L’Amour-Love

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I get all kinds of unusual requests related to my singing telegram service. A few months ago, someone called and asked me to perform a singing telegram for his girlfriend. When I asked him to give me details about her that I could personalize the song lyrics, he replied: "She really likes Bon Qui Qui, and I'd like you to put as many references to Bon Qui Qui as you can into the song." Now, I must confess that I had no idea who Bon Qui Qui (intentionally mispronounced as "Bawn Kwee Kwee") was. Unlike 16 million other viewers, I had not yet seen the MADtv comedy skits on YouTube performed by stand-up comedian, actress, and former NFL Cheerleader, Anjelah Johnson. If you haven't seen her in action, you should immediately stop reading this and watch one of her King Burger skits. They are funny!

I incorporated "Rude!", "Sa-cur-ity!", "Don't get crazy!" and a few other Bon Qui Qui catch phrases into my singing telegram, and opened the song by explaining that if she couldn't have Bon Qui Qui at her party, at least she could have the Bon Bon Queen! 

Since then, I have crossed paths quite frequently with Bon Qui Qui. At a Grapes & Crepes Party, one of our guests enjoyed a few too many glasses of the "grapes" (you know who you are!) and launched into a complete impersonation of Bon Qui Qui. She had all of us laughing so hard it hurt and many of our guests thought she played the character even better than Anjelah Johnson. Just recently, I learned that people who search for the phrase "Bon Qui Qui" online are sometimes landing on our website. If you are one of those people, I have just one thing to say: "Welcome to South 'n France where we can do it your way, but don’t get crazy!"

you place creative orders; and you bring us cool stuff! But for Pascal, who dreams of being a serious "cave man", this reason may be his favorite reason yet:


#346: You Know How to Make a Frenchman's Day
And that's no easy feat! It all started when a charming, new-to-the area couple discovered South 'n France in December 2008. They dropped in to buy bon bons for the holidays and started talking to Pascal about French wines. The monsieur is a serious wine collector with a very impressive cellar, and Pascal thoroughly enjoyed the dialogue. A few months later, this couple joined us for Dinner and a Movie when we featured our favorite French comedy, The Dinner Game (Le Dîner de Cons).

In the movie, the lead character, a wealthy publishing executive, suddenly has to open a bottle of wine for a tax inspector who is coming over to his luxury apartment. He fears that the tax collector will want to audit him when he sees his impressive wine collection, so he opens a 1978 bottle of Château Lafite (one of the most famous and expensive wines in the world) and pours vinegar into the bottle in order to mask its quality.

This couple joined us again recently at the launch for our new Wine & Dine Party. When they walked in the door, much to our shock (and Pascal's incredible delight), they presented us with a most extraordinary gift - you guessed it! - a bottle of 1978 Château Lafite from the monsieur's collection. This generous, thoughtful, and humorous gift made Pascal's day, his week, his month, and quite possibly his year. As soon as we were finished working for the evening, he sat down to admire his new bottle, a new crown jewel in his own collection. You can be sure that we won't be adding vinegar to that Château Lafite, no matter who's coming to dinner! In fact, I suspect that it will be many years before Pascal even lets us get close to that bottle with a cork screw. Thank you, Dan and Pat, for making Pascal a very happy "cave man". You can bet he'll be proudly displaying that bottle of Château Lafite for all to see at our next showing of The Dinner Game!

 

I’m a big fan of April Fool's Jokes. Usually, Pascal is my victim, but this year, my mother was the one who played the (horrified-turned-happy) fool! On April 4th, she celebrated her sixtieth birthday. Unbeknownst to her, we had planned a big party with quite a few surprise out-of-town guests.  One of those guests was Anne, a friend from Norway that my mother hadn't seen in fifteen years.  Since Anne was flying in to North Carolina on April 1 and only able to stay for one week, we had to find a way to plan a "pre-surprise" surprise so she would have enough time with our mother before the actual party. Lucky for us, Anne arrived on April Fool's Day.

I called our local Olive Garden restaurant (Mom's favorite - what can we say?), and spoke to the managers about our plan. The entire staff was accommodating and excited about being in our joke, so we booked a table and made our special request; we wanted a rude, abusive waiter who would give me a reason to ask for a manager.  When "The Manager" came to our table, it would actually be my mother's friend, Anne.

We all arrived at the restaurant early to take our places for the joke. Prior to our mother's arrival, I gave our waiter, Chris, lots of ideas on how he could insult me (Example:  I'll order a high-fat-dish like Chicken Fettuccini Alfredo, and you say: "Honestly, ma'am, I think you should be ordering a salad..."); I had told him he had permission to spill drinks or food on me: I had begged him to show no mercy and act as outrageously as he pleased. Anne would hide at the bar, waiting for her cue to come to the table to speak with me, the "angry" customer.

There was just one problem - our waiter, Chris, was such a nice guy that I couldn't get him to do anything bad enough to warrant calling a manager! So, I tried to instigate him: I ordered the fettuccini as planned and Chris asked, "Are you sure?" I replied: "Yeah, do you have a problem with that?" Chris said: "No, but there are other choices on the menu...". Instead of being horrified by our waiter's terrible service, my mother was aghast at my "rude" behavior! Meanwhile, Anne hid at the bar for what felt like an hour, sipping wine and waiting for her cue while I desperately tried to get Chris to insult me! 

At one point, a floor supervisor came to check on our table. "How’s everything going?", she asked, "Would you like to speak to a manager?" My mother vehemently shook her head "No" and gave me a "Don't you dare!" stare. Desperate to get this joke to work, a few minutes later I faked a trip to the bathroom and went looking for sweet Chris. "Chris", I begged, "Please! Come spill a drink on me or something!" Before Chris had to resort to such tactics, I finally found an opening to insist on speaking to a manager. Next thing we knew, there were five people standing at our table: our two servers, the floor supervisor and two "managers". When Anne spoke as the "Senior Manager", my Mom was so embarrassed she didn't even realize that the manager was actually her friend from Norway! My poor mother was just appalled by the scene I had created. After giving me a piece of her mind, the "Manager" turned to my mother and asked, "Isn't that right, Gwen Dupray?" At that moment, the light bulb went on. Mom jumped out of her chair to hug Anne and started screaming: "I don't believe this! I don't believe this!" 

Later, as we ate our pasta and re-lived the joke with everyone at the table, my mother shared her perspective: "I couldn't believe how obnoxious Charlene was being with the staff, and when that manager started telling her off, I thought "Ooooh - this is going to get ugly!'"

So there you have it. I had to endure my mother's scorn in order to pull off this year's April Fool's joke. As for our waiter? Chris apologized for his inability to be rude, but said he was sure his mother would be proud. But looking at this photo of my Mom, our waiter, and our surprise "Manager" from Norway, I'm certain that my "rude" behavior was worth it. I love (or, in this case, O-live) April Fool's!

On Valentine's Day, a sweet husband came by to pick up bon bons for his wife. We recently got this email from her that tickled my funny bone: "My husband came down and got me a box of bon bons for Valentine's Day. I'm sorry it's taken me this long, but HOLY BON BONS, BATMAN! They are heavenly. I'm officially addicted to Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Cookies 'n Crème , Coconut and Café au Lait! Thanks for helping him with selections. We will be back." -Courtney Arnold

If you're a Batman fan, you remember that his sidekick, Robin, was especially well known for saying "Holy (insert), Batman!" whenever he encountered something startling. We love that our bon bons are so startlingly delicious they caused Courtney to say "Holy Bon Bons!" Here more attributed "Holy (insert), Batman!" quotes that I found from a group of (not-so-reputable) online sources: 

Holy Bill of Rights, Batman!
Holy haberdashery, Batman!
Holy heart failure, Batman!
Holy atomic pile, Batman!
Holy priceless collection of Etruscan snoods!
Holey rusted metal, Batman! The ground. It's all metal. It's full of holes. You know, holey.
Holy demolition, Batman!
Holy Long John Silver, Batman!
Holy Kleenex Batman!  It was right under our noses and we blew it.
Holy Captain Nemo, Batman! 
Holy molars, Batman! Am I ever glad I take good care of my teeth!
Holy costume party, Batman!
Holy hole in a donut Batman!
Holy strawberries, Batman, we're in a jam!

I may be partial, but I think "Holy Bon Bons, Batman!" could rank right up there with the best of them. What do you think? Enter your own "Holy (insert), Batman!" submissions in the comments.

Lately, I've been assembling a new "vision board", a collage of images that comprise my current visual wish list. Much to my surprise, I seem to be dreaming about kitchens. When I saw these two photos, I had powerful kitchen envy/envie. The huge oven and the center island in the first photo, the traditional French table in the second photo, and the wood-burning ovens in both, appeal to me. They'd be perfect in that French farmhouse we plan to own one day. 


Our current dining room table is almost 10 feet long; we can fit twelve people at the table. I love that table, but I dream of an even bigger one similar to the communal tables you find at Le Pain Quotidien. My dream table would also come with drawers like the one in this photo. Why do French tables have those little drawers? They are used to store napkins and napkin rings. When it comes to dining habits, the French have been 'green' for a long time, using cloth napkins instead of paper ones. So that the napkins can be re-used throughout the week, each member of the family has their own unique napkin ring (rond de serviette), often engraved with their first name. I count the two traditional wooden napkin rings Pascal bought for us at Mont Saint Michel among my greatest treasures. On one side, they have a very touristy painting of the island; on the other our names are hand-written in black paint. For me, they are a symbol of our union as a couple. We had those napkin rings long before we had wedding rings, and each night when he pulls them out for dinner (his boasts a blue cloth gingham napkin; mine is a coordinating red gingham), it reminds me that we are a family.  I look forward to the day when that little drawer in my dream table is filled with napkin rings, each engraved with name that represents a friend or relative who always has a place at our big communal table. Who wouldn't envy a kitchen like that?

At many of our parties, women ask me about our French counterparts. It seems that we Americans are intensely curious about the mysterious, secretive ways of French women. Why don't they get fat? How do they always look so stylish? What exactly is that "je ne sais quoi" they seem to possess in spades? A quick search on Amazon.com reveals dozens of book titles that promise to reveal how we can dress like French women, eat like French women, act like French women, and seduce like French women. There is:  French Women Don't Get Fat, French Women Don't Sleep Alone, Entre Nous, A Woman's Guide to Finding Her Inner French Girl, Fatale: How French Women Do It, and All You Need to Be Impossibly French: A Witty Investigation into the Lives, Lusts, and Little Secrets of French Women, just to name a few.

These blog posts at Fashion Nation and The Huffington Post are great primers on what we can learn from French femmes (they may not get fat, but you can take some comfort in the fact that the French word for 'women' [femmes] rhymes with 'hams'). Although there are practical considerations (French women eat less processed foods, exercise more, eat smaller portions, etc.), it seems that the big difference between us and French women is an "état d'ésprit" or state of mind. Yves Saint Laurent said: "The most beautiful make-up on a woman is passion..." Coco Chanel said you should spray perfume "wherever you want to be kissed." 

And consider these dietary "secrets" from French Women Don't Get Fat:
French women typically think about good things to eat. American women typically worry about bad things to eat.  In other words, French women eat for pleasure and don't eat thinking about guilt. 

Presentation is just as important as taste; a French woman slowly savors her food using all five senses.

French women know one can go far with a great haircut, a bottle of Champagne, one rich satisfying, low-calorie chocolate bon bon, and a divine perfume.

Likewise, French women get a kick from Champagne, as an apéritif or with food, and don't need a special occasion to open a bottle.

French women entertain at home and enjoy dining in as much as dining out.

French women know that l'amour fait maigrir (love is slimming).

French women love to sit at a cafe and do nothing but enjoy the moment.

So there you have it: just add a little more pleasure, a little more freedom, and a little more self-confidence, and you too will exude the joie de vivre of a French femme fatale.