Joe and I returned Friday from our honeymoon. And while our hearts accompanied us in full to the Côte d’Azur, we left something else very key to our happiness behind us in San Francisco: the spice of life—well, a particular kind of spice.
Don’t get me wrong. The French have it on joie de vivre. There might be no place more stunningly, breathtakingly beautiful than the South of France. Joe—a total Francophile, when he’s not being a Mexicohead—has been to this part of the world multiple times and whizzed our diesel-fueled little car around each tax-paid, perfectly landscaped roundabout with joyful confidence, declaring the French “just so cool!” at every turn.
The French are just so cool about a lot of things: The fact that even the corner stores carry produce worthy of the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market and gas stations have more than passable pastries. They’re cool when it comes to scarf tying and wearing heels while riding bikes. Their speed limits might be higher than ours in the US, but their need to get places quickly never seems too dire—which is cool. They’re cool for drinking espresso in ceramic cups rather than accessorizing with lukewarm grande lattes in to-go cups. They’re cool for eating plat du jours, putting French fries in everything (including sandwiches) and yet maintaining their weight and they’re cool for going topless on the beach. They’re definitely cool for drinking in the afternoon (especially the gorgeous apricot-hued rose indicative of the South, which we ordered by the bottle on the beach in Juan-Le-Pins).
But even Joe, who would like to be some Mexi-Franco combo if he had his druthers, felt a bit landlocked during our 10 days in France—despite it being located right along the beautiful, calm Mediterranean Sea.
By landlocked—his word, actually—I think he meant there was no salsa to speak of for miles everywhere we looked.
The French have their own culture in spades—a culture a lot of San Franciscans would love to call their own. But the provincialism that naturally comes with a country that has a very distinct identity can make an American, used to eating a dash of this and a dash of that, a little claustrophobic. Especially someone that lives in an urban area, where our dining calendar is consciously monitored: one night Thai, the next Italian, taco Thursdays (ahem!) and dim sum Sundays. Dinner options here are actually eliminated based on what one ate days ago. (Honey, I don’t want Vietnamese tonight. We had it last week, remember?) Meanwhile, in France, French bistro fare—as tasty as it is—is pretty much all you’ve got going on.
And it’s not spicy. Not remotely. And not eating anything spicy after a while can make some of us feel, well, a little out of sorts.
Which is why, the morning after our return to SF, I set off for the grocery store at 8 am with orders from Joe to get salsa-making material. Thirty minutes later, pasilla chilies, jalapenos and tomatoes were on the grill, the Cuisinart was at the ready. Joe fried up some eggs, sliced some avocado and served us both a very un-French breakfast topped on corn tortillas. We let the heat of the salsa warm us and felt balanced again.