French Word-A-Day

Metro Boulot Dodo

 
                                                                                  In front of Hotel des Invalides...
 
 métro boulot dodo

    : "subway" "work" "sleep"
 

A Day in a French Life... by Kristin Espinasse

This will have to be an interactive post today, with me being the "inter" and you being the" active". For I am between hours right now, the hour in which I woke up, here in the Hotel Latour Maubourg and the hour in which school begins, over there on rue Vaugirard.

Would you please help elaborate on today's expression, which means, in a nutshell, the unrelenting cycle of movement (métro) and production ("work" or "boulot") which leads us to collapse into dodo (sleep).  

Note: The week here at writing school (the Paris Writers Workshop) is busy, filled with activities and homework assignments, so this may be the only post this week. Stay tuned.... and happy week to all.

:: Le Coin Commentaires ::

Thanks for helping expand on today's word, adding helpful insights or personal anecdotes. All comments are welcome. Please click here http://french-word-a-day.typepad.com/motdujour/2010/06/metro-boulot-dodo.html#comments

  
 Vélibs if you please.

lié

A room with a view or, if you like, une chambre avec une scène.  Read on in today's story, by guest blogger Lynn McBride.

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 Lié, e (lee-ay) adjective  

    : to be friendly with, close to, attached to

 

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 In the news...  

(headline) L'acteur vedette des films "Twilight" lié à Dracula par le sang‎. Robert Pattinson et Vlad Dracula sont semble-t-il liés par le biais de la famille royale britannique.
 
The star of the "Twilight" films linked to Dracula by blood. Robert Pattinson and Vlad Dracula are, it seems, linked by means of the British Royal Family.
 

Love and a Tarte Tatin
                                                  ... by Lynn McBride

 
A French window is a thing of beauty.  First there is the satisfying experience of turning a heavy, twisted iron handle.  Then with both arms you draw the windows toward you and suddenly, with no screen between you and the sky, you are truly outside, leaning into the sunshine.  From high in the château we live in, the view below--a patchwork of lush pastures with their leafy borders and white Charolais cows--is like a framed, living painting on our smooth stone wall.  

My husband Ron and I have become bien lié with Nicole and Pierre, the owners of this château.  When we decided to move to France several years ago, we were lucky enough to stumble into a fantasy life in a fairy tale castle in southern Burgundy with this extraordinary couple we’ve come to love, who have oriented us, taught us some French, and educated us about French food.  

And if food equals love, then love at the Château de Balleure is a tarte tatin. 

Tarte tatin.  Even the words, as they roll off your tongue, are delicious. The first time I ever heard of this warm, caramelized, topsy turvey apple pie was many years ago, when my husband sent me to a cooking class at the Cordon Bleu in Paris for my birthday.  When Monsieur le Chef announced that we would be making that iconic dessert, the woman next to me, a food writer, began almost dancing in her chair.  “Can you believe it?” she whispered excitedly in my ear.  “A tarte tatin!”  But now that I’ve had both, I must tell you this: that famous chef’s version couldn’t hold a candle to the one Nicole makes. 

 
                                          Lynn's husband, Ron, with Nicole.
  
The table in Nicole and Pierre’s dining room at the Château de Balleure is an imposing walnut affair, in a bright, grand room with dark wood beams. We’ve had many a fine meal there, but there are certain rules:  Ron, who is habitually spoiled by Nicole, has his own chair, at Nicole’s right.  And if we are invited to dine, even with a large group, there is tarte tatin for dessert.  This tradition started the very first time she served us her specialty, and Ron said, “Nicole, why would you ever make any other dessert?”  And with that clever comment, we have scored our favorite dish at every shared meal.

It was with great trepidation that I asked her to share her famous recipe. But Nicole, always generous, agreed, and Dear Reader, you are to be privy to her secrets.  Serve it hot, with cream, to someone you love. 


Go to www.southernfriedfrench.com today to find Nicole’s recipe.  Also on the menu at Southern Fried French:  the sweet little history of tarte tatin and the Tartin sisters.
 



Lynn McBride is a former magazine editor for Better Homes & Gardens who moved to Burgundy from Charleston, South Carolina. She and her husband serendipitously landed in a medieval château with a French couple, where she’s busy learning about language, French cooking, and the good life in France. You can subscribe to her weekly blog, with a recipe, at Southern Fried French (www.southernfriedfrench.com).

:: Le Coin Commentaires ::

As my friend Stacy says: Comments are the "icing on the cake". Thanks for making this edition even sweeter by leaving a response to today's story, here, in the comments box. 
 

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   One more of Lynn's beautiful photos.... 
   

 
  

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entretenir de grands espoirs

Are you seeing the broken glass... or the pretty watermelon building in the back? Do you practice positive or stinking thinking?

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entretenir de grands espoirs

    : to have high hopes
 

Audio File: listen to my son, Max, pronounce today's expression and these words:Download MP3 or Wav file

 J'entretiens de grands espoirs! I have high hopes!

   
A Day in a French Life... by Kristin Espinasse

Say this: "j'entretiens de grands espoirs!" (I have high hopes!) Now say it again, this time with gusto: J'entretiens de grands espoirs!!!

I say this lately, avec ou sans gusto. No matter how green or Gallic the grass is just outside my window, no matter how peaceful the Provençale prairie beyond, I fight a "negative thought" battle all the @*$!#& day long.   

It is a battle of the mind and it takes a heaping helping of "high apple pie" mentality to fight it. Speaking of apple pie, I've put on weight lately....

(And there they go again, the brain "bad guys" that would have me focusing not on others, but on my thighs. That is how they keep us stuck, in a muck, ever convinced we're out of luck.)

Though my mother taught me to identify negative thinking, my thoughts have a mind of their own and, drone drone drone, on they march relentlessly. I think they're out to get me.

And so I write. Funny (sometimes laughable) stories. It helps to keep those unruly thoughts focused by filling up page after blank page, ordering the thoughts lest they find the time to order me.

"Keep a watchman at the gate," Mom always says. I like to imagine an armed soldier, my very own "brainguard" (stronger even than a bodyguard!). As the defeating thoughts approach, my brainguard raises an arm, level with its shoulder. The upright palm at the end of that arm is almost touching the face of the intruder, so close that the intruder could read the wrinkled life line upon it. But the thought intruders are too dumb to be palm readers.

"Halte! Let me see your papers!" my brainguard barks at the unwelcome thoughts. Because the thought impostors are dumb by nature (after all, they can think of nothing better to do than to amuse themselves via so much taunting and fearful thought flaunting), they've forgotten to falsify their passports. In fact, they forgot their passports altogether!

Easy as that, my brainguard sends them on their way. But the thought impostors only get as far as the bridge before, piddle brains that they are, they forget why they've headed off. And so they turn back for another attack.

Sometimes my brainguard falls asleep at the gate and I have to come up with other ways to stave off the savages. One of my new favorite weapons is singing. Just sing louder than the voices in your head.

Personally, I fancy the rubber tree song:

...just what makes that little ol' ant think he can move that rubber-tree plant...

After all, we've got to have high hopes if we are to continue to believe in the good that is out there, high apple pie hopes with dollops and dollops of determination.
 

:: Le Coin Commentaires ::

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