An Amazing Weekend in Bordeaux

Darling sister and sister-in-law came to France last week for a wedding and stayed for a bit in Bordeaux, which gave me the perfect excuse to spend some time in the beautiful old city. It's truly gorgeous, with little narrow alleyways, a lovely old cathedrals and tons and tons of little squares, each of them with their own unique vibe...a brand new universe every few blocks.

Kate & Jess arrived just in time for the Fete le Vin on the riverfront, a huge celebration of Bordelaise wines. We walked along the water, tasted as much of the many varieties as we could handle in the heat and eventually ended up cooling off a very smart water feature in the Place de la Bourse called the miroir d’eau. It is a black granite pool with about 1/2 inch of water, making it the perfect spot to cool your toes on a hot summer day. When we were just about dying of the heat and red wine, we came upon the square just teeming with kids and parents having the greatest time in the shallowest pool I have ever seen. There were toddlers splashing, little kids chasing each other and one enthusiastic young boy on a scooter cutting a truly narley wake in the pool. Then, all of the sudden, the water drained out and the entire pool turned into a mist machine. Collectively the entire square breathed a little sigh of relief and went quiet, suddenly shrouded, walking slowly and mysteriously across the square.

Other than the wine festival, there was a lot of good food to be had. Jess and I went a little nutty in a chocolate shop and ordered every flavor of macaroon our hearts desired...rose, lavender, noisette, pistachio. The pastries reminded me of miniature candy hamburgers, but much more delicious. Kate promptly squished them to smithereens in her bag, but the crumbs were still delicate and delicious.

I also got to try my first plate of escargot. The little buggers really appealed to my well-known obsession with circles. They were served in a round ceramic dish with six tiny circular indents that perfectly fit the shells. The special utensil for grabbing the little buggers was a circular tong to hold the shell while digging out the delectible morsel inside. Mine were steamed and then topped with butter and pesto...similar in texture to a perfectly cooked mussel; I can see why they're such a delicacy here. I don't think I will ever be able to look at those garden pests again without briefly entertaining culinary daydreams. Just as we were finishing our dinner that evening, we heard some commotion on the street and knew that the fireworks were beginning for the festival. As were wandered down the plaza, we could hear the big, full orchestra music and see the pink flashes in the sky.

The next day all three of us were feeling wilted from the heat and decided to take a little road trip to the Atlantic coast to cool off. We'd heard tales of La Dune du Pila, a huge sand dune a hour away, the largest in France. Supposedly the thing just kept growing and growing over the years, swallowing trees even hotels. Finally someone put a stop to the horror movie madness and they planted a whole forest of pine trees to tame the monstrous sand dune. Now its a tourist attraction with a HUGE set of stairs to the top...you know, accessible. So we climbed and climbed to the top and when we finally arrived we saw that the dune just kept going and going off into the distance. It was like being on the set of Laurence of Arabia. And the view of the calm little harbour below was fantastic and extremely enticing.



After stumbling to the bottom for a quick swim and then heroically climbing back up to the top in the mid-day heat, we were ready to reward ourselves with some sea-side snacking. For a while we drove around the tiny villages, looking in vain for a simple meal of ocean critters, and we finally happened upon the haven that is Papa's Restaurant. In the town of Arcachon was a Basque bistro serving up both fresh oysters and plates of moule-frites. We gladly partook of both and had the pleasure of being served by the fat, red-cheeked Papa himself. In between singing, shouting at his equally jolly wife and entertaining his five-year-old grandson with the radio on his Gold Wing, Papa kept us happy with bubbly drinks and plates of tasty mollusks. We arrived back in Bordeaux that evening in time for an ice cream cone and another round of festival fireworks.

P.S. This has absolutely nothing to do with the narrative, but I loved this photo and had to share it. Kate bought yogurt for a car snack, but there were no spoons in sight. So we improvised and made our own go-gurts. Totally clever until she started slurping the last dregs...and then giggling...and then almost choking and wrecking the car. Brilliant.

The Longest Bike Ride Ever

I need to start out this post by saying that I am not a wimp. There, now I feel better and can whine for a few paragraphs.

See that happy, smiling face above? I look so carefree, contented and adventurous. Like I'm ready to meet any challenge with calm and fortitude. That's the "before" picture. If only I had an "after" picture--then you'd know what a long, long bike ride it is from Manhattan to the only real beach in New York City.

I also need to preface this story with a note about my cycling companions. My sister Kate, her wife Jess and their friend Anna are probably not human. Only robotic beings would be able to so easily pedal on and on for hours. For them, 100 mile bike rides and participating in Iron Man competitions are leisurely activities. For us carbon-based life forms, leisure normally includes a cocktail and some nominally strenuous activity, like dominoes. In my case, there are only two acceptable times for a person to break a sweat, both of which entail lying on your back. I should have been much more suspicious when these ladies proposed a bike ride to the beach.

My sister lives on 148th Street in West Harlem. Our destination that day was a place called Riis Park, in the same area as Coney Island . At least that was my general impression. Being unfamiliar with the greater NYC metro area, I trusted in the navigation skills of my robotic cycling buddies. As the picture suggests, we did in fact take a train for part of the way. That should have been another indication of how far it was. The rest of the week we had been cycling all over Manhattan because as my sister said "its more convenient than the train." (A sure sign of her robotic programming. There's not much that's more convenient than stepping on and off a train.) Even after having taken the train, we're talking about a 4o mile round trip ride. For a girl accustomed to walking a quarter of a mile to work and back each day, maybe a yoga class if the mood strikes, this was definitely a stretch. We got off the train in Brooklyn, biked down to Coney Island and then just kept going. And going, and going.

So here I am panting in the 99% humidity of a New York summer, cursing under my breath and trying to NOT be the complaining, out-of-shape whiner that I am. Telling my happily-cycling robot friends, "This is great! I'm doing fine!" as I gasp for air. Here enter the heroes of the story, the two things that sustained me on this ordeal: the Russian deli and the shake shack. Tasty Russian deli right off the boardwalk in Coney Island. I think it was called Russian Delight, but maybe I'm just making that up because I was so delighted to be there. Nothing can perk a girl up like a good foreign deli with lots of new foods to sample. There was a delicious cabbage salad that none of thought was cabbage until we tried it. (Kate thought it was noodles, I thought it was onion.) Tasty little plum and cherry fried donuts-things, cheesy pastry pies and lots of other goodies, whose contents I can only guess at. Basically cabbage, meat and cheese, artfully rearranged into lots of different dishes. That was just on the way there. On the way back we discovered the shake shack right there at the park entrance. It was a little roach coach with hot dogs, hamburgers and every imaginable flavor of milkshake. The shake shack special is an unknown concoction of ice creamy flavors. When you ask the nice man at the counter what's in it, he replies, "Just eat it, it's good." Word. Ice cream, I've decided, is the perfect sustenance for a long journey home.

I take it back--there were three things that sustained me. The beach was really beautiful. When my sister told me about this amazing beach, a real beach, in New York City of all places, of course I was skeptical. I'm a West Coast girl, through and through and am a little prejudiced in favor of the unspoiled beaches of Central Coast California. I wasn't expecting much from this coastline in terms of beachy beauty. Coney Island about met my beach expectations--imported sand with crowded tall buildings right behind, ladies smoking cigarettes and tanning their chubby painted toes while gossiping about their neighbors, subway rails running the length of the shore. The real beach was much different. Riis Park is a really long stretch of sand with warm water, not a lot of folks around and cool decaying old building scattered here and there along the way. There was a decrepit old airplane hanger that we passed with weeds growing everywhere and some trees scattered about. Otherwise, there wasn't much to tell you that you're still within the city limits. Just pretty water, soft sand and quiet. My kind of beach. I even went swimming since the water was so warm, something I rarely do in the chilly Pacific.

I am kind a wimp to whine. It was a lovely day.