From Right Here

Here’s an exerpt from my latest piece for my friend Clarence’s Food Blog! Click here for the full article -

http://you-food.net/

Ahhh…Bread and Cheese. The very basics of French Cuisine. If you head to your local Whole Foods and attempt to pick out a French cheese, it can seem pretty daunting, it seems like there are a million varieties and they all have names that sound funny. Likewise, it is nearly impossible to find a decent crusty bread, both in the US AND even in France. Either it’s uber-chewy on the outside and goopy in the middle or it lasts for less than one day and unlike me, you can’t bring yourself to eat an entire baguette in 4 hours….

www.cheriefm.fr

Oh CherieFM, Cherie FM…

Only you can play Phil Collins and George Micheal and Carla Bruni and James Blunt and Daniel Pewter and all those spanish guys that sing from the top of their lungs and you can TELL are sexy just from hearing it…only you, Cherie FM can make it all seem like it’s supposed to go together.

CherieFM - Love Songs from France. You may not be adored by all those techno-kids over here, but you got me-(but if you could stop playing that ONE Colbie Callait song over and over and over, I’d appreciate it).

I can’t say I just spent a whole day taking pictures of normal French people. I can’t categorize any person as normal, especially French! I spent Sunday at a Festival of “welcome”, a brilliant idea by the city of Montpellier, that invites every association, dance school, choral group, mosaic-workshop, gay/lesbian club, karate class in the greater Languedoc area to come and give out information to the public.

It was a beautiful day to appreciate how nice it is to live for a few months in one of France’s largest cities, where culture is king. Here’s some photos of Montpellierians…and French people, whom I try to impersonate on a daily basis.

Salsa dancing is VERRYYY popular in Montpellier. It may be because Montpellier is a huge cultural center for dance, with many dane schools and its own yearly dance festival - Montpellier Dance. They also had their own country line-dancing group.

Even when women are dressed “comfortably” in France, they always wear jewelery, and have great hair. Love her bag, too! And don’t even think of wearing sweats unless you’re headed to the gym…it’s just weird.

Can’t say there’s a uniform “style” here in the Languedoc in France, but I see a lot of young ladies with flats, flats, falts, great earings and bangs, sweeping across the brow and hiding very flirty eyes.

I met a young guy from England visiting who described French girls as this -

“They just know you want to snog them, and you can tell they don’t even care…”

Ah…I think my favorite Montpellier Photo Blogger is back from the states…finallY!

http://montpellierdailyphoto.blogspot.com/

From the article by Phillip Pullella www.thestar.com

You can say “Ce m’est egal” which means, “I don’t care”. Or you can say “Ce n’importe pas” which means “It doesn’t matter” or my favorite and which you say whenever someone says “Sorry” -

“C’est pas grave”

The pope was here a few days ago, and no one I know has even mentioned it. Ce n’importe pas. I suppose if we were in Paris, we might have had more long conversations. But like many countries, France is place where fewer and fewer people go to church. Once the “daughter” of Rome, France has a long history of staunch catholicism - remember that whole story about Joan of Arc? (you didn’t get it either, right?….why England owned France…HUH?I know it’s confusing - try this link - www.wikipedia.org).

Nowadays, I don’t know anyone that goes to church, and you can often visit beautiful, majestic cathedrals that are barely half full on Sunday mornings. But I can’t say that people here aren’t “spiritual”…many of the people I’ve met do believe in God, and the presence of religion is “partout” all around.

In Montpellier you’ll find many many choral groups and even a baptist church or two.

The church youth-groups are in full swing here, and I’ve seen many student groups singing songs in the park and gathering for spiritual picnics.

On a bizarre and rather scary note, you’ll also find a lot of young people from Utah and Nevada. They come over for a few months in large groups, learn french in master classes and then spend the remainder of their time standing on corners and talking to young french people, trying to turn them on to the Mormon faith or something…..

I thought I’d escaped the “Holy Rolling” when I left New York, but every morning on my way to the tram, I smile at the old men in their ties and suits handing out “Good News” pamphlets  - I smile and run….

For many people here, perhaps it’s not that people have lost Faith in God…it’s that they’ve lost faith in the Catholic Church. I even have a friend from Italy, who says people their are less and less apt to attend mass and are tired of the corruption that has plagued the Vatican both recently and in the past…oh…thousand years or so.

In France, one reason for their disillusion may be that Pope Benedict still refuses to recognize divorce and believes that any union created outside the church is “null and void”. Here in France, they use a different type of civil union called a “Pacte Civil de Solidarite” - which is used by homosexual and hetero-sexual couples alike. It’s far less complicated than a regular marriage license and it offers protection to couples who choose to live together without the exorbitant costs and rituals associated with regular marriages.

The french government tries to keep up with the times…and The Roman Catholic Church, under Pope Benedict (now 81 years old) isn’t even attempting. Maybe that’s one of the reasons, 700 people gathered along with la Fédération anarchiste to offer up a good old french “manifestation” aka PROTEST which the media ignored.

For that original article - go to the UK’s http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/499266

For the protest, try -