Lands End Inn

While in Provincetown, we stayed at the Lands End Inn. This was my second time there, but a first for Fred. The Inn is located in the west end of Provincetown very near to the furthest point on Cape Cod in a building full of history and artifacts. It is on the top of a hill surrounded by beautiful gardens. The staff are friendly. The views were spectacular.

The room we stayed in was called the Moroccan Tower and it transported us to another place and time. It is a circular room located in a tower on the second floor of the building. The decorations are eclectic and oriental. Many of the lighting features are brass and quite ornate. Windows provide wonderful views around three quarters of the room. We certainly felt as though we were staying in some magical castle.

Outside in the gardens are a couple of patios for lounging, catching some rays, or reading an interesting novel or work of non-fiction. We both found that Michael Cunningham's "Lands End", an extended essay on Provincetown which describes the places and people of the town with accuracy and cunning to be a perfect book to enjoy here.

Every morning there would be a copious buffet set up for continental breakfast. It was full of fresh fruit, breads, juices and coffee. During the day we would find Iced Tea, Lemonade, cold water, and delicious snacks placed out for the guests. Each afternoon there would be a wine tasting with scrumptious hors d'oerves.

Our Beach Vacations - Massachusetts and Belgium Coast

Sorry I have not updated my blog for the past couple of weeks, but we have been away on vacation in the US and Europe for a few weeks. We spent some time in Massachusetts and later some time at the Belgium coast. The common features of the two trips were the seashore aspect and plenty of seafood for dinners! We had loads of fun on each trip and our fond memories are not just of the places, but also of the friends we got to meet with at each place. We were lucky enough to be travelling to some of the same places at the same time as some of our friends, so we took the opportunities to visit with them in these foriegn locations.

Here are some pictures from the beaches of Provincetown and the Belgium coast. See if you can guess where each photo is from!

Along the Provincetown Bay shoreline at lowtide

Boats in the harbor, Provincetown

Herring Cove beach lighthouse, Provincetown

"The Dunes are Alive!" - Fred imitates Julie Andrews




Race Point beach, Provincetown

Oostende, Belgium

Lifeguards at Oostende

From the Stand at Oostende

Paper flowers at De Hann, Belgium (Le Coq)

Tractors on the beach at De Hann




Seagulls at De Hann

Rain arrives to De Hann beach

Beach is closed in De Hann

Greetings from P'town!!!

Rather than my usual ramblings, I thought I wound instead provide you with the following list:

• bagels
• goldfish snacks
• pickle spears
• crab cakes
• family pride
• teaberry gum
• abundance of iced tea
• lobster rolls
• cheese cake
• cranberry muffins
• pizza sold by the slice
• the qwerty keyboard

These are just a few of the things I have come to realize are difficult or impossible to find in France, but are easily found in Provincetown, Mass. We are having a great time staying at the Lands End Inn and are a little sad that we will leave tomorrow.

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!

Sunday in the Park with Victor!

This past Sunday, we took a drive to Vichy with our friend Victor from Brussels. Victor is an actor of TV and theater who also directs theatrical productions. (I will need to insert his website here!) He was visiting us for the weekend and we really enjoyed seeing him.





We had a nice lunch outside at the "Brasserie du Casino" on this beautiful Sunday afternoon. Starting with a glass of champagne, enjoying lovely starters and main course with wine, and finishing with special deserts of the house, it was a perfect afternoon outside.











Vichy is known for its water, mints, and dark history during the German occupation. It has a lovely Opera House pictured below:

We did some window shopping and actually went into a couple of stores. Vichy is one of the cities in France that allows their stores to be open on Sundays. So it was really nice to spend our Sunday afternoon there.

For dinner on Sunday night, we treated Victor to the infamous Chicken Wings. While I tried to tone down the spices a little, I must apologize for the final results, which maintained quite a kick despite my half measures for Tabasco sauce, paprika and Cayenne pepper!

Fête de la musique

Today, the 21st of June, is celebrated throughout France as the "Fête de la musique". The longest day of the year has been set aside as a cultural event where the creation and enjoyment of music is in order. Organized and ad hoc groups of people gather to make music in a variety of qualities. Other people will walk though city streets and listen and watch these random acts of creation.

For my last five years in France, I have only attended one of these events. This was in 2002, when I had just moved here from Scotland. Fred and I joined Marianne and André to walk through the streets of Clermont-Ferrand and watch the music makers around town. Everything from street soloist on traditional instruments, to small groups of electronic instruments, to techno being played at the highest decibels. It was a very festive mood, but somehow the "noise" of the event was most impressive.

Since that year, we have avoided the noise and clammer of the event by staying with friends who live out of town (thanks Francois and Nathalie!) or going to some remote country village where the depths of techno have not reached. Tonight we will visit Francois, Nathalie, Alice and Arthur to avoid the techno center of Clermont, which is just outside our bedroom window.

I am glad to have the chance to try out another one of the recipes that we learned at our cooking class this past weekend. Tonight I will bring a tarte provençale for the starter for our dinner. It is full of plenty of fresh ingredients and tasty herbs and flavors.

Happy Fête de la Musique!

mmmm........Gourmet Canned Foods!

I don't really remember anything like this from the Safeway store on Via Linda in Scottsdale, but it is quite common to find a variety of canned meals here in France in almost every grocery store. One of my favorites of course is "confit de canard", but I will tell you more about that later in this blog.

I want to start with my first experience having a meal from a can in France. It was my first Christmas spent with Fred in 1999. I came over from Glasgow to stay with him for the holidays. He told me would have a special turkey meal for Christmas day with his parents. I was expecting a whole turkey, but I couldn't find one in the refrigerator. I hope he didn't see the look of surprise when he told me the turkey, stuffing, and sausages where in a can! At this point, I was probably on my cultural awareness best; the walking on eggs that one does at the beginning of a relationship. So, I don't think my surprise was registered as anything out of the ordinary surprise to have a nice special meal for Christmas. I watched as Fred opened the cans and carefully placed the contents in a baking dish. I was later to recognize these cans as coming from a specialty store in town called Comtesse du Barry. Meal was exquisite. Very refined flavors of the turkey, stuffing and sausages were complimented with a nice fresh salad. I was amazed to think that something this good was coming from a can.

Since my first canned food meal in France, I have had many many others. Not just the dishes from the Comtesse, but also canned cassolets and confit de canard from the grocery store as well. Confit de canard is one of those really simple, yet special dishes that you can find throughout the country. I believe the origin is from the southwestern regions. The duck thighs and legs are canned in a bath of duck grease, which helps to preserve and cook them. Normally we will heat the portions in the oven and serve with a salad or potatoes. The meat is so tender it just falls apart with a fork.

Cuisine Provençale

We spent the weekend in the south of France in a small town called Bagard at a guest house named "La Magnanerie" where we partook in a cooking course in the provençale style. Our instructors where Stéphane and Marc, the owners of the place. The class was intimate, with us and another couple, Christelle and Julien getting lots of hands-on experience. We prepared three meals and served one of the meals to some of the other guests of "La Mangnanerie".

We made black and green olive tapanades, caviar of eggplant, rabbit in a thyme and hazelnut stew, a provençale tart, a tart of appricots and lavander, turkey pesto, zucchini cheese rolls, monkfish with ratatouille, churros with anise syrup, etc.

We also visited a bamboo botanical garden on Saturday afternoon called "La Bambouseraie de Prafrance", when we had some free time. This place really gave us some good ideas for adding more bamboo to our terrace!

It was really a great weekend and I want thank my friends in Clermont-Ferrand who gave me this gift for 50th birthday!

Vive les Herbes de Provence !

Orville who?

One of my biggest surprises in France has been difficulty to find products that one just takes for granted in the United States. Oreos, Philadelphia Creme Cheese, sour cream, baking soda, real chocolate chips, fresh refridgerated milk, chile peppers, fresh bagels, and fresh celery and carrot sticks to name a few, but one of the biggest surprises was Microwave Popcorn!

During one of my last trips to the states, I checked out a grocery store and a CVS store to help me recall what I had been missing. Just walking down the aisle with the Microwave Popcorn, one was bombarded with the buttery flavor scent and multitude of brands and options which were astounding. Different flavors, different sizes, different brands and different quantities, to name just a few of the alternatives.

Quite different from my experience here at the local grocery store. The store we go to here is quite large and modern. Codebar scanners for checking yourself out if you have less than 10 items, store coupons, fidelity card - you know what I mean.

Well the first challenge is to find where they might put the microwave popcorn. For some period of time, it was with the "world foods" section with other American food (like pancake mix and all the El Paso products), sandwiched between China and Italy on the global food map. The microwave popcorn was sold in single bag packets with a choice of salt or sugar for flavoring. At some point, the store changed vendors and also decided to place the popcorn with packaged nuts and dried fruits. Alas, still only the two flavors. And I swear, there must be some sort of rationing going on (maybe in response the George W Freedom Fries episode - how is that for a conspiracy theory?), because I could go for weeks and find nothing but empty space where the microwave popcorn packs should be. I sometimes blame this on a bad supply chain software implementation, but maybe it really is something beyond this. The popcorn packs are very generic in look, with instructions in about a dozen different languages. As a frequent user, I know that 2 minutes and 20 seconds is just about the perfect time in the microwave.

The only flavor I will get is the salted version. Somehow sweet popcorn reeks of crackerjacks and disappointed childhood memories of a prize that was always too silly to do anything with but throw away with the empty package. I guess I still kept thinking if I ate enough of it, someday I would find a really nice prize. Unfortunately, that is another one of those lotteries that I never won.

Am having a craving, for some nice salty microwave popcorn, but my stock is running low, so I will have to curb myself today.

Got POLITICAL?

I decided that the "exile in France" description in my profile might be a bit harsh, so I changed it to what you find now. The real driver for my original comment was from reading the Immigration Equality website and the recent discussions about the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA). So I decided to get a little political and wrote a letter to Hillary Clinton, who has expressed some issues about fraud and the administration of the policy. Below is the note I sent her campaign website:

I am glad to hear that your campaign office has agreed to meet with Immigration Equality about the Uniting American Families Act. As a gay American, this is only one of hundreds of areas of rights that I do not share with my fellow heterosexual Americans. But this is an area that impacts me personally, so I have decided to write to you with the hopes that you will be able to support UAFA completely and make it become a reality. I am one half of a bi-national couple, my partner being a French citizen. As we have shared a committed relationship for over 7 years, we have explored all of the possibilities for us to live together. France offers a legal solution for a gay couple, which allows us to live together and share a wonderful life. The United States does not. With UAFA, we would have the potential to consider the alternative of legally living in the United States together, where I could be closer to my American family and friends, be speaking my native language, and resume my career in the country where I was born and worked most of my adult life. Thank you for reading this and please feel free to contact me if you would like to understand these concerns more deeply.

If you have feelings of thoughts about this that you would like to express, please share them.

1500 Kilometers Goal Reached!

As we age, our fitness becomes more of a challenge and objective we need to address more seriously than before. We know the basic elements of diet and working out, but we need to bring this knowledge to action and that is not always so easy.

Never one to have had a true love for team sports and most physical activities, I was lucky to be able to participate in a variety of activities most of my life on an adhoc basis. Weekend skiing, an occasional hike, a bike ride from time to time; these sort of activities seemed enough for my first three decades. But during my mid to late thirties, I realized I needed to have some more regular fitness activities. While living in Arizona, I taught myself the joys of inline skating. Several nights a week after work, I would skate a couple of miles. On weekends, I would try to do at least one 10 to 15 mile skate. I also joined a gym and would regularly go to use the cardio equipment and weight machines. I even would do some free weight workouts with my neighbor in Scottsdale. In 1998, I moved to Glasgow, Scotland and soon realized that I would need to give up my inline skating for weather related reasons. I did join a council gym and later a more upscale health club to continue with my cardio and weight lifting efforts. When I moved to France in 2002, I sort of let everything slide, never really finding the same "body" conscious culture I had known in Arizona or the UK. At the end of 2005, Fred and I decided to invest in some cardio equipment. We bought a Kettler Elliptical Bike cardio machine. We would use the machine regularly and track our results in an excel spreadsheet. Using the iPod, the Polar Heart Rate Monitor and Cardio machine, we have logged over 260 sessions. Fred has had to cut back some, due to some back problems, but I have continued to pursue the rewards of cardio exercise. I listen to my cardio coach, Sean O'Malley and highly recommend using the Cardio Coach method if you have a home cardio machine and need some extra motivation.

Well, I am happy to say that after my workout today, the machine has reached it's 1500KM mark. Thanks to everyone who have helped us reach this goal!

Why this bloody name?

I want you to create a couple of mental images as I explain this blog name. First, imagine a "national lampoon" cartoon showing a wheel barrow outside a French restaurant next to a placard which says "fresh frog legs today!" Upon closer look at the contents of the wheel barrow you will see it contains amputee frogs with somewhat sad expressions on their faces. Now, imagine a similar style cartoon showing an American style restaurant which a sign outside it announcing "best chicken wings in town!" Scrambling around the sign are a group of wing-less chickens chatting to each other. We can overhear one of them saying, "we never did fly much anyway."

While both of these appetizers may be relatively popular in their respective countries, they may seem quite unusual in the other country. It is this sort of cultural experience I hope to share with you in this blog. The things we see and confront when we find ourselves in a foreign experience teach us as much about ourselves as the world around us. Our perspectives and prejudices filter our world view.

Food will most likely be a reoccurring element in this blog. I hope you will enjoy it and come back frequently for updates.