French Pharmacies --- Where is my Walgreens?

In every town and village of France, the local pharmacy can be found by locating the green neon plus sign (or cross if you will). I think the green cross may be the international sign for pharmacies, or at least it is the symbol for France. Like the red cross that we all know in humanitarian circumstances, we can look for the green cross in France anytime we have a headache or need a new toothbrush.

Now let me describe for you what a typical pharmacy in France might be like. Once you open the door to enter you will be surprised the public space for the whole pharmacy is no larger than a typical parking space for an automobile in the Walgreens parking lot. The space will be very clean, usually tiled with white tile floors and with only a couple of display racks for toothbrushes, soaps, or other season items. The counter for the pharmacist or pharmacists will have a computer terminal, a credit card machine and maybe a display rack of two for various other items. You will need to ask the pharmacist for what you need. You will not even find aspirin or anything medicinal on the racks in the public area of the pharmacy. Often you may even need to ask the pharmacist for items such as nail file or nail clippers. You will be able to ask for medicines which you have a doctor's prescription for as well as other medicines you would normally find on the counters in a typical Walgreens or CVS in the states. There will even be some vitamins or supplements that the pharmacist will not even have in France. Melatonin for example is an illegal substance here, even for flight attendants, who may have to deal with jet lag from long haul flights.

I do miss the Walgreens on Via Linda in Scottsdale, where I could stop by on the way home from work and find a variety of items from greeting cards and stationary goods to vitamins, juices and oreos. In the market segmentation of France none of this is possible. Stationary and pens need to be purchased at the Office Supply store. A small selection of greeting cards may be found a the newsstand/tabac. Oreos if they could be found here, would be in a grand space grocery store. While one could wander around most Walgreens stores for an hour, the French pharmacy is not intended for such a purpose. The only reason you would be in a French pharmacy for more than 5 minutes is because there was a queue of people ahead of you waiting to pick up their flu virus vaccines!

Dessert cousins....mmmmmm!

I have just baked my first pineapple upside-down cake and thought I would relate it in this article with the French equivalent, the tarte Tatin (upside-down apple tart). Urban French legends, if such things exist, provide the story of the tarte Tatin. I think I may embellish it a little, but I guess that is the American in me, so please excuse this.

It seems that long long ago, somewhere in the center of France, there lived two old maids who did their own cooking. I imagine them to be the French equivalents of Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas. Some people thought they were sisters, but I have my doubts that was just a story they concocted to explain living together in such close quarters. The ran a nice little gay and lesbian friendly bed and breakfast somewhere in the center of France. One afternoon they decided to bake an apple tart for the guests of the B&B. They were a little busy and each was doing her own thing and cats had gotten into the stuffed animal collection and the place was really a mess. As they rushed to assemble the tart, they inadvertently put the apples in first and then the tart shell over top of it. Deciding not to bother to reassemble it, they rushed it into the oven and prayed for the best while they straightened up the mess from the cats. When they removed the tart from the oven, they decided to turn it over on a plate and to their surprise and amazement they saw the most beautiful looking design of apples on "top" of the tart. They offered this to their guests with a dollop of creme fraiche while the tart was still warm. (Had Ben and Jerrys existed then, I am certain they would have worked some magic with an ice cream imported from America. ) The guests were overwhelmed with this new dessert and asked for seconds. The poor Tatin "sisters" didn't even get to try their own creation the first time, as it was so popular. Well word travels fast in France, even in the days of old, so this became one of the most popular desserts in all of France.

Now I ponder the history of the American version of the tarte Tatin, the pineapple upside-down cake. Was it Betty Crocker and her black lesbian lover Aunt Jemima who came up with this American delight? While they were sitting around trying to dream up some new boxed cake mix for all those overworked American wives, did they think we need to do something with fruit? Maybe a can of nice Mr Dole's pineapple rings? What could we dream up with that? Oh the mind wanders. But I am certain is was something colorful as this that was the brainchild that would become the pineapple upside-down cake.

The cake turned out very nice and we ate it all before I could take any pictures. Sorry, maybe next time?

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American TV Series - French Style

Some of the ways I have been able to stay in touch with American culture while living abroad have been to go to the movies, read US magazines and newspapers, stay in-tune to information on the Internet, regularly review podcasts, and finally watch French TV! Many of the popular American TV series make their way to syndication on French television channels, so one only needs to deal with some inconveniences such as French voice dubbing, previous seasons episodes, and sometimes episode mis-sequencing. Of course there are some advantages as well, such as fewer commercial breaks and multiple episodes per night.

Some of the series we are able to watch here in France are: Desperate Housewives, Prison Break, Cold Case, Grey's Anatomy, ER, and most of the CSI crime solving inspired shows. We don't have cable or satellite TV, so these are some of the shows we are able to find on the regular TV channels. We also have something called TNT, which roughly translates as land based digital TV delivered over TV air frequencies. With TNT, we have a special receiver box that decodes the numeric signal so it can be displayed on the TV. TNT has several nice "free" features such as the ability to see an evening program guide, sometimes change the audio version and subtitle options. While regular TV does often provide the subtitle feature, the subtitles will always be in French. This is a great way to improve ones French language comprehension, but is sometimes frustrating when watching an American series and knowing that some of the dialogue or jokes don't translate nicely.

The French language voice dubbing can sometimes be funny, especially when one is familiar the actual actors voice. On Desperate Housewives, most of the french female voices tend to sound the same to me and inflections and nuances of voice are often lacking when compared to the VO (original version). Ethnic dialects all seem to get lost when dubbing in another language, but I guess this is the price to pay for this method of presentation. Subtitles in French also show some of the weaknesses of translations. Some jokes, slang, and product references are "funny" when considered in the French context. Recently on some of the TNT emissions, I found that I can select VO for the audio track and watch in in English! This is great, but unfortunately limited to selected shows at this point (Grey's Anatomy for one).

Another issue with syndication is that we are always at least one season behind the US programming. I guess the time it takes to do the translations, subtitles and get the foreign rights accounts for this. We will also see episodes shown out of sequence, particularly with Cold Case, where some of the main characters appear and disappear and then appear again in illogical timing. This is more apparent here because of one of the great features of French TV where they will show multiple episodes in one evening. We often will sit down to two or three episodes in one evening of a show like Cold Case or Grey's Anatomy.

Another great feature of French TV that is wonderful in comparison to the American system is the frequency of commercial breaks. On US shows these seem to occur every five minutes (I know this is an exaggeration, but they are very frequent!). On French TV there will only be one commercial break during a normal hour show from an American series. Just enough time to check emails, fold some clothes, or make a quick phone call.

Hope you have found this informative and useful.....or maybe a little entertaining?

Spanish Style FROG LEGS from Brussels

Back from a weekend escape in Brussels, where we got to visit with Victor, Robert and Thiery. Victor is recovering from his recent sinus operation, so no photos for you Victor fans out there.

Among other things that the city has to offer are many restaurants from various international cuisines. This trip we ate at French, Italian, Spanish and Chinese restaurants. This note will focus on the Spanish Tapas restaurant that we had lunch at on Saturday called "COMOCOMO". The name is based on the Spanish phrase, "how do I eat" and the response can be found in the restaurant's subtitle - "USE YOUR FINGERS!" The Spanish tapas or pintxos come in several categories that can be distinguished by the different color plates. I encourage you to look at their website and review the menu to find out more. The restaurant is found at Antoine Dansaert 10 near the stock exchange building in Brussels. They have a conveyor belt system, like in many Japanese Sushi restaurants, where you make your selections from the plates that are continually rolling by you. At the end of the meal, the plates are counted and you are charged accordingly.

One of the items on the menu are frog legs, which you will see in the picture below. They are rolled in honey and sesame seeds and are a nice treat if you are in the mood for them. Unfortunately, they do not yet offer chicken wings. Perhaps we should convince them to add this other delicacy to the menu soon?

Happy 4th of July!

Tonight we celebrated our annual franco-american version of the 4th of July. We fire up the grill and cook hamburgers and hot dogs just like in the states. We bring out our flags - both the American and the French flag. Well, just a little different from the United States implementation.

The preparation is also not quite as simple as the US version for the celebration. One of those things that I still have not found in any of our grocery stores or bakeries is a package of hot dog rolls. On one hand the closest in terms of look is the packaged brioche roll, but this turns out to be sweeter in taste than is acceptable for the humble hot dog. We have tried baguette rolls, but the crunchiness of the roll is a far cry from the soft "traditional" hot dog roll. We end up resorting to use hamburger rolls with our hot dogs halved to fit the roll. The other missing ingredient is the sweet pickle relish. I used to bring back a jar with me on my trips back home, but now I have found I could make an acceptable substitute by chopping up "cornichons" (French pickles) and making my own homemade relish.

We have recently added fresh "corn on the cob" to our 4th of July menu. Another rarity in France, we have just found a store where we can buy OGM free corn. Will have to get into the explanation of "OGM free" in another post for my American friends who will find this concept a bit alien.

Reflections on "Cabaret"

Musical comedy theater is not as big in France as in the United States or even the United Kingdom. So when the opportunity arises to see something live, other than an opera, we generally make every effort to see what is offered. This past weekend we had the pleasure to see Cabaret in Paris.



The show is being performed in the legendary French theater of the Folies Bergère. The stage and theater seating in the orchestra have been rebuilt to accommodate this show and to create the environment of the Kit Kat Klub. The aisles of seats have been removed and replaced with cabaret tables and chairs. A catwalk around the perimeter of the orchestra area is used by the dancers and musicians of the show. The stage is built with two levels for the performers. The movable furniture, while minimal for the show, is effectively used to create the environments of the boarding house, the cabaret backstage, and the fruit shop.







The play has been very effectively translated into French, including all of the songs. It is funny to see English lessons being given to a German pupil in French, but other than that the characters of Sally and Cliff are quite convincing as English and American in this context.


This is a very moving production of Cabaret and I believe it is true to its last reincarnation on Broadway. Dark, but not quite as dark as the current London production. Highly recommended if you find yourself in Paris and can get tickets to see it!


For me, Cabaret has quite a personal history, going back to the mid 70's when I saw the movie with other high school band member friends. We were performing some of the songs in a concert, so seeing them in the context of film added a new level of appreciation. Liza and Joel Grey created the prototype for Sally and the emcee which all others would be judged by. The story of the play sets a cultural map point for Americans regarding Europe before the war. Whether it is accurate or not, it does influence our perspectives of Berlin during this time in history. Having only seen the play in London, during its latest production, I can only derive how the interpretations of the play have evolved since the 1960's. A perspective of Europe, an appreciation of freedom and loss of freedom, sexual expression and homosexuality, personal decisions and personal history, all play important themes in this show.


Life is a Cabaret, ole chum. Come to the Cabaret!