July 10, 2008

Made in America

When my friend Anthony came over for a visit from New York a few months ago, I asked him to bring me some very important necessities from state-side:
1. A carton of Parliament Lights from Duty Free
2. Airborne Vitamin Tablets
3. Peanut Butter

Did you know that they don't have peanut butter in France? I mean, it's out there. Dont get me wrong. The one time I did see it, it was nestled deep in the Mexican Food section next to the tortillas and fajitas kits. And Im sure this was no accident. The French are expert merchandisers so I could only assume they had no idea what to do with the product when the distributeur accidentally sent them a case of the stuff. They had the Nutella next to the jams and honey and chestnut spread. Right where the PB should have gone, but no. Lonely, in Mexico, by seasonings and other misc items.

So... when I went to breakfast last weekend with Eva and the girls to "Breakfast in America" (not my idea but proved to be fantastic) I was not the least bit surprised to learn that Eva had never tasted Peanut Butter. So we ordered a side. There we are, 4 girls at brunch digging into a cup of peanut butter like christmas day! All the girls adored the peanut butter and I adored the fact that I for once got to translate the menu to them!

It was fantastic! A joyous day pour moi. "She'll have the eggs and she'll have the pancakes..." Which by the way, Eva and Gaelle had never had pancakes before either! The feeling on pancakes was that they were "special."
Let me explain. This is not a good thing. We generally save the word "special" for guys we date that dont have their shit together.
"So do you like him?"
"Eh. , he is special." And thats that. No more will be spoken of him.

So Heres the thing about Breakfast in America. Well actually there are several things. The place is like no other place I have ever seen or been inParis. I mean it really is the epitome of us loud, big mug coffee drinking, poorly decorated, over-ambitious eating Americans. Its just too much food. Plain and simple. Not to mention it took me about 10 minutes to explain what bottomless mug of coffee was and after that I had to explain what a bagel is. Which actually got funny because I ended up using a rather funny hand gesture to demostrate the hole in the middle, nevermind. You get the point. But for me, this was non-stop french/american laughs.

And Even before we had the Breakfast in America experience, I was granted my own coin by a rowdy group following a long night of binge drinking. Back to chez moi we headed for breakfast.
I whipped up a simple egg scramble with mushrooms, tomatoes, avocado and cheese. The Frenchies I was serving had never seen a scramble like this.
"Deeahhne, this is delicious your eggs! This is Made in America!" So now I am often at request for "Made In America Eggs."

Much like a short order cook at a 5 Star day camp, I will continue to tread my way through the plethora of French intricacies. One condiment at a time...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

wow, so awesome that you flipped it. Viva la peanut butters!