Pastis in the Summer

Hi Dad, As it's been quite hot here recently I've turned to having a glass of Pastis over the past few days. I was explaining to someone that there are lots of different brands and that there is many better brands than Pernod and Ricard. Can you reccomend a few brands of Pastis I can get in the US that are good? What makes a good Pastis? I'm also curious to understand it's origins and if it's always been a drink that is mixed with water? Finally, Absinthe is a very trendy liquor to mix into swanky cocktails these days. I've tried a few in the US and they are not really Absinthe since they dont contain wormwood. The wormwood-less exportable Absinthe seems quite similar to Pastis and is made by the the same companies that make Pastis. Is this a new phenomenon or have they always had 2 types of absinthe? Hope your cooling off with a little Pastis! Stephane

Chateau HAUT-SARTHES, MONTRAVEL ROUGE, a very exciting wine from a little-known AOC worth discovering


Stéphane,

During the 10 days we spent in California last month, both at your house and in the Sonoma County wine district, your mother and I drank several very interesting Californian reds, and I have to admit that some of the Rhône-type wines produced in the Dry Creek district are sometimes as satisfying as the “real thing” from Vaucluse.
But,as it is the case everytime we travel to California, when I come back home, I cannot wait to uncork a bottle of Bordeaux, or anything good coming from the Southwest of France.

It just happened that 2 days after our return to Chicago, I attended a very interesting wine tasting at one of my favorite wine stores in the Chicago area , The BOTTLE SHOP, in Wilmette, IL, whose very astute and decently priced selection of wines from all over the world, is organized by type of varietals. The Bottle Shop always offers some very original and not often found wines from lesser-known producing areas from France. Joe Alter, the shop’s very competent wine director is always happy to guide his regular customers in selecting one that would please their palate without damaging their wallet too much. A couple of weks ago he suggested a very cheap (under 8 dollars) Tempranillo-based Spanish red (if my memory is correct from Navarra) that proved to be the perfect comapnion to a roasted duck breast that evening.

The night I attended that tasting, the wines were from CHATEAU HAUT-SARTHES, from the area of BERGERAC, in the Southwest, not far from BORDEAUX, and more specifically their MONTRAVEL ROUGE 2005, a ve
ry recent AOC (Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée) since it was officially registered in 2001

The white MONTRAVEL had been a registered AOC for several years.
But strangely enough these very good wines are not only relatively rarely found on American wine stores, but also not even widely distributed in France where they are under-estimated and under-rated by professional wine critics.

Vincent Ehret, from FINE VINES in Melrose Park, IL, the regional importer of HAUT -SARTHES, came with the owner of that estate, the very knowledgeable and charming Monsieur Daniel Hecquet, a well-known oenologist who was very instrumental in obtaining the AOC label for the red wines of the MONTRAVEL appellation. Monsieur Hecquet owns and manages CHATEAU PUY-SERVAIN in the MONTRAVEL and HAUT-MONTRAVEL areas, a medium size property where tthe HAUT-SARTHES wines are produced.

I had tasted their very fragrant (perfect for summer picnics) HAUT-SARTHES BERGERAC ROSE, several times before this wine-tasting where it was served along the other dry white MONTRAVEL and sweet HAUT- MONTRAVEL, and it has become one of my favorites rosés when I have lunch at KIKI’S BISTRO, on Franklin St. in Chicago, my most pleasant unwinding event of the week every Friday. I also love to drink it as an ''apéritif'', before dinner while I am cooking a leg of lamb and ratatouille.
I also think that the HAUT-SARTHES BERGERAC ROUGE 2005 (60% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon and 20% Cabernet Franc exclusively from high-density plantation, hillside, estate vineyards) is as good if not better than many small Bordeaux. This dark-colored but well-balanced and soft wine with good body and good fruit is very satisfying with a wide spectrum of earthy bistro dishes, including lamb stew with black olives, boeuf Bourguignon, and veal stew Marengo. It is a very comforting wine on a cold winter day in Chicago.

Mr. Hecquet conducted the ‘’degustation’’ of his wines in very good English with a lot of very precise comments reflecting both his enormous technical and practical knowledge of wines and his obvious pleasure to talk about them, since he is very proud of his own production.
Creating new approaches and improving the methods for planting and harvesting, as well as the process of vinification per se, to obtain very remarquable wines reflecting the intrinsinc qualities of their terroir and the integrity of their winegrowers and winemakers have been his passion and quasi-obsessionnal objective during his whole life. A life that he spent, since he was a child learning to plant vines, in the vineyards and some famous chateaux of the Bordelais and Bergerac areas (Yquem and Figeac among them).
The man is totally immersed in his passion for the defense of good and traditional wine-making in the Bordeaux and Bergerac zones of production, and was at the avant-garde of the legal fight to obtain a new and less ambiguous classification of ‘’crus bourgeois’’ that should better reflect the actual value of some of these Bordeaux wines.
The 2003 classification was annuled in court in 2007. The new one should be published in 2009.
As I said, Monsieur Hecquet is not only a château owner, but also an oenologist who, for several years, was involved in various expert or executive capacities in trade associations and unions as well as technical and legisalative committees, working very hard to defend the rights of serious owners to make decent wines of good character without interference or pressures from official, political, or trade organizations.
At the end of his studies towards a degree in oenology at the Oenology Institute in Bordeaux he wrote a well-received study while doing his internship at the famous Château d’Yquem, the best-known of the great Sauternes wines.
Perhaps this experience explains his particular taste in developing and strongly fighting for improving the quality of the sweet and semi-sweet white wines of the HAUT–MONTRAVEL and COTES DE MONTRAVEL appellations that are different from the whites from the MONTRAVEL appellation that are dry (made from Sémillon, Sauvignon, and Muscadelle the three main white grapes of the Aquitaine region)

The 3 MONTRAVEL appellations belong to the same family and region as the BERGERAC wines, an area in the département of DORDOGNE, whose AOC was recognized in 1936, located about 50 miles East of Bordeaux.
The wine-producing area of MONTRAVEL, that is comprised of 14 ''communes’’ (townships), is located at the extreme Western end of the BERGERAC area (called Bergeracois) and of the Dordogne departement and many of its vineyards are on small hills that are bathing in the sun while exposed to the sweet and humid influence of the nearby Atlantic ocean.

MONTRAVEL is truly the best wine-growing district of the BERGERAC appellation, and it deserves its own recognition.

The voluptuous MONTRAVEL ROUGE


At the end of these vineyards, if you drive a few miles West, you are within a few minutes at the heart of the COTES DE CASTILLON and COTES DE FRANCS, and a few more miles farther you enter the SAINT EMILION district.
HAUT-SARTHES MONTRAVEL ROUGE is in fact, like a Saint Emilion, made of 70% or 80% of Merlot, and 20 to 30% of Cabernet Franc (sometimes called ‘’Bouchet’’ in the Bordeaux region).
That results in a perfect mix of fruit, fragrance, roundness and structure, like you would find in a good St. Emilion. And the tannins are so well integrated that they add a marvelous complexity to the wine.
But for such a great and well balanced wine, you will pay much less than what you would pay for a St.Emilion Grand Cru offfering the same qualities of elegance and richness.

Two vintages are available, the 2003 that is very intense and aromatic, with notes of ripe berries, and provides a very long finish, and the 2005, that offers a nice balance of fruit and acidity, with a great nose, and has a very pleasant (still a bit short to my taste- the wine could have been decanted that night, but was not) finish. It is ready and easy to drink now but its great terroir qualities should improve even more from a few years in the cellar. The 2004, a vintage that proved to be much better than initially thought, had some cabernet sauvignon (10%) in it. But it is not available over here.

I was very impressed by both vintages and would strongly recommend it with any kind of beef stew or duck-based dishes like ‘’confit de canard’’, or perhaps even a Cassoulet.

The 2005 is sold for $25.00 a bottle at The Bottle Shop in Wilmette. It is available in a few other stores in the Chicago area.

What is an authentic French brasserie?

After a downturn in the nineties, brasseries are gaining a new popularity in France. They constitute a new trend on the American restaurant scene. 

 Your comments on the great dinner we had last month at the very good “Old Town Brasserie” in Chicago, as well as your doubts that this restaurant is typical of a French brasserie were right on target, Stéphane. As you correctly noted in your post that restaurant, although a very good one, was not at all a typical brasserie neither in terms of decor and ambience or of the type of food served in a French brasserie. It is too fancy, the atmosphere is a bit too cozy, and the composition and presentation of the dishes are closer to what you would find on your plate in a 2 Michelin-star restaurant than in a brasserie. But we should not be surprised knowing the enormous and proven talent of its executive chef Roland Liccioni, who, as you rightly mentioned, authored so many marvelous dishes at both Carlos and Le Français in suburban Highland Park and Wheeling and more recently in Chicago at Les Nomades. It has become trendy over the last 10 years in several large American cities (like New York, Washington, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Atlanta and Philadelphia) to try and recreate French brasseries. But quite often they are either too fancy, to "Americanized" , too sophisticated or too eclectic in the formulation of their menus to qualify as real brasseries. I am thinking of places like Daniel Boulud Brasserie in Las Vegas, Brasserie Ruhlman in N.Y.C and Chicago, “ Mon Ami Gabi” in Chicago and Las Vegas, Brasserie Perrier in Philadelphia, or French-American brasserie in Atlanta You told me that you were not very excited about “ Left Bank” in your own area of Silicon Valley. But I have to admit that the menus of the Left Bank restaurants that I read on their web sites do look a bit similar to the menus that you would find in a brasserie in France. Also, I've not been there but it seems to me, again from visiting their websites and reading comments on Gayot, that Balthazar, in New York , and the Brasseries Les Halles in NYC, Washington and Miami are probably, in terms of menus, wine lists, decor, and continuous service from morning to evening, the closest you can find to the real thing. In the early eighties, Un Grand Café in Lincoln Park in Chicago, where we used to celebrate your birthday for several years, had a decor and an atmosphere that in some way tried to imitate those of a French brasserie or “grand cafe”, with its leather banquettes, and racks for hats and umbrelllas, as well as hanging newspapers. And a few of its dishes, like pâté de canard, leek terrine, duck confit, moules marinières, oysters, steak-frites, grilled salmon, and roasted chicken, were of the same type that you would find in any French brasserie. For the last 13 years Brasserie Joe has been the closest to the real thing you will find in Chicago. No wonder: its menu that includes the most traditional French brasserie dish, “choucroute garnie” (sauerkraut cooked with white wine, and served with various sausages, salted pork, ham, and boiled potatoes) was created by the famous chef Jean Joho (Everest in Chicago, The Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas, Brasserie Jo in Boston ) who was born, educated, and trained as a chef in Alsace, where the first brasseries started. He was a sous-chef at the celebrated Auberge de l’Ill, in Illhaeusern, a temple of haute-cuisne and one of the best restaurants of Europe, whose founder Paul Haeberlin passed away a few weeks ago. But as you also noted, none of these American restaurants,except for Les Halles and Balthazar serve food all-day and that peculiarity disqualify them as true brasseries. From what I read, I have the feeling that the new Haussman Brasserie, that just opened a few days ago in Northfield, even though it is the creation of Jacky Pluton, a French chef with a long experience, will not ressemble a traditional French brasserie either and that it’s menu is designed to please a typical Northwest suburb-type of client base.

So what is a real French brasserie?

First of all, let me remind you that that word means “brewery”, a place where “brasseurs” (brewers) brew beer. And by extension it became before the French revolution, a place where you could drink beer. The main regions of beer production have been Alsace, and Lorraine, in the Northeastern part of France near the German and Swiss border, and in the North near Belgium and Luxembourg. Paris was also a zone of production. No wonder then that the first large brasseries at the end of the 19th century in Paris were created by wealthy Alsatians, many of them not very eager to become German after their native province was once again taken over by the Germans at the end of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. They emigrated to Paris and launched with an enormous amount of success, this new type of restaurants that served Alsatian specialties as well as fish, steaks, and good desserts. Their names became synonymous of brasserie: Wepler (a large brasserie on Place Clichy, still famous nowadays for its seafood and shellfish), Dreher (closed), Runtz (rue Favart in the 2nd), Zimmer (beautiful recently redecorated brasserie on the Place du Chatelet), Zeyer (still very popular, Place d’Alesia in the 14th arrondissement), Bofinger Place de la Bastille (with its spectacular art deco glass dome), Flo (with its very impressive art-nouveau decor in a picturesque alley in the 10th arrondissement) Lipp in Saint-Germain des Prés, where generations of politicians, celebrities, and just regular French and Foreign tourists are still flooding the place to eat a relatively mediocre choucroute, marinated herrings with potatoe salad, stuffed pig trottters, and drink their famous but not that great beer. Lipp is typically one of these places where you go to see people and be seen, or because you are on a nostalgia trip. It is nevertheless a great place to visit at least once in your life, but if the Maitre D’ does not recognize you you will have to show some clout or inventive cleverness, or to be with a very well-dressed companion to be seated downstairs.

Other famous brasseries were started (and are still in operation in 2008) by French businessmen from other regions, principally Auvergne. La Coupole, the largest and to me the most beautiful of Parisian brasseries, was open on Boulevard Montparnasse in 1927, and completely redecorated to its original splendor in 1997. So many famous artists, writers, musicians, draw sketches. wrote pages or scores, did some wild partying there that you could create a museum with all the memories and photos attached to this lively place. The food is O.K. but nothing to write home about. Le Dôme, the other “grande dame” of Boulevard Montaparnasse, well known for its seafood and shellfish. But since it is very expensive I prefer it’s smaller sister-brasserie Le Bistrot du Dôme, in nearby rue Delambre. L’Européen next to the Gare De Lyon train station. Impressive room, but I believe that nowadays the food is just O.K. Charlot Roi des Coquillages (well-known for its shellfish) on Place Clichy. I never ate there. La Brasserie Lorraine (an overpriced and over-rated fancy restaurant Place des Ternes in the 8th), Chez Jenny in the 3rd, Julien in the 10th, (used to be good but I believe it is no longer the case although the decor is still spectacular) La Closerie des Lilas in the 5th (a very charming restaurant and bar that welcomed a wole world of famous artists and writers, including Hemingway). Thoumieux, rue Saint-Dominique in the 7th is a traditional meeting place, with lots of wood and a comfy decor. But I was told by some friends that the quality of the cuisine is not what it used to be. Also Brasserie Balzar in the 5th where I used to drink beer and eat croque-monsieur and wieners when I was a student at la Sorbonne. It is still one of my favorites and when I used to go there often in the early sixties was at the time owned by Brasserie Lipp, of which it was sort of a more democratic replica. Later on, it was taken over by the FLO group in the nineties. but is still a pleasant place.
The FLO Group,(200 restaurants in the world) recently acquired by a Belgian equity company, owns and manage some of the best known brasseries in Paris and in several cities: Brasserie Flo, Bofinger, Julie, La Coupole, Le Boeuf sur le toit, Le Vaudeville, Terminus Nord, Balzar, Brasserie du Théatre, Les Beaux-arts, Brasseries Flo in Nancy, Metz, Reims, Nancy, and Barcelona. I love Brasserie Flo-L’Excelsior in Nancy, and had a few decent choucroutes over the years at Bofinger, Flo, and Terminus Nord. Another, but less important restaurant group, also sold recently to a financial company, is Les Frères Blanc, that owns Le Procope, Charlot Roi des Coquillages, and La Fermette Marbeuf, near the Champs-Elysées. I have not eaten in any of these for years.  

Some other brasseries in Paris:  

Au Chien qui Fume in the old Les Halles district , remains one of my favorites. They have fixed price menus offering a good quality-price ratio Vagenende, a beautifully appointed old brasserie on Boulevard Saint-Germain, a couple of blocks from Rue de Seine, where you spent the first 6 months of your life, is a perennial favorite of American tourists. The food can be very good, especially during the winter months, or quite mediocre during the tourist season from June to September. So is Le Grand Colbert Rue Vivienne near la Bourse, in part because of the famous restaurant scene between Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson in “Someting’s Gotta Give”. I never ate there, but I love the environment of that place. And they have an attractive menu In the same district two other brasseries have their strong regular supporters: Gallopin and Le Vaudeville, but I never ate at Vaudeville and I’ve never been too impressed by the food at Gallopin. La brasserie of Hôtel Lutetia in the 6th, at the heart of one of the best fashion district (ready-to-wear) is very pleasant for lunch and is usually full of very elegant people. The menu is a bit more refined than in most brasseries. Terminus Nord, a great but expensive brasserie in front of the Gare du Nord train station is a favorite of travelers who want to have lunch or dinner before boarding the Eurostar train to London. Very good shellfish and foie gras. Chez Georges, Boulevard Pereire, in the 17th . I used to love this place and they had a superb “pâté en croûte’’ and a very good “gratin Dauphinois”. But let's not ignore the many more modest cafés-brasseries in various neighboroods of Paris, like my dear Café de la Tour Eiffel rue du Commerce in the 15th, where we ate last summer. There, you can order typical “mets de brasserie” (brasserie dishes) for less money than you would spend in the above-mentioned “grandes brasseries”.

Some typical mets de brasserie

 Very often large brasseries offer a good selection of oysters and other shellfish. Usually an “écailler’’ (a person in a special type of uniform and wearing a fisherman cap who opens the oysters with a special short knive, his hands protected by heavy gloves and prepare them for you on a platter in a special booth outside next to the entrance of the restaurant. Poireaux vinaigrette (leeks with a vinaigrette sauce) Oeufs durs mayonnaise ( hard-boiled eggs with mayonnaise) Céleri rémoulade (shredded celeriac in a spicy mayonnaise) Harengs Baltique (marinated and pickled herrings) Escargots de Bourgogne ( snails baked in a garlic and parsley butter) Pâté en croûte (baked minced meat in pastry) Charcuteries variées (various cold meats, pâtés, terrines, saucisson like dried sausage, rillettes, hams, etc) Assiette anglaise ( Assorted cold meats with cornichons, sliced tomatoe and a leaf of lettuce) Foie Gras frais de canard (fresh duck foie gras with toast) Smoked salmon Soupe à l’oignon (onion soup) Various omelettes Various types of steaks with pommes frites and possibly sauces (béarnaise, peppercorn, mushrooms, marrow) Choucroute garnie à l’Alsacienne (sauerkraut cooked in Riesling wine or beer, with various types of sausages, salted pork and chops, bacon, ham, and served with boiled potatoes) Andouillette grillée AAAAA (grilled sausage made from finely chopped chitterlings or tripe) AAAAA means : Association Amicale des Amateurs ‘Andouillettes Authentiques Foie de Veau poêlé (pan sauteed veal liver) Blanquette de veau (veal stew in a creamy white sauce) Boeuf Bourguignon Coq au Vin (chicken in a reduced wine sauce with bacon and mushrooms) Pavé de thon (sauteed tuna steak) Sole ou Truite (filet of Dover sole, or a whole river trout, served with a lemon, parsley, and hot liquefied butter. Coquilles Saint-Jaques (sea scallops) Salades composées ( mixed salads with ham, gruyere cheese, eggs, croutons, olives etc) Frisée aux lardons ( chicory curly lettuce topped with a soft boiled egg and pieces of fried bacon) Plateau de Fromages (assorted cheeses on a platter) Tartes aux fruits (fruit tarts) Mousse au chocolat Poire Belle Hélène (chilled pear served with ice cream and hot chocolate sauce) Crème brulée (vanilla creamy custard topped with burnt sugar) Sorbets  

Brasseries de Province

Of course most major cities in the French provinces have their own famous brasseries. Some of my favorites are: La brasserie Excelsior-Flo in Nancy, whose decor is an architectural landmark. La Cigale , that you can see in “Lola”, the beautiful film by Jacques Demy shot in the early sixties, in Nantes. La Brasserie André in Lille. La Brasserie Georges in Lyon. And of course Le Boulingrin in Reims (where we had lunch last summer),and its great Art-Déco decor.

What are the main differences between a restaurant and a brasserie?

Contrary to most restaurants and bistrots that are closed at least 2 days per week, and sometimes closed for lunch on Saturday, brasseries are open 7 days a week and, except for a few that are not serving food between 2:00 and 6:00 PM, usually offer continuous service from breakfast time to late at night. In Paris several well-known brasseries like La Coupole, Brasserie Lipp, or Le Grand Colbert,serve dinner until 1:00 AM. Most brasseries are open 365 days a year. In provincial cities brasseries are often located and concentrated around busy point of passage like a railroad station, city hall, post office, main church, or more generally speaking on the main drag of the town. Their lighting is usually much brighter, and the sound level higher, than in regular restaurants and bistrots. Sometimes, especially in old-fashioned brasseries, the waiters still don a long white apron, a black jacket, and a black tie. In newer brasseries their attire is more contemporary but always include a white dress shirt with a black tie and a black or white waiter jacket. The brasseries have a less extensive and less expensive wine list than in traditional restaurants. But they often offer interesting regional wines in carafes or by the glass that you don’t find in regular restaurants. In most brasseries, you do not need a reservation, (not true anymore for the most famous ones in Paris) but sometimes you have to wait for a table. Not all brasseries have bars, but some have a counter where you can grab a sanwich and drink a glass of wine while reading your paper. Contrary to most restaurants, you can show up at any time and order a simple dish, or sandwich, and a glass of wine, beer, mineral water, a coke or a coffee, without having the waiter making a face at you... It is not uncommun to see people ordering only an omelette, a croque-monsieur (grilled sandwich of ham, cheese and bechamel sauce), or a hot dog with fries, or a simple ice-cream with a coffee at 11:00 AM, 3:00 PM, or 11:00 at night. But sometimes you can also observe whole families, usually visiting from some province, having a full lunch in the middle of the week, starting with oysters, foie gras, mussels marinière, melon and prosciutto, or smoked salmon. This would be followed by a chateaubriand (a thick piece of filet of beef) with béarnaise sauce, or a “steak tartare’’ (freshly knife-chopped raw beef mixed with a Worcester sauce, chopped shallots, capers, lemmon juice, finely chopped parsley, and a raw egg yolk), or an andouillette A.A.A.A.A. (chitterlings sausage), or sauteed veal liver, or a filet of Dover sole meunière (in a light butter sauce), or veal kidneys in a mustard sauce. The desserts would often consist of poire Belle Hélène, mousse au chocolat, crème brulée, fruit tart, or sorbet. Some members of the family might also order cheese before or instead of dessert.
Like restaurants brasseries generally offer a couple of plats du jour (specials) that can run from coquelet au Riesling (cornish hen in an Alsatian Riesling wine sauce), carré or gigot d’agneau aux flageolets (leg or rack of lamb with beans), or Cassolette de Coquilles Saint-Jacques (baked scallops in butter and wine reduction). But usually the selection is less sophisticated than in regular restaurants. In Brasseries, dishes are most of the time traditional and do not require long cooking time and elaborate preparation. The average brasserie customer wants to have a tasty but relatively fast lunch or dinner. Me, I love to have a slow leisurely lunch in a brasserie with friends, eating some of my favorite dishes: Pâté en croûte, terrine de lapin, or poireaux vinaigrette, followed by confit de canard et pommes sarladaises or bavette aux échalottes, and cantal cheese as a dessert. All of this washed down with a good bottle of a small Bordeaux or a carafe of a good regional vin de pays, red of course. Bon appétit.

Premier Mai (May Day), la Fête du Travail, in France and in Chicago. 
 Today, May 1, 2008, many immigrants will organize parades in the streets of Chicago to focus the attention of the public on their various problems in this country. But very few people know that this day is in fact celebrated all over the world as “Labor Day” , an international workers holiday, and that it has its (tragic) origin in some events that took place in Chicago between May 1 and May 4, 1886.

Every year on the first day of May I feel very nostalgic of the way the “Fête du Travail’’ (Labor Day) was celebrated in France in the fifties where it was one of the most joyous national holiday. I enjoyed watching the marches and parades organized by the major labor unions in the large cities with its colorful banners and loud slogans, the traditional bountiful picnics or lunches with friends, and sometimes the music and dances on public squares. And of course it was also a celebration of Spring with the tiny bouquets of muguet (Lilies of the Valley) that you would buy from street vendors for a few francs, and that men and boys would offer to their girlfriends, mothers or favorite female teachers. Some years the muguet was scarce and expensive, but most often its powerful fragrance would overpower the living room of the house or the bar room of the neighborhood café-restaurant. It was really a day of popular joy and good humor, even in socio-political environments not too fond of any left-wing connotations, or very remote from workers rights and demands, and it was even observed in conservative and bourgeois families who read the Figaro rather than L’Humanité. Of course I remember the food that was simple but flavorful: Deviled eggs (oeufs durs mayonnaise), quiches, omelettes aux fines herbes ou au lard (omelettes with parsley and chives or with bits of fried bacon), cornets de frites (french fries), poulet rôti et jardinière de légumes ( roasted chicken with fresh spring peas, baby carrots and pearl onions), and sometimes when they were already available, fraises au sucre avec de la crème Chantilly (fresh strawberries sprinkled with powdered sugar with whipped cream). At the end of the day lots of young people had initiated their first serious amorous, or just flirtatious connection, and many were not walking that straight after a few too many glasses of pastis or rosé wine. In those days the Premier Mai’s workers parades were rather good-humored, rather than charged with hard political chants and slogans, except during periods of strikes or social discontent when they became a perfect occasion to remind the population and the government of their “revendications” (demands), protests, and rights.

But I am ready to bet that if you had asked any marching worker what was the origin of the Premier Mai or the Fête du Travail, very few would have been able to say that it was a commemoration of some tragic events that took place in Chicago on May 1, 1886. On that date workers, including members of unions, socialists, a few anarchists, and more generally members of organizations demanding reforms, got together to launch a national movement towards obtaining an eight hours working day. Following several days of marching in various streets Thirty five thousands workers walked off their plants, workshops and stores, joined by many thousands more the following days, calling other workers to go on strike. There were several rough contacts with the police, some including shooting episodes. The most serious of them occurred on May 3 at the Mc McCormick plant (the famous farm implement manufacturer) that had been on strike for a while when policemen shot 2 or 3 striking workers. This provoked more violence and some anarchists called for revenge at a protest meeting that they had organized at the Haymarket square on Randolph Street. Initially that meeting that took place on DesPlaines St, half a block north of Randolph, was rather calm, under the watch of the police department. But an encouragement to civil disobedience by one of the speakers motivated a police force of 176 men to march into the crowd and try to disperse the meeting. Someone threw a bomb that killed a police officer and that event prompted the police to open fire in every directions, killing and wounding many people. Sixty police officers were wounded and eight killed. The Haymarket episode was regarded by big business owners as a proof that the workers movement was infiltrated by radicals and anarchists that threatened the future of the American enterprise system. The mayor of the city banned all meetings and marches. Any kind of picketing was immediately dispersed by police. The local press published very tough articles against anarchists and foreigners accused by the police of being responsible for all the trouble. In spite of hundred of arrests, the Chicago Police Department never found the person who had thrown the bomb. But this conspiracy theory that everything was caused by anarchists and foreigners did nothing to calm things down. In 1887 eight anarchists were arrested and found guilty by a biased judge and preconditioned jury. Half of them were hanged, one committed suicide in jail, 3 were eventually pardoned by the Governor of Illinois in 1893. The involvement of these men in the events of May 1886 was never proved.  

But this movement for a shorter workday initiated by the American Labor movement on May 1, 1886, is at the origin of using May Day as a holiday celebrating labor, all over the world... except in the United States where that holiday was considered after World War II as a “communist” holiday by many Americans. Additional Source: For more info on the Haymarket story consult the marvelous " The Encyclopedia of Chicago", Published in 2004 by The University of Chicago Press, where I refreshed my memory on this event

Brasserie Comparisons

Hi Dad, Thanks much for the info on inexpensive Bordeauxs! I'm in the process of placing my orders to have a good stock on hand at home. Our dinner for Mom's birthday last week at Old Town Brasserie last week is still on my mind. I thought the quality and creativeness of the menu were unsurpassed for the price. Clearly, Roland Liccioni has brought a taste of les Nomads and le Francais for a 3rd of the price. That said, one thing that has left me perplexed is why it's called a Brasserie. In the US it seems the term Brasserie is used to refer to restaurants with a french slant but do not reflect the true definition of Brasseries in France. Last summer, we all had the opportunity at a classic french brasserie in Reims called Le Boulingrin. My understanding is a Brasserie is a restaurant that serves all day long and does not requirement reservations like at Le Boulingrin. Brasseries tend to be less formal and have simple menu's with many choices. Old Town Brasserie requires reservations and is only open for dinner. It is also a lot fancier than any Brasserie I've been to in France. While there were some aspects of Old Town Brasserie that resemble a french Brasserie such as a reasonably priced wine list and a less formal service it seems most french visitors would not recognize it as a Brasserie. It seems the term Brasserie, as well as cafe and bistro, are very loose terms in the US as compared to France. Can you shed any light on if there is any rhyme or reason to the term Brasserie in the US to describe a restaurant? Dreaming of another trip to the fanciest Brasserie in Chicago nonetheless! Love Stephane

Nice red Bordeaux for less than 10 dollars in Chicago 
  Do not expect miracles; But, to my taste, some offer better value in that price range than their Chilean, Californian, or Australian competitors.

I’m glad you asked me that question Stéphane since in recent months I have been tasting a few of them and I intended to write about my findings on this blog. As you know, even though I have been advocating for years the good value offered by red wines from my native Languedoc, like Costières de Nimes, Corbières, Côteaux du Languedoc, or Minervois, since it is probably the area of France where wine growers and producers have accomplished the most obvious progress in vinification, I still have a deep loyalty to small red Bordeaux. And since this terribly long and depressing winter we had this year in Chicago forced me too often to limit my outdoor activities, I used that occasion to often cook French ‘’comfort food’’ type of dishes on week-ends. So, with simple ‘’cuisine bourgeoise’’ dishes like Fricassée de Poulet (chicken) aux Champignons (mushrooms), Veau Marengo (veal stew), Sauté d’Agneau (lamb) aux Tomates et aux Olives, Boeuf (beef) aux carottes, Gibelotte de Lapin (rabbit), or Filet Mignon de Porc (pork tenderloin) au Thym et à la Moutarde, there was no doubt in my mind that small Bordeaux would be ideal pairs for this kind of food.
So from late December to late March I decided to test as many red Bordeaux as I could find for less than 10 dollars . But this time I did not visited my favorite smaller wine shops (The Bottle Shop in Wilmette, The wine Seller in Geneva, Randolph Wine Cellars, South Loop Wine Cellar, Howard Wine Cellar, Wine Discount Center, and Fine Wine Brokers, in Chicago) because I suspected that my chances to find Bordeaux in that price range would be more limited there. Instead I decided to limit my search to the two largest retailers of wine in the Chicago area, Binny’s and Sam’s, since I knew that their choice of smaller Bordeaux is wider. So I went to 3 different Bynny’s wine stores on N. Clark St., W. Grand Avenue, and the most recent one on Jefferson St. in the South Loop, as well as to Sam’s main store on Marcey St,
(now bought by Binny's in 2010). 
I have to say right away that I found much better deals at Binny’s than at Sam’s, where I could spot only 3 Bordeaux in that price range. So I ended up buying most bottles at Binny’s. I tested 20 Bordeaux, but only 8 of them were, to my taste, interesting enough to be listed here. (see list below). And as usual, I checked a couple of cheap Bordeaux at Trader Joe’s and I selected one of them in this list. I was a bit apprehensive to start with, since a few months before I started this particular search I had bought a few remaining 2003 small Bordeaux and I found their merits sometimes inconsistent, even though I have to admit that some were very good. I was hoping to find some good 2004, a year that has been a bit underrated and that produced some very decent Bordeaux sold at very reasonable prices. In fact I think that 2004 might prove to be a very interesting vintage.

But for some reasons 80 % of the wines I found on the shelves of these 2 retailers were already 2005’s. Now, everybody is claiming the charms of this vintage and some say it might prove as good if not even better than the 1982, 1990, or 2000, in red Bordeaux. Some writers even used, once again, the famous ‘’vintage of the century’’ superlative, which in my opinion is a bit far fetched now. The weather was so warm and dry during the growing season that the grapes, a bit smaller than usual, were very mature at harvest time, but with a high ratio of skin to juice, resulting in wines with a high level of concentration. It also meant a higher level of tannins, especially in the Cabernet-Sauvignons. Fortunately nights were cooler for a few weeks before harvest time, allowing to keep enough acidity in those grapes for good balance. So I think that for the great wines from the Médoc or the Graves, it will be a good idea to wait a few years before we can have a precise idea of the level of greatness of the 2005 vintage. I would like to point out however that nowadays, Bordeaux growers who have been suffering from the competition of ‘’New World’’ wine makers, mainly from Australia, Chile, and the United States, are sometimes trying to imitate them. 
These “New world” wine makers were successful in their effort to please the taste of the new generation of younger wine drinkers, especially in Europe and in the U.S., who enjoy softer, fruit-forward but too often jammy for my taste, easy to drink mellow red wines. So some Bordeaux wine growers have started to vinify their wines to satisfy this new demand. They now offer wines that do not need long cellaring, can be drunk young, have softer tannins, and unfortunately have much less originality and ‘’terroir’’ personality that their predecessors. To me it is a bit of a shame that not only a few Bordeaux start to taste like their Australian or American Merlots or Cabs counterparts, with no real balance (too much fruit and not enough acidity), but also that so many French liquor and wine groups, have invested massively in these new world countries to produce there what is becoming a large chunk of their main competition in their own turf. However, a few small independent ‘’propriétaires-viticulteurs’’ (small vineyards owners) have continued to make more traditional Bordeaux, with a good fruit-to acidity ratio, some nice tannic properties, and a minimum of body and structure. They do not try to systematically produce soft, immediately pleasing wines, that do not require any effort to appreciate. They still believe in the merits of their own soil and weather, a minimum of aging, often in small oak barrels, and in their own inherent ability to create a balanced blend of Merlot, Cabernet-Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, perhaps a bit of Petit-Verdot or Malbec (a grape that seems to come back in fashion these days, after its success in Argentina). That is the kind of ‘’petits Bordeaux’’ that I was looking for. They are usually simply labeled as ‘’Bordeaux’’. If you are very lucky, you can sometimes find a Bordeaux Supérieur, and even less often a Côtes de Bourg or Côtes de Blaye, ‘’on sale’’, in that price category. But I have to admit that you cannot expect them to compare to a Médoc, a Saint-Emilion or a Graves. The finish of many of them is a bit short. You will not jump out of your chair in ecstasy after the first gulp...and chances are that most of these wines will benefit from a few minutes of oxygen. In any case: Long life to these brave small producers... And let’s enjoy these wines that are neither for the elitists, snobs, sophisticated “foodies”, or fashionistas, but simply for people who enjoy well-made wines with character and personality. And believe me, dollar for dollar they provide more clean satisfaction and pleasure than some of their presently popular competitors.

Here are a few small Bordeaux that I found in Chicago which in my opinion are decently made. Most of them can be drunk now. 

The numbering corresponds to my own preferences in decreasing order after only one tasting. 1. CHATEAU COMBRAY Bordeaux 2005 Produced by Ginestet, Bordeaux, a large old distribution house that owns vineyards and has its own winemakers to blend wines. Imported by Glazers, Dallas Distributed locally by Chicago Wine Merchants 7.99 dollars at Binny’s Gold Medal at the Concours General Agricole, Paris 2006 Merlot 70% Cabernet Sauvignon 20% Cabernet Franc 20% Seductive dark ruby color Pleasant nose, slightly smoky Good balance fruit-acidity Relatively soft tannins Some body . Rather dry structure. Notes of ripe black cherry and black currant Decent but finish is a bit short Altogether a nice little wine that will please the more “traditional” palates, as well as the more “contemporary” American wine drinker.  
2. CHATEAU LESTRILLE Bordeaux Supérieur 2003 Estelle Roumage, viticultrice (wine grower) Imported by Fine Vines, Melrose Park, IL 8.99 dollars at Binny’s (The 2005 to come out now will be a bit more expensive and will be a bit over this present price range) 100% Merlot Great nose Good body and structure Very smooth tannins Good fruit but well balanced. Notes of cherry A touch of leather Very nice finish A very pleasant wine that will satisfy young American drinkers.  
3. CHATEAU ROLAND LA GARDE Premières Côtes de Blaye 2005 Produced by Bruno Martin in a legendary castle where Roland, Charlemagne’s favorite Knight who was killed while passing the Pyrenees Mountains. 9.99 dollars at Binny’s Hand harvested 67% Merlot 33% Cabernet Sauvignon Aged in new French Oak barrels Very rich dark color Pleasant earthy nose with notes of dark cherry and a touch of coffee Rather tannic but no harshness Some elegance that should develop with age Still a bit thin in terms of structure and complexity but full bodied Nice finish Obviously the result of good vinification, this wine is already quite drinkable but it should improve considerably in a couple of years . 
4. CHATEAU MICHEL DE VERT Lussac St. Emilion 2006 Produced by Vignoble Laubie in Lussac. But bottled by Ginestet. Imported by Plum Ridge 7.99 dollars at Trader Joe’s 80% Merlot 20% Cabernet Sauvignon Nice dark ruby color Decent structure for such a young wine Good Fruit-acidity balance Still a bit thin Not as good as the 2004 but still a very good value. In spite of its youth is quite drinkable
5. CHATEAU NODEAU Côtes de Bourg 2005 Vignobles De Pardieu 7.99 dollars at Binny’s Essentially Merlot. Very good feeling of ‘’terroir’’ Tannins are rather masculine but relatively soft Some notes of berries A ‘’real’’ Côtes de Bourg’’ Will certainly mellow a bit over the next 2 years, but quite drinkable now.
6. CHATEAU NICOT Bordeaux 2005 Vignobles Dubourg 7.99 dollars at Binny's
Merlot and Cabernet-Sauvignon
A very pleasant, well balanced, round wine with soft tannins.
7. CHATEAU DES JUDES Bordeaux, 2005 Vignobles Lavaud Imported by Glazers in Dallas. Distributed locally by Chicago Wine Merchants. 8.99 dollars at Binny’s Gold Medal at the Concours General Agricole, Paris 2006 Merlot 70% Cabernet Sauvignon 20% Cabernet Franc 10% Dark purple color Pleasant nose Good body Relatively soft tannins Notes of dark red cherry and some licorice Pleasant to drink now but short on finish Has potential. Will probably improve in a couple of years
8. CHATEAU BOESSIE Bordeaux 2005 7.99 dollars at Binny’s Merlot 60% Cabernet-Sauvignon 40% Dark color Rather bland nose Powerful but already softening tannins Strong body Notes of grilled bread and ripe black berries Will probably develop nicely but needs at least 2 more years Again, good potential but still lacks distinction and finesse at this time 

Some other low-priced Bordeaux wines that I tasted, but that for one reason or another did not seduced me enough to prompt me to go back to the store to buy a second bottle. However they are quite drinkable. 

Château la Raballe Château Mylord Châteu Val Darel Château de Lisennes Château Grand Montet Mouton-Cadet Château de la Taille Château Prignac Château les Remises

A ta santé

Bordeaux's with good value for the money

Hi Dad, I've been digging around for low priced Bordeaux's here in silicon valley but come up mostly empty. Given there are many places online to order wine I'd love a few suggestions on a few low cost bottles of Bordeaux I can enjoy! I am still drinking various California meritage's and clarets' from time to time but they are no match in terms of value for the money with a lesser known Bordeaux. The California Bordeaux style blends are so pricy and still lack the complexity of many a low-cost Bordeaux you've poured for me over the years. Any Bordeaux's you can reccomend that are in the $5-$20 range would be perfect. Love Stephane

Pommes Frites, commonly called “Frites”:
What a treat, when they are made the right way.

But lots of doubts still exist about the “French” origin of their American cousins, the so-called “French fries”.

Ah Stéphane... your question a few weeks ago about your difficulty to find good ‘’fries’’ in the Bay Area that would be as good as those ‘’ frites’’ that you eat in French restaurants brought back many fond images and memories into my poor half-frozen (from our Chicago very cold winter) brain.
As a matter of fact it is true that nowadays it is not that easy to find very good ‘’frites”, made the traditional way, in American restaurants. Most of them use frozen fries, which does not mean that they cannot generate decent fries. As a matter of fact, it is also the case in most French restaurants.
About 12 years ago, we were visiting a very amusing flea-market in Montpellier, France where we were on vacation. At one point your brother Théo complained that he was hungry and thirsty. So I went to the concession at the end of the market, a simple trailer, and ordered some ‘’frites’’ and a coke. And of course we could not help but stealing a few fries from him. They were so good that I immediately went back to the food concession to buy some more, and both your mother and me agreed that they were the best fries we had since we arrived in France. So I asked the manager of the concession if they were freshly cut fries. He said: "are you kidding... we do not have the time to cut fries ourselves. We buy them frozen". So I asked him who was his supplier. He took me to the garbage container behind the trailer and said ‘’ Here is the empty carton, read by yourself’’. I read and I could not believe what I saw:
"Made by Mc Cain, Illinois, USA..." Coming to France to eat American frozen fries; That was quite a shock. But perhaps those good fries were produced in France where Mc Cain has some of its largest European plants

Speaking of fries sold by street vendors: When I was about 12 year-old, my mother decided that it was time for me to learn how to defend myself since I was the subject of too frequent attacks by bullies at school who enjoyed kicking and punching my, at the time relatively frail, body for various reasons.
So she sent me to take judo lessons 2 times a week after classes from an older man, who had a ‘’black belt’’ ranking in that sport. He lived in an apartment about 20 minutes walking from our house in Reims. I detested those lessons, but... if I had a few coins in my pocket , I bought myself a nice treat on my way back home. After I left the man’s place I had to cross a bridge over some railroad tracks, Le Pont de Laon. I would run on the bridge knowing that at the end of it was TOTO FRITES’place. It was one of these small trailers, much smaller than their pizza counterparts in French southern villages, where a gruff man, Toto, who was always smoking a cigarette and whose nails were as black as a piece of coal, was cutting, washing, drying and frying potatoes that were very greasy, but incredibly tasty. In fact even Today they still rate in my memory among the best I ever ate in my life. This type of mini-trailer which was in fact stuck for good on jacks and no longer had wheels, was called a ‘’baraque à frites’’, and every town in Northern and North-East France had many of them. Toto’s baraque was poorly lit by a kerosene lamp, whose fumes added to the marvelous odor of the bubbling ‘’friture’’ that you could smell 300 yards away.
Toto served his beauties in a paper cone made from pages from the local newspaper, ‘’l’Union’’, and after I added more salt from the big tin shaker available on the counter, I would eat them as fast as I could before the grease would run through the newsprint. Boy, were they good. Sort of thicker-cut that the average ‘’frites’’ that we ate when we went to the carnival on the nearby ‘’Place du Boulingrin’’, but much tastier.
My mother who once discovered my secret when I came to the dinner table with my mouth still shiny from the grease, yelled at me for eating such bad food, and explained to me that they were probably fried in a mixture of cheap animal fats, like ‘’saindoux’’ (lard), beef fat or suet, and perhaps horse fat. In any case it was not good for me, even though in 1952 the word Cholesterol was nowhere to be found in the Larousse dictionary. My father, who was born in Northern France near the Belgian border from a Belgian father, and who lived part of his adolescence in Antwerp, loved ‘’pommes frites’’ like all Belgians do. He would come to my defense and argued with l my mother that if she would prepare ‘’frites’’ more often I would not have to buy cheap and poor quality ones from dirty street vendors. He also told us that whenever he was in that neighborhood near the Pont de Laon he would himself have a ‘’cornet de frites ’’ chez Toto.
Just thinking about it make me drool and I can hear in my head the marvelous song ‘’ Un cornet de frites’’ that Yves Montand sang so nicely in the early fifties.
Anyways. My mother made some beautiful pan-sautéed potatoes, but the rare times when she accepted to make ‘’frites’’, they were of a very different style: light, crunchy, good but not greasy enough for me . My nutrition-conscious mother would fry them in a traditional black metal fryer in either ‘’Vegetaline’’, the equivalent of Crisco, or ‘’huile d’arachide’’ (peanut oil), like they have been done in most French restaurants and families since 1947. Peanut oil in those days was produced in some French African colonies, and was not as expensive as it is now, especially in the U.S.
Nevertheless, after the actual frying was done, she would let the fat cool down and somewhat solidify at the top if it was Vegetaline, which allowed the ‘’graillons’’, these tiny particles of burnt fat and potatoes, to get up to the surface and to be removed easily. Then she would cover the fryer and it would stay that way in the pantry until the next ‘’friture’’.

Personally I use peanut oil when making ‘’pommes de terre sautées’’ at home. But your mother's delicious "frites" are in fact "fausses frites" since, once she has cut hem with a knife, she put them in a bowl containing and mix them well in a mix of 3 Tb of Greek olive oil and garlic salt. Once they are well impregnated but not soaking wet, she lay them on a baking sheet and bake them in the oven, at 425 degrees , for about 20-25 minutes, turning them over once.

The other great frites of my youth were found at ‘’ Chez Francis’’, a French brasserie that was on the opposite sidewalk of my grand-parents building on the Boulevard James Fazy in Geneva, Switzerland. They were served ‘’à volonté’’ (as much as you could eat), as a vegetable accompaniment to their marvelous ‘’entrecôtes’’ (rib-eye steaks). Between 1950 and 1970, I probably ate thousands of these golden-hued thin ‘’pommes-frites’’ that were never greasy, slightly crispy outside and soft inside as they should be, and always kept hot on their tin plate that was put on a small ‘’meta’’ burning dish-warmer in the middle of the table.

Some years later in Paris, in the mid-sixties, I found the same kind of perfect ‘’frites’’ at L’Entrecôte, Rue de Verneuil in the 7th arrondissement. It was the same formula as Chez Francis in Geneva, with the same ‘’frites à volonté’’ placed on their dish-warmer. I do not think that the original Parisian ‘’Entrecôte’’ still exist in 2007, or it has probably changed ownership many times. But I thought it was reborn in America when some summers ago, your mother and I had a delightful steak with ‘’frites à volonté’’ in San Francisco. The restaurant was called ‘’Café de Paris L’Entrecôte’’, on Union St., and the fries were almost as good as at the original "Entrecote" restaurant in Paris. But I learned that in fact their model was in Geneva, Switzerland, and that they had an exclusive right to use the original recipe for the famous butter sauce of the entrecôte that was created in 1941 at the Cafe de Paris... in Geneva precisely.

During my last year of college, in Paris, the famished and poor student that I was at the time in 1963 used to go to '' Les Palmiers", Rue des Halles at the heart of what was then ‘’Les Halles’’, the huge and lively vegetable, fruit, and meat central market of Paris, just north of la Place du Chatelet. There I would eat enormous "saucisse de Toulouse" (pork sausage) sandwiches with ‘’pommes-frites’’. The frites would be placed above the sausage inside the open piece of fresh baguette. It was greasy but delicious and comforting after an evening spent working on a philosophy essay due the next morning at La Sorbonne. In Northern France, this very popular type of sandwich is called "Un Américain Saucisse''.

In recent years, when I was craving for traditional “pommes frites” I would go to La Biche Au Bois, Avenue Ledru-Rollin, near the Gare de Lyon in the 12th arrondissement. And if I did not have the time to go that far from my regular Paris home-base in the 15th arrondissement, I would be happy with a side order of frites with my ‘’Salade Auvergnate ‘’ (that includes country ham, and Cantal cheese) at my local regular neighborhood café-restaurant ‘’ A la Tour Eiffel’’, Rue du Commerce in the 15th. (see ‘’My French Gourmet Vacation’’ on this blog for details). And I have a pleasant memory of the frites at ‘’ Le Chien qui fume’’ in the old Les Halles district.
I haven't gone there in years , but I understand that the ‘’pommes frites’’ at the good old Bouillon Chartier, an old- style restaurant for employees of the nearby businesses Rue du Faubourg Montmartre in the 9th are still good.
Most old-fashioned "brasseries" and large " traditional bistrots" like Chez Georges and Gallopin in the 2nd arrondissement, Terminus Nord and Brasserie Flo, in the 10th , La Coupole in the 14th, Thoumieux in the 7th, Balzar and La Closerie des Lilas in the 5th, La Rotisserie d'en Face in the 6th, Le Ballon des Ternes and another Chez Georges in the 17th, Le Boeuf Couronné in the 19th, used to have very decent fries. But I cannot garantee that it is still the case in 2008.

In Chicago, when I arrived in January of 1970, my favorite fries were served with a very good hamburger at the long defunct Brief Encounter, a small but very clean and pleasant store-front diner in the 360 North Michigan building. They were thin-cut but always well fried and not soggy. But the best ‘’pommes frites’’ I ever tasted were at Le Bastille restaurant that unfortunately closed its doors forever in the mid-eighties.
You will find here below a list of some restaurants that still offer good ‘’pommes frites’’, made the right way that I will explain later.






Grandson Sebastien enjoying his fries at the brasserie "A la Tour Eiffel" in Paris during our summer vacation last July

So, what exactly are real ‘’ Pommes de Terre Frites’’ and where do they come from?

Real ‘’pommes frites’’ should be called "pommes de terre frites" (fried potatoes) are pieces of potatoes cut in elongated sticks about 1 cm thick from a relatively large tuber with a high level of solid dry matter like a Bintje in Europe, or a Russet from Idaho or Wisconsin in the U.S. Once they are cut, with a butcher knife or a special fries cutter, in a very consistent length and thickness, the fries are washed in cold water for a few minutes to remove as much starch as possible from their surface. Then they are dried thoroughly in a cloth or paper towels. They are pre-cooked (a little more than blanched) in a bath of frying oil, like peanut oil, at a temperature of around 328 degrees F or 165 degrees C for 6 or 7 minutes. Then they are removed to a strainer. The final frying is done for about 5 minutes once the oil temperature reaches 356 degrees F or 180 degrees C. When they are nicely colored, they should be removed from the fryer and immediately drained and blotted on several layers of paper towels. Then they are salted and served very hot. If they are eaten while they are still hot, they will remain crusty outside and soft inside and will be light, not greasy, and easier to digest, since the moisture will not have the time to come out from inside the potatoes through steam and make them slightly soggy and greasier.
Most food historians agree on the fact that the idea of frying the potatoes in two successive baths of fat, comes originally from Belgium. And most connoisseurs still think that the best Belgian fries are fried in animal fat.

But there is still a big controversy between the French and the Belgians about the real origin of the ‘’pommes frites’’.

According to the ‘’Belges’’, in the early part of the 18th century relatively poor people living on the banks of the Meuse River, in cities like Namur, Huy or Dinant, used to fish small fishes in the Meuse River and deep-fry them to complement their meager food supplies. But when the river got frozen, they had the idea of cutting pieces of potatoes imitating the shape of fishes and to fry them. So were born the first pommes frites. And since small fishes were called ‘’fretin’’ in this French speaking part of the Belgian Netherlands, some people even think that the word ‘’frites’’ may in fact be an adulterated version of ‘’fretin’’. It seems a little far-fetched to me.
What we know for a fact is that many French ‘’proscrits’’, citizens who had been banned in France after 1850 and the political coup d’état by Louis Napoleon, who had fled and started a new life in Brussels, as well as political refugees, including several chefs, in 1870, popularized the fries in Belgium. The many ‘’friteries’’, eateries devoted to fried potatoes, that you find in Belgium would be in fact a French import.

The French date the origin of the pommes-frites back to the time of the French Revolution of 1789, just 3 years after Parmentier started to promote the virtues of the potato that most French people were not really interested in eating at that time, when their Spanish neighbors had been consuming them since the end of the 16th Century, and the Belgians since the end of the 17th century. But several years of bad wheat harvests, and periods of real famine, between 1785 and 1788, contributed to put the ‘’pomme de terre’’ on most French dinner tables. In fact the largest part of the potatoes grown in Europe until the 18th century were given as food to farm animals.
In 1789, a man whose name I could not find started to sell fried potatoes under the famous Pont Neuf over the Seine river, located at the west-end of the Ile de la Cité. It became an instant success and those fries became known as ‘’Pommes Pont-Neuf’’. Nowadays, many traditional French restaurants and brasseries still call their ‘’pommes frites’’ ‘‘pommes Pont-Neuf’’.

Several variations of ‘’pommes frites” are found in restaurants, both in France and in the U.S.:

‘’Pommes pailles” are “shoestring potatoes”. They are cut with a mandoline and fried in a single bath.
“Pommes allumettes” are thin-cut fries known as “Matchstick potatoes”. They are cut with a knife and fried in two baths.
“ Pommes gaufrettes” are shaped like thin, round, mini waffles.. They are cut with a mandoline and fried in one single bath

• Most French people, especially from the older generations, and that includes me, like to eat their ''frites'' au naturel, meaning as is. Some younger French people love to use ketchup or even mayonaise, like they do in Belgium. In Northern France, and even in some small ''friteries'' in Paris, lots of fries lovers enjoy a splash of vinegar on them.

Now, let's clarify a few points about the origins of the so-called French Fries in the U.S.

When some American political opinion-makers decided to punish the French for condemning the U.S intervention in Iraq in 2003 by renaming French Fries Freedom Fries, I had a good laugh.
Obviously, most of these pundits ignored the fact that the term French does not refer to our country, but to a special way to cut vegetables in sticks, or in a julienne fashion, called ‘’frenching’’. This same culinary term is also used in the U.K to define the trimming the fat from lamb chops when used to form a rack of lamb.
But this origin is disputed by some food historians who claim that in fact the use of ‘’French’’ actually relates to the French origin of these fries.
Some note that Thomas Jefferson discovered them when he was the U.S ambassador in Paris, and that he loved so much these ‘’ Pommes de terre frites à cru en petites tranches’’ , according to his own manuscripts, that he brought the recipe back to Washington.
My favorite explanation is that during World War One, several battalions of American, British, and Canadian soldiers fought in the Belgian region of Yser, in French-speaking western Flanders. This is where they discovered fried potatoes. And since the locals spoke French in that specific area, when the soldiers brought the recipe back home they naturally called them French Fries because they were told in French how to prepare them.


A few restaurants in Chicago where you can eat good “pommes frites” cut by hand and fried in two baths:

Chez Joel: 1119 W. Taylor St. Chicago, IL Tel: 312-226-6479

La Sardine: 111 N. Carpenter St. Chicago, IL Tel : 312-421-2800

Le Petit Paris : 260 E. Chestnut St. Chicago, IL Tel : 312-787-8260

Marché : 833 W. Randolph St. Chicago, IL Tel : 312-226-8399 ( now closed}

D& J Bistro: 466 S. Rand Rd. Lake Zurich, IL Tel: 847-438-8001

Hot Doug’s: 3324 N. California, Chicago, IL Tel: 773-279-9550
I was told that ''Hopleaf'', a Belgian gastropub at 5140 N. Clark Street, Tel: 773-334-9851, that sells more than 100 different Belgian beers, makes very good traditional frites in the "Belgian style". But I have never been there myself.

Other interesting ‘’frites”

At the 4 star EVEREST, one Financial Place Chicago, Tel: 312-663-8920, famous Alsatian-born chef Jean Joho told me that when from time to time he has a "côte de boeuf'' on the menu he serves it with pommes-frites fried in clarified butter ... Must be something extra special.

The new Old Town Brasserie 1209 N. Wells St. Chicago Tel: 312-943-3000 is the only one that lists “ Pommes Pont Neuf” on its menu. Knowing the talent of his chef, Roland Liccioni, I am pretty sure that they are made the traditional way. ( Now Closed)
Kiki’s Bistro, 900 N Franklin St. Chicago, IL Tel: 312-335-5454 serves deliciously crunchy “pommes pailles” with its steak. They are very tiny but fresh cut and fried in two baths.

Le Café des Architectes, in the Sofitel Hotel, 20 E. Chestnut St Chicago, IL , Tel: 312-324-4000 makes good hand-cut “matchsticks” fried in one bath.

Good food ingredients in the U.S. ? Yes, they exist but you only will get what you pay for...

Story of a lost “ lapin chasseur”.

As you know, Stéphane, I too frequently complain, when I cook , that the results I obtain here are not as good as those that I get when I cook the same dish in France. The dish rarely reaches the same level of flavor and personality and too often turns bland. And I always add: ‘’It is because the ingredients are not as good as in France’’. Last summer, every time I went to shop for food, I was amazed when I bought various ingredients, like meat, chicken, eggs, cheese, and especially vegetables and herbs, how expensive they were compared to what I pay in Chicago. But when I cooked with them, it really smelled good in the kitchen, and when we ate them it really tasted much better. So, I would say to your mother: ‘’ Au moins, on en a pour son argent’’ (At least, what I got is worth what I paid for ’’). Anyway, as I told you a few weeks ago, since we have a really rough and depressing winter, I feel like preparing old French bistrot-type winter dishes, that are most of the time cooked in a sauce. As we say in France, ‘’ Des plats roboratifs qui tiennent au corps’’ (invigorating and filling dishes). And now that I have a ‘’cocotte-minute’’ (pressure cooker), thanks to you... Er... Santa Claus, it is less a time-consuming event to prepare them, even during the week. So, this week-end I had decided to do a ‘’Lapin Chasseur’’ (Rabbit stewed in ‘’hunter’’ style, meaning with mushrooms and wine). To me rabbit is the ultimate ‘’comfort food’’ and I have been an avid rabbit eater since childhood. To the point that for my Fiftieth birthday, I had asked my friend Yves Roubaud, who was the executive- chef at Shaws at that time, to prepare a provençal lunch for my friends and I, that would include a ‘’lapin à la provençale’’. That was 18 years ago, but I still have the exciting aroma of his rabbit on my taste buds. I have no idea where he had found that rabbit, but it was quite a tasty and meaty animal.
So, since a good fresh rabbit is very difficult to find in Chicago nowadays, and when you find it, like at Fox & Obel, it is so expensive that you give up, I went to this huge Korean super-market in Niles, where you not only find an amazing collection of fresh fish, shellfish, and mollusks, but also tons of frozen rabbit, for a ridiculously low price. Since it was only for your mother and me, I bought a small rabbit, barely 2 Lbs, for only 4.75 dollars, instead of the 18 dollars a fresh one would have cost me at Fox and Obel. . Problem is, it took a whole day to thaw, and like almost any rabbit that you buy in a U.S. supermarket, it had no head, no liver, no heart, and worse: no kidneys. Besides it was way too lean. The kidneys are very important because of the very white pieces of fat attached to them that gives a special taste to the sautéing.
I tried to ask a butcher where their rabbits were coming from, domestic or from some Asian country, but got only a very evasive answer from the giggling man who tried to tell me that they were American. Once my rabbit was defrosted, I had serious doubts that it was an American rabbit, since this poor anemic animal looked like it had been deprived of nourishing herb and carrots, and was probably the product of an industrial production chain. Some years back, I used to buy fresh American rabbits raised in Arkansas or Mississippi, that I found at Treasure Islands, and they were quite meaty and tasty, not as much as a ‘’Lapin du Gâtinais’’, but they were quite edible. Anyway, since the color of the meat was totally adequate, and it was smelling OK, I hoped for the best and decide to proceed with my initial cooking plan, that involved a simplified and quick formula. I cut the rabbit in 7 pieces, browned them briefly in a pan in a mix of butter and olive oil, while I was sautéing 2 chopped onions, 3 shallots and the “lardons” (small pieces of sliced thick-cut bacon) in the cocotte-minute. Then I added the pieces of rabbit, 2 pinches of dried thyme, a bay leaf, 2 cloves of garlic (diced ), 1 sliced carrot, and 1 small can of already cooked white mushrooms (what we call in France ‘’champignons de Paris’’), + one spoonful of tomatoe concentrate diluted in warm water. Then I covered everything with one and a half cup of dry white wine (Sauvignon Blanc), and mixed in one Tb spoon of cornstarch diluted in warm water. After stirring everything , I covered the pressure cooker with the lid , turned the flame a little higher, and once the steam came out with a hissing sound from the safety valve, I cooked the dish for 20 minutes at relatively low heat. But when I opened the pot, I was quite surprised by the very limited amount of aroma that came out of it. I served the sauce, that looked like it should be, over farfalle pasta. The meat was very tender but totally bland and could not hold the comparison with my fresh rabbits of a few years back.  
What a disappointment. I think that the quality of the rabbit was at fault. And that I should have used salt pork instead of bacon. And that the dish would have been tastier if I had used fresh sliced mushrooms instead of the cheap generic can from Jewell that I bought in a hurry. And that a little flour instead of the diluted corn starch I used to go faster would have made a more unctuous sauce. After dinner I said to your mother: ‘’ After all, you get what you pay for’’. But we could not find an exact equivalent of this saying in French. So, the always biased me told her : ‘’ It is because in France the ingredients are much better’’. So, over there we say the reverse: ‘’ At least, what I got is worth what I paid for ...’’ Next time I will try to put to practice what I learned again for the 100th time last night Don’t be cheap with the ingredients. And if you cannot afford the right ones, cook another dish.

My favorite movies of 2007 on DVD

MY FAVORITES MOVIES OF 2007 (part 2) 
  Films I rented or saw on my DVD player: 

  1. ESPIRITU DE LA COLMENA (THE SPIRIT OF THE BEHIVE) Victor Erice (Spain, 1973)

I always wanted to see this film that has been for a long time the object of a real cult among the European film critics that I respect. Unfortunately, it never benefited of a large commercial release in the U.S., although a new copy was re-released in a very few venues in 2007, including in Chicago. It is a very important film in the history of modern Spanish cinema, since it was one of the few in that delicate transition period that dared to brave the censorship of the Franco regime towards the end of his dictatorship in dealing with the painful subject of repression and fear during the terrible Spanish civil war. The story takes place in 1940 precisely at the end of the Civil War in a small Castilian village where to young sisters, Ana, the youngest played by the marvelous Ana Torrent, who was 7 year-old at the time of filming and became famous 3 years later in Carlos Saura’s “Cria Cuervos”, and 10 year-old Isabel, live in a big country house with their parents. We soon find out that the father, who’s life revolves entirely around his caring of and writing about bees, and the mother who writes letters to an unknown far-away lover and dreams of a more fulfilling life, do not have a happy life together and are not very caring about their daughters who spend a lot of time by themselves. The parents relationship obviously has been seriously impacted by the war. The visit to the village of a traveling picture show featuring the famous “Frankenstein” shot by James Whale in 1931 with Boris Karloff, is going to excite Ana’s imagination and phantasms to the highest point, since her sister makes her believe that a monster like Frankenstein’s lives nearby but is in fact a spirit, and can be met by being called by anybody who cries his or her name. Ana will look for him and find instead a wounded young man, a fugitive Republican soldier probably shot by the Guardia Civil, in an abandoned barn . She will believe that he is the reincarnation of the monster and will feed him and help him, until her parents bring her back home while she is traumatized by the experience. This beautiful but very melancholic film, shot by a great director of photography, Luis Cuadrado, who was progressively turning blind during the filming of this movie, is very lyrical and poetic, and sometimes flirts with an eerie expressionism. You will be haunted for a long time by the very moving musical score. It is too bad that Victor Erice shot only 3 feature films in 34 years. This one, his first, was followed by El Sur (The South) in 1983, and “Quince Tree of the Sun”, a beautiful essay on art in 1992. But “Spirit” is probably one of the most authentic masterpieces of the European cinema in the Seventies.

2. TOKYO EYES Jean-Pierre Limosin, (Japan-France, 1998)

I had read a lot about this director who made only 5 feature films, but is well-known for a few very good made-for-TV documentaries including portraits of famous Iranian director Kiarostami, and of legendary Japanese actor-director “Beat” Takeshi Kitano, who has a very funny cameo appearance as a not too bright Yakusa gangster in Tokyo Eyes. I had rented his interesting NOVO (2002), that tells in a very glossy and stylish way the sex and love adventures of an amnesic young man. But I did not expect such a thrilling and creative movie. TOKYO EYES , written by Limosin, was supposed to be shot in France with French actors. But Limosin, who is fascinated by Japan but does not speak the language, decided suddenly to instead shoot it entirely in Japan, with Japanese actors, and in Japanese. He took with him his very gifted director of photography Jean-Marie Fabre who created a very exciting and fast moving cinematography that reflects perfectly the local urban environment, and recalls the style of imagery and rhythm the great Australian cinematographer Christopher Doyle had created in “Chungking Express” in 1994. The story line is very entertaining: A young computer and video games programmer, K, played by the impressive Shinji Takeda, is a vigilante during his free time and shoots people, like bullies and night club bouncers, whose behavior he disapproves. But before shooting them he modifies his gun and wears very thick glasses that confuses his vision, so that he voluntarily misses his targeted victims. The sister of the policeman who is tracking this “faux-serial killer” nicknamed “four eyes”, a very sexy and alert young hairdresser played by Hinano Yoshikawa, a Japanese model and singer, is fascinated by this case that her brother does not seem to eager to solve. She manages to identify and to meet K, becomes his friend and gets romantically involved with him. He will eventually be fatally shot by his own gun in the hand of the small time gangster played by Kitano who fires it by accident. But K. seems to survives and will be reunited with Hinano in a very mysterious ending. The whole film is reminiscent of French New Wave films, especially Godard’s. At one point the girl is dressed like Anna Karina in a “Woman is a Woman”. This film is a pure cinephile’s delight.

3. LE PETIT LIEUTENANT Xavier Beauvois, (France, 2005) Xavier Beauvois,

whose 5 feature films have not been widely released in the U.S , is a 40 year-old man who left his native working class environment in Northern France to come to Paris to learn cinema, with the help of the great Jean Douchet, a famous movie critic and professor. After being the assistant director of André Téchiné, he reached relatively rapidly a good level of recognition in 1995 with his second feature film ‘‘ N’oublies pas que tu vas mourir’’, that was rewarded the coveted Prix Jean Vigo and the Jury Prize at the Cannes film fest, that touched both critics and general audiences with his lyrical but very restrained story of the daily life and relationships of an HIV-positive student in Paris. With this film, that was nominated for 6 Césars (the French equivalent of the Oscars), Beauvois reaches an almost perfect level of balance between a very precise narrative process, and a very efficient directing style, sometimes reminiscent of Techiné and Tavernier, but in a much more contemporary and austere way. His story describes the evolution of a charming but tough and ambitious young man, Antoine, played very convincingly by the very good Jalil Lespert whom we had discovered in ‘’Human Resources’’ who, as soon as he graduates from the police academy and after some work in a small provincial town’s police station, decides to go to Paris and volunteer to work as a detective (he has rank of lieutenant) in the crime department of a commissariat (district police headquarter). He leaves behind his young wife and his parents and friends. The first part of he film focuses on his discovery of the tough but sometimes boring routines of his new job, and his relations with other cops, among them Solo, played very efficiently by Roschdy Zem (‘’Indigenes’’). The description of his work and of his new life is described in a almost documentary style. It is probably one of the best depiction of what is really the daily life of a police station ever filmed. The second part is more focused on a specific investigation about the death of a poor immigrant Polish homeless man, found in the Seine river. And essentially about the relationship that Antoine develops with his boss, a veteran female police inspector who is recovering from alcoholism and the death of her son, who was the same age as Antoine’s. This role is perfectly played by Natalie Baye who was justly awarded the Cesar of the best actress. The cinematography by the super director of photography Caroline Champetier, one of the best in France, is very precise and avoids all easy clichés often found in the ‘’noir’’ or ‘’policier’’ genres.  

4. FREE ZONE Amos Gitai, (Israel, 2005)

I consider this Israeli director as one of the best story-teller in the present international cinema landscape. I still have vivid memories of the intensity of emotions I felt while watching some of his best films such as “Kippur”, “Kadosh”, “Kedma” or “Yom Yom”. Once again we are sharing the complex relations between individuals within the framework of the turmoils linked or derived from the Israeli-Palestinian, or Israeli-Arab conflicts. This time it is almost a “road movie” involving a very strong Israeli woman, Hanna, who drives a taxi, and her American passenger, another strong but emotionally disturbed woman called Rebecca, who insists to accompany Hanna to the “Free Zone” , a strange no-man’s land between the borders of Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, where all kinds of not necessarily legal business deals are negotiated. Hanna needs to drive there to collect an unpaid debt to her wounded husband from a former partner who sells military vehicles in that strange Free-Trade Zone. Rebecca needs some perspective to distance herself from her separation with an Israeli boyfriend who might have shown some nasty behavior against Palestinian refugees. They will find, when they finally reach their destination that both the man they are looking for and the money are gone. Hanna forces a Palestinian woman who works for him to drive with them and help in finding him. The rapidly changing nature of the relationship and of their initial personal objectives between these 3, culturally different, women is fascinating to follow. The Palestinian actress Hanna Laslo won the Best Actress at Cannes for her role as Hanna, but both Natalie Portman, and Hiam Abbass (“Paradise Now”) are equally convincing. At the beginning of the film that takes place near the famous Wall in Jerusalem, there is an extraordinary long take, in one shot, of Natalie Portman crying alone in the car, that is a piece of cinematic anthology. Besides, the shooting in this Arab zone by an Israeli film director constitutes in itself a premiere.

5. QUAND LA MER MONTE (WHEN THE SEA RAISES) Yolande Moreau and Gilles Porte (Belgium, France, 2004)

Sort of a masterpiece in a minor genre, this gem of a very touching, and beautifully written and directed film, was perhaps my best surprise of the year when I rented it from Netflix. I knew Yolande Moreau, a Belgian comedian with both an unusual physical appearance and a unique way to phrase her sentences, after having seen her many times on French Television in the very popular farcical short sitcoms series “ Les Deschiens". In the early eighties she also wrote, directed , and played in a one-woman travelling show, “Sale Affaire, du sexe et du crime” (Dirty business, sex and crime). She personified a very plain, low-middle class woman who has just killed her lover and shares her feelings about it with the audience. In this film, her first that she co-directs with Gilles Porte, a director of several short films, she recreates her life when she traveled from cities to villages in Northern France and Southern Belgium, on both sides of the border. She plays her original role in front of real audiences that are filmed live by Porte. She talks at night from her modest hotel or motel rooms on the phone with her husband about redecoration he tries to do in their house, and with her child. At the same time she develops an intriguing and almost surreal relationship with a member of her audience, Dries (played by Wim Willaert a very good Flemish actor with a strange accent), who is a “giant carrier”, drinks a lot, and starts to follow her from town to town. They will have a brief but complicated romantic liaison. The job of “giant carrier” (porteur de géant) is unique to this part of Europe where giant folkloric and comic figures made of papier-maché and light wood are walked around during local festivals and celebrations of all kinds. Dries’s giant, name Totor, plays an important part in the story. The cinematography by Gilles Porte himself captures in a very authentic way , and visually stunning style, the particularly lively atmosphere (and cheerful behavior of its people) of this region around Armentières, Béthune, and Lille. A very heart-warming experience.

6. LES TEMOINS (THE WITNESSES) André Téchiné, (France, 2006)

This film that just got its first theatrical release in New-York City in February 2008, should be available from Netflix, and released in some theaters, pretty soon. I obtained a DVD from Europe through a friend. The 21st film of Techiné’s very interesting and consistent career, is perhaps, along with ‘’Wild Reeds’’ (Les Roseaux Sauvages, 1994), his most personal work . According to some comments he made to the press when the film was presented to the Berlin Film Festival in January 2007, he had to do this film as a reflexion on that period in the mid eighties when AIDS became a pandemic worldwide, including France, when several of his personal friends were affected by the virus and died, but he was himself spared from that curse. What he witnessed at that time left a deep mark in his perception of why some people survive and some die. In some ways you already find this subject treated at a different level in both “Wild Reeds” and the very moving “Les Egarés’’ (‘’Strayed’’, 2004). Here we have a story in 3 phases: 1. In Paris in 1984 Sarah (beautiful Emmanuelle Béart) writes children books but has a problem to adjust to her new condition of mother. Her husband, Mehdi (Sami Bouajila) a tough vice-squad policeman of Maghrebian origin has a problem understanding her lack of focus and patience with the newborn child. At the same time a very naive and charming provincial young man Manu (Johan Libéreau), arrives in Paris and decides, against her will, to live in his sister’s room, ana aspiring opera singer (a very convincing Julie Depardieu) in a cheap hotel full of prostitutes while he looks for a job. In fact he spends more time looking for brief sexual encounters in gay meeting places. That is how he meets a doctor, Adrien (Michel Blanc) a very close friend of Sarah, who falls in love with him and takes him home. 2. Manu is introduced by Adrien to Mehdi and Sarah. During a week-end in the Mediterranean villa of Sarah’s parents Mehdi saves Manu from drowning, and later engages in a very passionate relationship with him. But Manu gets sick (HIV Aids) without knowing exactly what happens to him and while continuing his sexual affair with Mehdi. Adrien, the Doctor, tries to help Manu who does not seem to care. Adrien becomes the leader of a medical research team that works on the new pandemic and tries to fight it and inform the public. He gets through rough times with Mehdi. 3. Manu dies. Mehdi finds out that he is not infected. He tells the truth to Sarah about his relationship with Manu and she decides to write a novel about it after reading his journal relating the progress of his disease. Life goes on. In spite of such a painful subject, Techiné tells his story with restraint and precision, without a trace of moral or social judgment. The film is never a tear-jerker and avoids ambiguous situations or elliptical editing. It is not a masterpiece, but it is a model of story-telling and professional directing.  

7. TOSCA Benoit Jacquot, (Italy, France, Germany, 2001)

I am usually totally allergic to filmed opera, especially the Franco Zeffirelli type. But I do not mind an intelligent cinematic adaptation of a good opera, as it was the case with Joseph Losey's "Don Giovanni", or Bergman's "Magic Flute". In the case of Tosca, Benoit Jacquot who is a very competent, sensible, and eclectic director with a 30 year-long career (La Désenchantée, La Fille Seule, l’Ecole de la Chair, A Tout de Suite, Sade, Intouchable) who openly confessed that he strongly disliked Italian Opera, has taken a very different approach: making a good film for cinephiles who do not have to be opera-lovers to appreciate this fully cinematographic reflexion on melodrama, a bit like Resnais did it in Private Fear in Public Places. But it never reaches the point of becoming too didactic or a caricature of the ultimate melodramatic opera, precisely because the cinematic qualities of the melodrama are given a more important priority than its purely operatic ones. His idea was to shoot in beautiful natural settings, located mainly in Germany, very good professional opera singers, ‘’acting’’ the opera and at the same time showing us black and white video clips of the same artists in ‘’civilian’’ clothes, recording the music in a studio, under the direction of conductor Antonio Papanno. Sometimes when the singers-actors are shot in close-ups, some too obvious post-dubbing and lip-synch problems become a bit annoying. But the quality of the cinematography by Romain Winding, the elegance of the direction and the intense acting performances of Angela Gheorghiu (as Tosca), of Roberto Alagna (as the painter Cavaradossi) in less convincing way, and above all of Ruggero Raimondi, in a scary very impressive almost Shakespearian interpretation of Scarpia, the nasty Rome’s Chief of Police who wants to exchange the life of the painter for an affair with Tosca, make us actually ‘’feel’’ their respective passions and torments. Raimondi was also a great actor in Losey’s Don Giovanni, and in the "Carmen" made by Francesco Rossi, a good Italian director.

8. BLISSFULLY YOURS Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand, 2005)

I was totally mesmerized by the serene but almost mystical and hallucinated beauty of "Tropical Malady", the third film by this young Thai director, who studied cinema at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. A large part of it was taking place in a tropical forest in Thailand, and the sound track was spectacular. It was No. 7 in my list of favorite films seen in 2005 published on this blog. This time we are again watching a very sinuous, very slow moving like in a dream, progression of three people, one man and two women, in a heavenly Thai forest. A couple, a man suffering from a terrible rash all over his body who might be an illegal Burmese worker and a woman who tries to both obtain a work permit for him and to relieve his anxiety and pain, go for a picnic by a river and some sexual interlude, in the forest. They will be joined by a second woman and engage in a strange and sometimes sad relation with her. . It is impossible to really describe a story that is so unconventionally told. But I can assure you that the lighting, the sounds, the rhythm of the camera movements in this film are incredibly beautiful. But you need to accept the ‘’ mood’’ of this movie and be patient, otherwise you may hate it, and that would be too bad.  

9. GABRIELLE Patrice Chéreau (France, 2005) For many years Patrice Chéreau

was better known in France as a stage and opera director. He is also an actor and a script-writer, But since his first feature film in 1975, ‘’Flesh and the Orchid’’ an adaptation from the famous J.H Chase’s ‘’No Orchids for Miss Blandish’’ with Charlotte Rampling, Simone Signoret, Alida Valli and Bruno Cremer, he has become a darling of both critics and spectators, for his great ability to direct actors and particularly actresses in very complex, uneasy, passionate, and generally tense and dramatic love stories. He also got very good response in the U.S, where he taught film on the East Coast for a while, for films such as the beautiful ‘’Queen Margot’’ (1994), Intimacy (2001) and "Those who love me will take the train" (1998). "Gabrielle" is only his 10th feature film (he also directed several plays and operas for Television), but to me it is one of the most brilliantly ‘’ mis en scene’’ (directed). Adapted from ‘’The Return’’, a short novel by Joseph Conrad, is very precisely describing the catastrophic tragedy of errors that occurs when a ‘’bourgeoise’’ played perfectly portrayed by Isabelle Huppert, tries to leave her wealthy but vain and pretentious upper-class husband (great actor Pascal Gregory) after 10 years of a loveless marriage. She leaves a letter for him in their luxurious mansion explaining that she is leaving him for another man (a pretentious journalist whom her husband hates), but for no reason changes her mind and comes back home to retrieve it before he reads it... but too late. Their ensuing confrontations will be terrible, even during a fancy party where they entertain high-society guests, including her lover. Like in a Bergman or Visconti film, the tensions are going up, and down while the mansion’s servants try to keep the situation under control. All this is beautifully orchestrated in sumptuous framing and camera movements, and the acting is so painfully precise that it leaves you nervously exhausted at the end that I will not reveal. Quite a job...  

10. MARIE-ANTOINETTE Sofia Coppola (USA, 2006)

Why did almost half of the American film critics (a few even booed at its premiere at the Cannes Festival) pan this very creative, beautifully shot, and very astute movie goes beyond my comprehension... As a matter of fact I did not see the film when it was released in Chicago’s theaters in 2006, in spite of my being intrigued by the trailers, because I was influenced by some bad reviews. It was a poor decision on my part. I would have enjoyed it even more if had watched those splendid shots and bold camera movements in glorious colors on a big screen and listened to the great soundtrack, with its provocative mix of baroque and pop music from a good sound system. Perhaps some critics did not like the film because Sofia Coppola dared to do something completely different than in her previous successful pictures, especially ‘’Lost in transaltion’’. But is it really so different from the point of view on modern young women she ha s been trying to give since the ‘’The Virgin Suicides’’ . As Roger Ebert rightly wrote in his 4 stars review of Oct 20, 2006: "Nobody cares if the film does not always respect the real historical facts. It is a very contemporary reflection, made by a film-maker, not an historian, about a teenager ahead of her time, who is in a state of complete refusal of the role court people and her family expect her to play, and at the same time wants as a sort of revenge against the decadence and the moral corruption that surrounds her, to find an escape in a passionate search of pleasures". Kirsten Dunst is very charming in the title role. But I enjoyed Rip Torn as Louis XV, Danny Huston as Marie-Antoinette’s brother and Asia Argento as Madame Du Barry even more. Needless to say, the scenery is stunning. The film was actually shot on location at the Versailles Palace, and in other castles of the Paris area. some scenes were even shot inside the Opera Garnier in Paris. The dialogues are often very funny, and the numerous pastries, actually baked by the famous Parisian pastry chef Ladurée , are mouth watering. Alain Maes, February 2008