Oh, dear me.
Well, here is the deal. Last night, while watching the municipal election results roll in from around France, I was pacing the room violently, sloshing the red wine in my glass as I did so, until worked up to a fuming pitch, I swore to myself that I was going to write a tirade of a post today.
And yet, I just can’t quite do it. Not yet, at least.
Am I angry/afraid/appalled that the extreme right Front National party made such a large advance over their numbers from four years ago? Indeed I am. So much so that I find myself slightly stunned and waiting eagerly for next Sunday to arrive for the final round of voting with a desperate hope for a “Say it isn’t so” moment.
Here in Arles, Herve Schiavetti, the current mayor, has the lead but with only 38% of the vote, while the FN candidate has a whopping 24%. Really? In Arles? Such a second place status was rampant, especially in the South of France and in nearby towns like Avignon, Saint-Gilles, Tarascon and Beaucaire, the FN so far has the lead often with just shy of the 50% needed to have won in the first round.
So, for lunch today, I knew just what to make. It is one of my favorite winter into spring salads but is also quite bitter. Parfait.
Endive, beet and blue salad
for 2 people (any more and you might have political disputes)
3 heads of endive, sliced into rounds and sliced in two
Top with:
cooked beets, diced
sprinkling of dried cranberries and/or golden raisins
a sliced apple for crunch
ample amounts of crumbled good blue cheese (I used a bleu d’Auvergne)
sliced nuts on top
Sweet mustard vinaigrette
2 soup spoons of Dijon mustard
2 soup spoons of a sweet vinegar
(I used a mix of crème de noix – aka nuts – and balsamic with lavender honey)
4 soup spoons of good olive oil
salt, pepper and herbes de Provence to taste
Whisk the mustard and vinegar together then add in the olive oil by two’s, adjust to your preferred consistency and taste.
To read an article in the New York Times on this subject (not the salad): please click here.
For those of you wishing to learn more about the background of the Front National party, please click here (and don’t miss the founder’s denial of the Holocaust and the current interest in deporting unemployed immigrants…*cough cough*)
To read a previous post that speaks of this party, please click here.
As for Ben and Kipling?
They have both made their point of view clear: “Wake me when it’s over.”
Just to balance out the amertume?
Here is the beautiful opening to the new collaboration between Bonobo and Late Night tales. The entire album is just wonderful…
Have a great week everyone…
PS. Thank you all so very, very much for your overwhelming response via comments and emails about Remi’s first story in National Geographic magazine. We both are extremely moved and grateful.
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P.S. For some reason, I'm not allowed to edit comments here. The name is "Michael PAULS" (a very fine and surprisingly amusing writer, along with Ms. Facaros).
Oh, Heather, surely you know?…..just travel a bit further South into Languedoc/Rousillon (Herve's great-aunt just died, so I suppose we have a house there, also, now) , and see what you find (if you happen to be interested in things beyond the scenery comparatively inexpensive real-estate)……
Take a look into what Dana Facaros and Michael Pals (they write for Cadogan) have referred to as "The Best Political Show in France"———the various dealings of Montpellier's Georges Freche and the UMP's (and, by extension, the Front National) Jacques Blanc.
Can we start with a popularly & regularly elected man who said that the Harkis (as you and Remi will no doubt know, those would be the Algerians who fought for French Rule in the 1950's) were "subhuman", and who was kicked out of the comparatively tame Socialist party for claiming that the French National soccer team had too many black players???????
South-Eastern France (however much I enjoy visiting there, which I've done regularly for twelve years) is a place I would never live in…..anymore than I would live in Mississippi (where I was raised for the first five years of my life (1960-65, approximately) before my parents left in disgust (and some fear, to be honest) and took us all back to Tennessee (where we're all actually from).
There's a very good reason Herve is an expatriate. Ask him about it, sometime.
Advisedly as ever,
David Terry
Looked at the recipe again. Lavender honey. Double brilliance.
Brilliant mix. I am going to try your salad, H. (Don't spill the wine, love. But do break the bread. Love and oneness.)
Heather, I think Ben and Kipling have the right idea – and I think your salad has just the right amount of bitterness, too. Sad to say I feel the same way much of the time when I watch the news here. Scary to think how much this shameful mindset still wins out in places all around the world…
Here's to brighter, more balanced days. XOXO
Heather, I just wrote a lengthy (for me….) comment and it has disappeared. Then I did a 'test' comment and it went through. Ugh!
Anyway, I'll try one more time. I saw your post after just finishing the NYT article on the elections in France and was also horrified and angry. I'm definitely in the "say it isn't so" mode right along with you.
Thanks also for the recipe, it may be our dinner tonight. I had a weekend of food debauchery in Brooklyn while visiting my son. Amazing ramen and pie, both sweet and savory, for breakfast two mornings in a row at a little cafe started by two sisters, aptly called "Four and Twenty Blackbirds."
This sounds about 'right' all round… There were shared looks of dismay around here last evening, while reading…
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It is scary to think about the gains the FN party made in yesterday's voting. Like you, I wait with great interest for next Sunday. On a much more pleasant topic, I bought the new National Geographic and Remi's pictures are amazing. The story about the boat is quite amazing as well. I shared your post with my son-in-law who is a budding professional photographer so he can see what hard work and dedication can get you. He is good, had some front page pictures above the fold for the San Francisco Chronicle, NY Times papers and for some of the outlets of the European Press Agency. But Remi's work is something very special.