Le Franco Phoney

One of the things I love about living in the French Alps is the slow pace of life and a feeling of community and security. It sometimes feels like Haute Savoie is stuck in the seventies, with the same shopping hours and the popularity of fondue.

However, Annecy seems to be launching into this millennium, with a cupcake shop, the recent modern art cheese roundabout, and an explosion of Asian food restaurants. And the Asian food trend doesn’t stop there: Carrefour supermarket in Annecy now has its very own sushi bar. You can watch the staff make the sushi while you wait, or pick up one of their earlier creations from the shelf of sushi options.

Placed between the fruit and vegetable section and the fresh fish counter for maximum client exposure, the sushi bar was a hive of activity last week. Customers browsed not just the sushi, but the typically overlooked Japanese items that had previously only been for sale in the exotic food aisle. The shelves around the sushi, filled with miso soup, wasabi and a variety of noodles, were emptying as fast as the sushi.

I’m pretty sure a few of those customers were considering whether they could dunk the fish into melted cheese or drizzle Raclette cheese all over it.

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Did you know that French stamps come in three flavours? Since October 2011, there have been different classes of mail in France. I doubt that my monthly rental cheque — which, after I post in the box in Saint Jean de Sixt, goes to Annecy for sorting, then back up to La Clusaz for delivery — ever makes it to its destination within the 24 hours that the red stamp aims for, so I try to send it early. For years, I’ve been using the red ‘next day’ stamp without confidence. I could have been using the green stamp (called ‘lettre verte‘ or ‘ecolettre‘ in French), which offers 48-hour delivery and more ecological methods of delivery by using alternatives to airmail. I’m not convinced about the 48 hours, by the way. This is, after all, the country that delivered me a Christmas card in June and then delivered my own package that I’d posted three days earlier (accepted by the post office man and rejected by the sorting office).

But wait, there’s more.

The grey stamp is even cheaper, and offers delivery of up to four days. Just what sort of alternative are they using that would make it slower than the green stamp? Are they using donkeys? I just wonder if buying a grey stamp is what people do when they don’t want something delivered. Time to pay your tax bill? No worries: add a grey stamp and that cheque you’re sending will probably never be cashed. Don’t like your fiancée’s best friend? Not a problem: add a grey stamp to that wedding invitation and prepare yourself for that discussion — “Oh, you didn’t get the invitation in the mail? But I sent it a month ago”. Job done.

But wait, there’s more.

You must be as curious as I was to discover how much money can be saved by using a grey or green stamp. Brace yourselves. The red stamp costs 60c. You will save an entire 2c on a green stamp and a whole 4c on a grey stamp. Yes, brace yourselves for how ridiculously pointless these cheaper stamps really are.

Anyway, I must go: I need to stick this red stamp on my rental cheque and post it so it arrives before the end of the month.

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After weeks of warm weather, last weekend turned arctic. Normally, I’d rejoice at snowfall and its promise of winter sports, but not when I’m due to sit outside all day. A friend and I had reserved a stand — thankfully undercover — at the Saint Jean de Sixt vide grenier (French version of a bric-a-brac sale). Pictured is how the vide grenier looked compared with one a few years ago. The untimely snow forced anyone without an undercover stand to go home — apart from three food stands.

Rugged up and with a thermos flask of hot coffee, my friend and I worked that stand all day long. My friend had some great stuff, and people pawed the Star Wars masks with built-in modulators (just €5 each), although nobody bought them until the last hour. I had all sorts of goodies on offer, including kitchen utensils for 50¢, unused chocolate fondue sets and teapot/teacup sets, and ski wear from €5 to €10. How much did I sell? Nothing.

I stood outside all day long and I sold nothing.

I did, however, sell a Playstation2 for a friend, with controllers galore and games. It was marked at €80, and a man offered me €30 for the main piece alone. I said I’d take €60 for the lot, and so began the process of seeing who would give in first. He eventually walked away, then came back later and offered €50 for the main box and controllers “because it’s all I have on me”. Coincidentally, the lady that bought another friend’s Gameboy, which had a price tag of €30, showed me she had just €20 on top of the €5 for one of the Gameboy games. Meanwhile, my friend was being offered the only fiver that a lady had to buy a fully-functioning mini-organ which was marked at just €7. My friend explained that it was her son’s and that he wanted €7, and the woman — who had a friend with her who no doubt had €2 — walked away. But at the end of the day, somebody else bought it for €5 after my friend was resigned to getting rid of stuff. That person also showed the note and said it’s all he had on him. With a bank just metres away, it seems that showing an empty wallet is the French way of saying: “I’m not prepared to pay any more than what I’m holding up.”

As the day progressed, I sold five Playstation2 games for a grand sum of 50¢ each. One kid asked if they were free. Errr, no, mate, I know that there’s an art to talking down a price, but free is kind of defeating the purpose of paying for a stand to sell stuff at.

With the weather as bad as it was, the crowds were down, so nobody sold as much as they usually would, but as this was my first ever stand at a vide grenier, I was frustrated, and almost resorted to begging anyone who looked at a vegie peeler to buy it just to prove I hadn’t completely failed at selling stuff. It turns out I failed, but I totally won at exchanging stuff. A French girl I know from a shop was holding a stand. She had seen a few things on my stand earlier in the day she liked — a teapot and one of the chocolate fondue sets. When I stopped at her stand later in the day, she showed me a briefcase of knives. They were glorious, and I joked that I’d swap them for the stuff she liked from my stand. To my surprise, she said yes. “Really?” I asked. “Why not?” she said, and proceeded to hand me the heavy briefcase of knives.

So, although I didn’t sell anything, I’ve now got the sharpest knives in town! If anyone would like to buy some of my faff, come along to the next vide grenier in St Jean de Sixt because I’m hooked.

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A year ago today, I stayed up until midnight and applied to be part of Dots Dozen. It’s a scheme run by British brand ‘whitedot’ skis that gives twelve people each year the chance to get reduced-price skis.

I won a place, and promptly bought some skis from them. Normally, I’d go to a ski test somewhere in the French Alps and try before I buy, but my friends who had previously bought whitedot skis had nothing but praise for the quality and performance, and it was enough for me to take a gamble.

Luckily for me, the skis really did live up to their reputation, being responsive and absolute joys to use all over the mountain.

Tonight, twelve more people have the chance to join Dots Dozen. If you want to be in with a chance, just go to the whitedot skis website at midnight and get clicking! Good luck, and no, this was not sponsored by whitedot.

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Pictured is what happens if you answer to a French friend “Yes, we do need some potatoes.” That’s 20 kilograms of potatoes right there in my house. Small children weigh less.

Once a year, a man knocks on the doors of houses in Saint Jean de Sixt selling fruit and vegies. He’s not carrying them around in a box or anything like that. No, he has a large truck packed with two varieties of potatoes and three types of apples. He’s serious about selling; so serious, in fact, that my French friend had to buy two sacks of potatoes because “most people buy a minimum of 50kg” and the salesman was being nice to him. Potatoes have always been one of the staples around the Aravis, with dishes such as tartiflette and raclette rating as tourist attractions in La Clusaz and Le Grand Bornand. I’m pretty sure that the salesman was just being a salesman and if my French friend had said “No thanks – I only need one bag,” the man would have sold just the one. And at €1.80/kg, they’re not at any sort of discount.

But I’m not complaining. I think it’s charming that the only door-to-door salespeople I ever see here are either selling fruit and vegies in Autumn or furniture in Spring. It may even be the same man. They both have a white truck and look a bit rugged, and that’s the other thing I love about them: they’re not out to impress with appearances. They just want to sell their goods. Also, they don’t have any change. None.

One cheque for €36 later, I have two big sacks of potatoes and a whole stash of potato recipes to try out. The good news is the potatoes taste great (guess what I cooked for dinner last night). I can’t help feeling a bit like Bubba from Forest Gump, who can only converse about shrimp recipes. Replace shrimp with potatoes and I’m your girl.

What you’re looking at here is a Mini Jesus de Lyon (also available on a larger scale as Jesus de Lyon). How did Jesus get some pork sausages named after him? I asked a variety of French friends but none of them knew. So I turned to Google. Nobody there seems sure either. But here are two of the most common reasonings:

• The presentation of sausage, wrapped in string, is similar to Jesus-era baby swaddling (one comment said: “When you’re hungry you must be hallucinating”).
• “The sausage was made ​​in the late winter and traditionally eaten at Christmas.”

Either way, Jesus, who was known for turning water into wine and stuff, has clearly inspired the Lyonnaise: the French have turned a Jew into a pork sausage.

Now, to get entirely off track. Seeing the Mini Jesus reminds me of the Baby Jesus (or cheeses) scene of Kath and Kim – an Australian comedy show about a mother and adult daughter from the less affluent suburbs of Melbourne. Kath, the mum, wants a statue of baby Jesus at her second wedding, and Kym takes care of it:

Cheesy in more than one way, huh? Back to the Mini Jesus saucisson. If nothing else, at least I can honestly say: “Jesus is everywhere” when I walk into a sausage shop in France. In fact, Jesus is on sandwiches, in lunch boxes, and being served with cheese all over France.

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You know that saying: “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”? Well, that was me with cottage cheese here in France. That weird, lumpy stuff that I shunned as a kid and grew to enjoy as an adult was something I’d pick up on a whim at the supermarket in Australia or England.

The first time I felt that whim in a supermarket in France, I was surprised that it wasn’t on the shelves. I figured it must be out of stock, and I remembered to look for it on my following visit. The search for cottage cheese soon became an obsession, with me checking not just my regular supermarket, but supermarkets in all of Haute Savoie if I happened to be driving by. I was sure that the giant Auchan in Annecy would stock it, but I was wrong. After more than a year, I had given up checking random supermarkets. But I still kept checking on each visit to my local supermarket just in case.

Almost five years later, when I was picking up a few treats on the way through to a BBQ, my eyes were drawn to some green and white packaging, as if it were a glowing holy grail. In a moment that resembled the Tim Tam discovery (a huge gasp and hugging the Tim Tams), I shrieked “Cottage cheese!” in a thankfully empty aisle of Carrefour in Thônes. Yes, the supermarket that brings you Cathedral City Mature now brings you cottage cheese – Recette Anglaise (English recipe) style. I bought it and the next day I wallowed at home in the goodness of the lumpy, squeaky stuff. I ate an entire tub. The second tub was gone within a few more days. That was a few weeks ago. Have I bought it since? Nope. Why? Meh, I don’t miss it now that I know I can get it, of course.

My favourite French friend, who introduces herself as Lilly to non-French people to save them from trying to pronounce Aurélie, visited recently. She arrived in a blue and white-striped long-sleeved top — her current favourite. She brought a box of chocolates from Alençon in Normandy, where she grew up. She would have brought Camembert cheese, but I always rib her about it tasting the same as Brie. She goes all Normandy-proud every time I give her the bait. She knows I’m fishing for her to bite, but she can’t resist.

Anyway, this blog entry isn’t about Normandy. It’s about Frenchness. Or fashion. Or patriotism. Or maybe all three of those things. Because Lilly’s pride of all things from Normandy is what most of us typically feel about our home towns and countries. Is this why her white towel also has blue stripes? Like her top? Is it patriotism? She protested when I asked her, saying blue and white stripes are in fashion.

And Lilly might be right. We went shopping in Annecy. At H&M, I counted 27 varieties of blue and white-striped tops in the women’s section alone. Ten would be a lot, but almost triple that figure is surely overkill! Other clothes shops stocked similar tops, but on a much smaller scale.Is this merely a fashionable trend this year, or do the French truly wear blue and white stripes as naturally as they say ‘oh la la‘?

I think it’s a patriotic statement, but maybe I’m wrong. What do you think?

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Today, I was going to write about something completely different in France, but this TV advertisement came on and it annoys me so much that I had to write about it. Perhaps it’s just me applying far too much logic to a simple ad. It features top French tennis player Jo Wilfried Tsonga, and is one of three I can think of with him in similar situations, where he wants the last Kinder Bueno. Can you guess why this advert annoys me? There’s a translation below if you don’t understand the French phrases:

Translation:
Woman (thinking): I’m just a little bit hungry.
Woman: Good evening. The last Kinder Bueno please.
Shopkeeper: Someone has reserved it. How ’bout a fresh muffin?
Woman: That’s too much for me. What about offering the reserver these cookies?
Shopkeeper (looking majorly stressed, as if our mate Jo has a gun pointed at his head): I think he’d really prefer the Kinder Bueno.
(Woman turns, and Jo shrugs as if to say the Bueno is too hard to resist.)
Shopkeeper: What if you share it?
(Woman and Jo laugh like old friends.)

So what’s wrong with this ad? What’s right about it? Nothing is right about this ad.

PROBLEM 1: Who ever reserves a chocolate bar? Why does she even suggest the cookies instead of telling the shopkeeper where to go if he doesn’t sell her his goods?

PROBLEM 2: Why on earth does the shopkeeper looks so scared of Jo? Is he worried Jo’s going to volley a ball at him at close range? I mean it’s serious overacting going on there.

PROBLEM 3: Why doesn’t the shopkeeper have more than one Kinder Bueno? Do they not have more boxes out the back? Or another chocolate bar alternative that either of them would surely scoff down as an alternative if they like chocolate that much?

PROBLEM 4: Why why why why why is the woman so happy to share this chocolate bar that is rightly hers? She’s at the front of the queue, and I’ve never seen someone give up front-row seats for something just because the person behind them wants them. Had I been her, I would have grabbed the bar and done a runner before sharing, stopping only to stamp on both the idiot shopkeeper’s foot and the star tennis player’s.

Fancy some trumpets of death? Look no further than French supermarket shelves. Here, next to the Morille mushrooms, you’ll find the ‘Trompettes de la mort‘, or Trumpets of Death. Also known as ‘black trumpets’ in English, these mushrooms are apparently quite difficult to find, and if bought dried, taste a little like truffles.

Regardless, I just can’t bring myself to buy something that sounds like it’s going to kill me. Just looking at the bottle, I can almost hear those little fungi playing a muffled death march! On top of that, I just can’t get past that weird slimy texture of mushrooms that my instincts warn me against every time I chew on one. I’m anti-mushroom and proud. But perhaps I’m alone. Would you buy trumpets of death?