French in Paris, but in my romantic memory the tears fell in tandem with my first taste of a Parisian crossant) (photo: sweet wine, Loire Valley).

I traveled to Paris multiple times over an autumn and winter when my boyfriend was living in Clichy, at the junction of the 8th and the 17th arrondissments. He stayed with an American family, the parents having relocated Paris, who ate 4 hour dinners properly dressed with bottle upon bottle of wine. Oh the wine! I recall a wine expeditition (yes, these do exist!) we attended with over 1000 wines to taste, where I never made it to the champagne (shamful), how lost I was in a rich world of reds I could never afford to buy, and where I eyed thick baguettes slabbed with butter, ham and cheese. I tried foie gras for the first time--and despite the rumblings it caused in my belly, despite the sad sacrifice made to bring this fine food to live--admitted a liking for the sweet, sticky, savory delicacy. Yes, my dear American friends, foie gras--the same name that made me shudder as a child, when mentioned by my father (who, let me explain to you, also enjoyed blood sausages and chickens feet). We slurped oysters, cooked our first mussels in white table wine, poached pears, dipped endives in vinegar and ate (a dozen?) galettes des rois (King's Cake), in a way aunts to the crossoints I so coveted (much bigger and filled with almond sweetness, but still of flakey, buttery beauty). I could go on, forever, about the food in France. The perfectly presented, to-die-for meal we had in the rural Loire Valley paired with a sweet, white Loire wine (a secret that has clearly not been exposed to the Americans since I cannot find this wine anywhere); French vanilla ice cream unrecognized by my American tongue; the cheese-Brie and Boursault-which I have (fortunately and unfortunately) located at my local Whole Foods.

What could make me swoon as much as French food? Nothing! Except, maybe, French fashion. Lately, this has become a fixation of mine. I have realized that my favorite pieces lie not only in the romance (and racks) of Anthropologie, but in a style very 50s and very French a la Brigitte Bardot. Skinny pants, nautical tops and dresses, round-toed heals, strappy sandals, thick hair scarves, red lips, bodiced gowns with full skirts, gingham and the staple trench coat. The sales of Paris, where I limited myself to one item (a silk mini-dress with Asian print), entranced me, as did the women dressed "to the nines." I felt swaddled in those swaths of silk, heavy cotton and linen--and yet so alive (or was that mearly the 10,000 calories I was consuming each day, filling me with bursts of energy, followed by long lulls each afternoon). Siesta-that's my next stop in fashion and food, as I recall the steak and leather boots of Argentina...

(photo: me in a French-inspired vintage gingham dress)