Volume 7
An Online Literary Magazine
November 30, 2012

 

We've Always Had Paris...and Provence Excerpt

Nonfiction

Patricia and Walter Wells

 


Patricia Wells on the job at the International Herald-Tribune in polka dot St Laurent dress.

 

W
hen we landed in Paris, I spoke not a word of French, and since Walter knew at least 100 words and several conjugations, I considered him totally fluent. That gave me the wifely right to demand, “Call the real estate agent (banker, plumber)…. “ And he usually did.

 

It was one of our first days in Paris, and Walter got off the phone after speaking to a real estate agent. With a huge smile of relief he looked up to announce, “It sounds like Audrey Hepburn’s dream apartment.”

 

I had visions of dancing up those winding, red-carpeted stairs in soft black ballerina shoes. I would be perfectly coiffed and my shiny red nails perfectly manicured. I would be dressed in black and white Chanel, made up to perfection.

 

We got Audrey’s dream and more. Or less. Moving into a rental apartment in Paris in 1980 was a bit like buying a used car without seats, steering wheel, or tires. Rock bottom bare is what you got: few light fixtures and if there were fixtures, no light bulbs, no appliances (unless you made a cash deal with the previous tenant), no curtains or draperies, and, in our case, a kitchen without a single drawer. Most walls had not been painted since 1905 when the elegant, gray stone Haussmannian apartment building was constructed. Much of the old tile floor in the kitchen had given way, and in the center of the high-ceilinged room hung a makeshift clothes-drying rack with a pulley, right out of The Honeymooners. But we had “class!”

 

The French have a word for it: standing. There were marble fireplaces with beveled mirrors above carved mantles in every room. Romantic floor to ceiling windows overlooking a well-tended inner courtyard. A bathroom with a white porcelain sink so big you could almost bathe in it. And oak floors that seemed to speak of all those tenants who had come before us. There were funny quirks from another era, like a little bell on the floor of the double living room (that rang in the kitchen to call the maid), an ancient toilet with a pull chain for flushing, a sixth-floor walk-up maid’s room for the servant we would never have, and a cool, damp cave for storing all those precious Bordeaux we were certain to collect on romantic weekend outings.

 

Clearly, we had a lot to learn about our fantasies. Because we did not intend to stay for long, we moved only a handful of boxes and a few basic pieces of furniture from New York, but the day our goods arrived, we found the building’s tiny elevator was mysteriously out of order. The movers hauled everything up the three flights of winding, red-carpeted stone stairs by hand. Only later did we learn why the elevator was out of service—we had failed to slip the concierge a handful of francs, as a “consideration.” Even before we installed ourselves on Rue Daru that February, I began exploring the neighborhood, not far from the Arc de Triomphe. One weekday before 5 p.m., I happened upon the huge outdoor market on the Rue Poncelet. The day was frightfully damp, it was already pitch dark, with daylight in depressingly short supply, but as I walked in wonderment past stall after stall of brilliantly fresh produce, beautiful poultry and rabbits with their furry feet still attached, sparkling fresh fish and shellfish direct from Brittany and the Mediterranean, I looked up at the red, silver, and gold holiday decorations, and I cried. I could not believe my good fortune. (And little did I know what an important role that market would play in my daily life for some 20 years.)

 

Soon Walter was leaving our new home as early as 9 each morning, and sometimes not returning until somewhere around 2 a.m., when the IHT’s last edition had finally been “put to bed” then argued over. As soon as he left for work, I entered the spare bedroom to write on my blue-gray Smith Corona portable electric typewriter. There were days that I felt I had a gun to my head: Write! Make some money!

 

I had been completely in favor of the move, even though I was giving up my dream job as a reporter for The New York Times in exchange for a promise of nothing. (Then, I still believed in two years I would be back at my desk at The New York Times. This was just going to be a sabbatical in Paris.)

 

But reality hit soon: I was lost in the language, I had little promise of freelance work beyond a few connections at such New York magazines as Food & Wine and Travel + Leisure and some vague promises from my old bosses at The New York Times. With a New York City mortgage to pay off and four francs to the dollar, money was scarce.

 

 


The Wells throw a party in their new Paris apartment.
Walter and I had been married only two years and by most standards, we were still newlyweds. We didn’t think so then, of course, but our marriage was about to be put to a royal test. He was off struggling with a disorganized newspaper and a habitually disgruntled staff. I felt totally alone.

 

I remember that I cried a lot in the beginning. My one solace was running, and run I did. Each morning, I’d don my running togs and head for Parc Monceau, where a daily hour’s run was the routine. Willie Nelson and Anne Murray were my favorite singers then, and I’d stick their tapes into my bulky Walkman, and they’d carry me around the one-kilometer (0.6-mile) route, around and around. I came to love the ultra-romantic marble statue of Chopin playing the piano; it stood at one end of the park, as well as the strange fake Greek ruins that flanked the other end. In fact, it was in those early days in Paris that I created the mantra I stick to even now: “If you run five miles before 9 in the morning, nothing bad can happen to you the rest of the day.” And it usually didn’t. Running was my psychological insurance policy. It also became my religion.

 

I had only been to Paris once before, in January of 1973, a glorious week filled with exploration, culinary excitement, and elegance. But the thought of ever living there was beyond my wildest dreams.

 

As I look back on our first months as a resident, I realize that I did have one great luxury then: Time—practically all the time in the world. That didn’t make up for the absence of assignments. I left New York that January of 1980 with a specific idea: to write a book that would be called The Food Lover’s Guide to Paris. I was convinced that there were enough other visitors and even Parisians themselves who were fascinated not just by the city’s restaurants, but also by the bakeries, pastry shops, wine bars, chocolate shops, and markets, all the truly fun things that happened between meals in Paris. The problem was I hadn’t found a single New York publisher who agreed with me. Before leaving New York, I spoke with Judith Jones, the illustrious editor at Knopf who carried Julia Child through much of her publishing career. Judith, whose love of Paris is legendary, listened to my passionate proposal and responded, “It’s a book I’d love to buy, but I can’t publish it. It will never sell.”

 

I know now, but didn’t know then, that perseverance, persistence, and an unwillingness to take no for an answer would be much-needed traits throughout my career in France. They would also serve me well in shaping my work. I developed a simple strategy: I’d get the assignments separately and write the book chapter by chapter. I would show a publisher that the idea was a good one!

 

My first big freelance assignment was an article on the bakers of Paris for Travel + Leisure magazine. It was my first chance to examine every Paris neighborhood as a reporter, and I felt like a giant sponge, absorbing characters and experiences, flavors and aromas, all new and exotic to me. I remember seeing now-defunct wood-burning ovens that baked huge, wholesome loaves and met for the first time the famed Lionel Poilâne and his father, Pierre, who strolled Rue du Cherche-Midi in his signature navy beret.

 

 

Thankfully, I didn’t need to know much French for most of the research. I visited maybe 20 bakeries, purchased their specialties, then back at home, sampled, noted, and rated. I narrowed it down to the best half dozen or so, and bravely (read stupidly) called one of the boulangeries to set up an appointment. At that time, I thought that if I mimicked the fast-paced speech of the French, maybe some of my mistakes would be camouflaged. I asked the person on the other end of the phone for an appointment, explaining who I was and what I was doing. But the response came back, “Madame, je ne comprends pas un mot que vous avez dit. » (Lady, I don’t understand a word you have said!) I embarrassedly hung up the phone, headed for the Métro, and about 30 minutes later, appeared at the bakery, explaining it all over again. This time, with a bit of sign language and some false stops and starts, I got through the interview and eventually got the story.

 

I wasn’t quite as lucky with an interview with Frédy Girardet, the Swiss chef who was then considered one of the best in the world. The night before, taking the train from Paris to Crissier, near Lausanne, Switzerland, I sat up translating my questions, word for word, from the English-French dictionary. I considered this simply an insurance policy, since I was certain that any chef of his stature would speak English.

 

Was I in for a surprise! Not only did chef Girardet not speak English, he spoke French with a Swiss accent so thick I could barely understand him. (Only later did I find out that he DID speak English, only not to the much mistrusted band of food journalists.) I thought I had myself well-covered: I spent the entire day in the kitchen, taking copious notes, and tape recorded every word of our halting conversation. The story was written, then accepted, with one little request for additions: “Do you think you could have a few more quotes from the chef?” my editor queried. My tape recorder saved the day, and the editor received a few more samples of chef Girardet’s wisdom.

 

My French is far from perfect, but it’s good enough to get me through live French television and radio shows, though I still shy away from those, fearing I won’t understand the question. I once even thought of hiring a specialist to help me lose my distinct American accent but years later when my French editor advised me not to lose my “adorable” accent, I finally felt off the hook.

 

I did sometimes feel I had a gun to my head. Write! Make a few centimes! But my fractured French could not diminish my enthusiasm or excitement of being of a journalist in Paris. I was interviewing bakers and chefs and shopkeepers, not rocket scientists. How badly could I misunderstand?

 

Our move to France conveniently coincided with the expansion of The New York Times’ travel section, and the editor, Michael Leahy, liked my ideas and was eager to run regular articles about Paris restaurants and food shops. Soon the contents of my future book, though a contract was distant, were rolling out of my typewriter, as I raced around town reporting on wine bars, tea salons and cafés, sampling croissants from some 20 different patisseries, finding the perfect lemon tea cookie, or madeleine, and relishing the lavish displays of produce, meats, fish, and poultry from the city’s many markets.

 

By September of that year, there was opening for the post of restaurant critic at the IHT and I jumped in. I was going to prove them all wrong, especially one New York Times colleague who had sneered “You will NEVER make a living as a full-time food writer in Paris!”

 

Patricia Wells is a journalist, author, and teacher who runs a popular cooking school--At Home with Patricia Wells--in Paris and Provence. She won the James Beard Award for The Provence Cookbook, Patricia Wells at Home in Provence, and Simply French. With her husband, Walter, she is also the author of We've Always Had Paris . . . and Provence, from which this piece is excerpted. The French government has honored her as a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, recognizing her contribution to French culture. A former New York Times reporter, she is the only foreigner and only woman to serve as restaurant critic for a major French publication, L'Express. For more than twenty-five years she was the global restaurant critic for the International Herald Tribune. She is the author most recently of The Food Lover's Guide to Paris. Download the app for iPhone at http://www.foodloversparis.com

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