battre

The verb "battre" as witnessed by a somber vine after the vent du nord/northern wind swept through a medieval village, beating crimson leaves to the ground.

battre (batr) verb
  1. to beat, to defeat
  2. to strike, to hit
  3. to thresh, to churn; whip, whisk
      Also: se battre = to fight

Listen: hear the word "battre" pronounced

Conjugation: je bats, tu bats, il/elle bat, nous battons, vous battez, ils/elles battent

Expressions:
battre des mains = to applaud
battre les cartes = to shuffle cards
battre froid à quelqu'un = to give someone the cold shoulder
battre la campagne = to let one's mind wander
battre de l'aile = to be in a bad way
battre le fer pendant qu'il est chaud = to strike when the iron is hot

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Citation du Jour:
Le monde est un endroit magnifique pour lequel il vaut la peine de se battre.
The world is a wonderful place and worth fighting for. --Ernest Hemingway

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A Day in a French Life...

The only thing more daunting than making chocolate mousse for les français* is making the fluffy dessert for a few Francophile food writers.

When my mousse turned to mud on Saturday night and our 9 French guests could be found wrestling with the silverware, pushing the spoons in and pulling them out of the chocolate sludge, I knew it was the eggs. Pas assez battus.*

On Sunday I retraced my mud-producing steps, taking out the mixer, the eggs, the salt and the chocolate bar with the French instructions written on the back. When the salted egg whites had been beaten, folded into the chocolate/yolk mix and chilled for three hours there was nothing left to do but study my invités,* Cheryl and Bill.* This time, instead putting spoon to mousse as one might put pick to ice, my guests had only to sip. While version one was something to bite into, version two was buvable.*

As I fine-tune the battle plan for version three, I realize success or failure, or the chocolate's ability to foam and not fudgen or flop, has a little to do with beating one's odds, and a lot to do with batting one's oeufs.*

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*Reference: les français = the French; pas assez battus = not beaten enough; invité(e) = guest; Cheryl and Bill are authors of cookbooks including this one); buvable = drinkable; oeuf (m) = egg