Home Again, Home Again

One of the wonderful things about living in NY is, no matter where we've been, we're always happy to come home again. There are as many exciting things to do here as wherever we've been.

Chris studies magazines, newspapers and web sites; filling a notebook full of things we just have to do. We are home less than a week and have already been to the cabaret at the Algonquin and the van Gogh exhibit at the Met and have tickets next week for Lion King and the opening of the Darwin exhibit at the AMNH. Fortunately, Chris is in Canada visiting her mother, or I wouldn't have time for this journal.

On a more serious note, we went shopping the day after we returned and found the experience not quite as satisfying as in France - the selection of cheeses was sad - and no Camembert! It's my favorite cheese and you can't get real Camembert in the US because its made with raw milk (and not aged). We also missed not having a "boulangerie" on every block. The French have bakeries the way we have nail salons. The average Parisian visits a bakery more than once a day - in the morning for a baguette and croissant - in the afternoon for a sandwich for lunch and in the evening for a baguette for dinner.

On a positive note, we've been out to dinner a couple of times. We haven't had much game (unless you count chicken) - but we have had good and interesting meals at a third to a half less than in Paris! It is clear that NY restaurants can stand up with the best of French restaurants. We have the best meats and some fish. Where we don't measure up is the variety and quality of fresh fruits and vegetables and game and organ meats. We're making progress in artisinal cheese, (even in Otis) but these don't show up in restaurants. The one type of restaurant that we don't have much of are the super-formal, super-expensive, 2 and 3 star Michelin restaurants. I know Michelin has started a NY red guide. I hope it doesn't catch on here. The standards they use for rating restaurants are very rigid and lead to huge overhead. You can see that in the first guide, none of the wonderful "ethnic" restaurants in NY were rated well. It is very biased towards traditional cooking styles.

Lastly, I'm sure you're all well aware of the recent rioting in the Muslim housing projects. The causes are complicated and the result of years of 'doing the wrong thing'. But whatever the immediate causes some things are clear. The French government provides much superior education and housing as compared to our inner cities but makes no effort to better integrate them into their society. Unemployment is over 30%. They get the same generous unemployment and welfare as native-born but that doesn't deal with the lack of feeling a part of, and having a stake in, the system. There are no affirmative action programs in France because they reject any cultural or religious differences as anti-French. Having come from a history of government-sponsored religion and intolerance, they have a strong bias against religious or ethnic identification as separate from "French-ness". It's unclear how this can ever be resolved without the government making some concessions and making a good faith effort to give these people a stake in the system.

Chris is due back from Canada this evening and we will be going to Peter Luger with Jory and Scott. Then we'll be heading up to the Berkshires for the weekend. We will be truly "home again".