Works Well Under Pressure

Works well under pressure. Were you that student? Are you that adult?

As I posted my homework on the new district web site yesterday afternoon, I realized that I rarely -- and that truly means almost never -- assign work for my students that has to be done overnight and returned the next day. The homework posts had a list of four assignments, each of which the students had a week to complete, including some time in class. Yet, some of them will do the work at the last minute and others will not be prepared for class at all.

As I met with each group over the week, I talked to them about how higher education and employers are looking for people who can analyze tasks, break them into components, do the necessary research/editing/formatting, and then deliver them on time. In the education biz, we call these 21st Century Skills.

I don't have any problem doing this at school. I always have at least a dozen student projects and committee assignments rolling around in my head, refining themselves until it's time to put them down on paper. I rarely miss a deadline and I'm rarely late for anything. I definitely work well under the pressure of being a public school teacher. I've been trying to apply those same skills at home.

In January, my husband and I started following the Minimum Maintenance guidelines of Rachel Anne at Home Sanctuary. For about a week, I was diligent; every day after dinner we cleaned the kitchen and then moved to another room. I kept the main floor picked up this way, and we both breathed easier about the state of our house. I followed Rachel Anne's advice to create a new centerpiece on my dining room table.

I was really looking forward to tackling the lower level, which includes the family room and utility room. I was even excited about cleaning out the drawers and sorting the silverware! Sadly, after a week of doing a good job, we moved back to only having good intentions, and my family room still needs to be decluttered.

As I sit at my computer on this beautiful winter Saturday, I am facing the window. I marvel at the majesty of my neighbor's pine tree that is so tall I cannot see the top of it through my second-story window. The January sky is robin's-egg blue with white cottony puffs of horizontal clouds. This morning I had a cozy news-filled breakfast with a friend and visited another set of friends who have just returned from New Zealand, hearing all about their amazing trip. I went to the "fancy" mall and bought my first Le Creuset French oven (more on that in another post). It's been a lovely day. I'm hoping that my husband and daughter have had an equally beautiful day of skiing in Wisconsin, but I've enjoyed a whole day to call my own.

Then I turn around. In the corner is a mess -- a waist-high stack of boxes and baskets that need to be opened and sorted through. My beautiful new counter is unusable because it's piled with papers, magazines, and mail. I had to put up the card table in the middle of the room in order to have a place to grade the 62 essays I must complete this weekend. My Minimum Maintenance plan seems to be derailed and even though I feel a great deal of pressure to get this taken care of, I can't seem to force myself to tackle it. The five minute method won't work here -- I need to devote days and days to this job. Where am I going to find the time and the motivation? My good intentions seem to have stopped at the stairs.

Everyone's got good intentions these days, even my students. They don't intend to wait until the last minute, but sometimes, life gets in the way. Just like me, they probably don't always do the best job of which they are capable, and like me, sometimes they just give up in frustration. Wearing the "works well under pressure" mantle is not always in our best interest. Literally, sometimes we just need to stop and smell the roses or watch some reality T.V.

We've got out-of-town friends coming for dinner next week; our de-Christmasing will be done by then and the house will be clean enough. I plan to use my new French oven and take photos of what I cook for the blog. I just have to stop looking at the stack in my office. Maybe I should drape a throw over it; that's what my grandma would have done. Since I work "so" well under pressure, I'll get it all done this week. I won't sweat the small stuff, and in the long run, we'll have fun with our friends. And then I'll write my post about falling in love with a blue cast-iron pan. Au revoir!

Trying to be modern

I have spent the greater part of the day today (when I should have been doing other things) looking at Blogger templates and playing with widgets. Should a grown woman be allowed to play with widgets? It seems that the answer is no, since I've got a new, cleaner look to my blog but I don't really like it. I kind of liked my dorky lighthouse.

I downloaded a lot of interesting templates, but they just don't seem to suit what I want to do. Does anyone know of a widget where readers can make recommendations of books and movies that they like? I don't like them buried down in the comments, but I haven't found the right widget yet.

Help bring me into 2010 in a classic, yet modern style.

Stolen Treasure

I am too busy with semester grading and Big Band Sunday to do a quality post, so I've linked one of my favorite blogs. It's about restaurants and Paris... two fabulous things about which to read by an engaging writer. Don't miss the commentary about rose wine! Enjoy reading David Lebovitz and LivingThe Sweet Life in Paris.

The One That's Not About France

Today my niece who writes as Vanderbilt Wife introduced me to Pensieve. On a day that I am worried about my mother and my brother who is her local caretaker, on a day that I took 8th graders to the Illinois Holocaust Museum and am feeling all the emotions that emerge from that experience, Vanderbilt Wife and Pensieve were each a breath of fresh air. What beautiful and eloquent writing. What practical advice. Keep 'em coming, ladies. I need you in my life.

All France, All the Time

It's kind of amazing how this France obsession follows me everywhere I go. If this was you and your family, take it as the musings of a crabby old lady, but really. I had an up-close-and-personal experience with why the French hate Americans in restaurants.

We were in Pizza Hut in Goshen, Indiana. I can just hear you saying already, "Well, what did you expect when you went to Pizza Hut?" And I answer, I expected what was there when we first walked in, a lovely Mennonite family eating and talking quietly in the corner, two televisions in the corners with very low volume, and some background music. It was not romantic, but it was bearable. We were making our decision about where to best spend our fat calories when the atmosphere changed.

It all began with the entrance of a FAMILY. I put that in capital letters because it seemed as if it was very important to them that everyone know THEY HAD ARRIVED. It appeared to be a mother, father, four children, and a grandchild. And can I just mention that the youngest child had a hair tail! When was the last time rat tails were in vogue? 1985? I don't think this little kid was mimicking the manga characters, either.

To make a long and unimportant story short, they shouted at each other throughout the meal, various members of the family crossed the restaurant to go to the toilets while loudly discussing their toileting needs, and in general ruined the atmosphere of the restaurant.

If this is what some Americans do in France, then I can understand why they hate us. So often the behavior of one person or group of people spoils it for the rest of us. To paraphrase the immortal Jackson Five, "One bad apple don't spoil the whole bunch, France. Oooh, give it one more try before you give up on Americans."

By the way, although I think International Delurking Week is over, please comment and let me know you are reading. I'm interested to know who's out there in cyberland.

La Décadence Part Two

Gérard Depardieu. Sexy leading man. Lover. Winemaker. Think Green Card with Andie MacDowell, think Cyrano de Bergerac. I thought that I would never get tired of watching him work in his movies. When I committed to reading books and watching movies set in France, I guess I didn't really think that there might be ones I didn't love, love, love. I'm really sorry to report that Vatel left me disappointed, but don't think it was Depardieu's fault. A great actor is only as good as his material.

Since France is now on my radar in ways that I have never before experienced, I was excited to see a review about a foodie movie in the North Shore magazine. In the wake of the enormous success of Julie & Julia, Vatel was recommended as another "foodie" costume drama for its depiction of the excesses in the court of the Sun King, Louis XIV of France. I tried to find it at my local rental outlets, but to no avail. After buying and viewing it, I know why it was difficult to find.

Vatel is the fictionalized story of the real-life chef Francois Vatel who was the "Maître d'hôtel" for Prince de Conde in 1671. When Louis XIV came to visit the out-of-favor and perilously "poor" Conde, Vatel was in charge of Festivities and Pleasures designed to feed and entertain Louis's court. Louis brings with him not only his queen, but count them, three mistresses! Then there's his nasty brother and all of the toadying courtiers who treat working people like dirt. It's a political catastrophe in the making, and if Vatel does not succeed in keeping the king and his court happy, the prince won't receive any money from the king and will go bankrupt. As the story unfolds, Vatel becomes disillusioned with how he is regarded by the nobility. I'm not going to tell you how it ends, but I guarantee it will make you sad. It will also make you think about how in the world Europe became so socially divided into the haves and have-nots. It is no wonder that the immigrants coming to America were willing to risk just about anything to get away from their lives under these repressive societies.

Depardieu opened the 2000 Cannes Film Festival and then the $37 million movie was premiered. "Reporters -- virtually to a man -- trashed both the opening ceremonies and the Gaumont film, which was shot in English. They reserved special criticism for Depardieu's performance. Associated Press writer Jocelyn Novak observed: "Some of Depardieu's lines end up sounding silly ... and occasionally he sounds like he doesn't exactly know what he is saying." Sheila Johnston writing in the British trade publication Screen International, described the movie as "this long, bloated piece, " but said that the star cast "might give it a moderate arthouse career' " (IMDb). Although it didn't win anything at Cannes that year, the movie was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction -- Set Decoration, but lost to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

I watched the movie again today, and it's kind of a guilty pleasure movie. The viewer is horrified by the behaviors of these real-life characters and the excesses of the time, but it's kind of hard to stop watching because you might miss the next horrible scene. Peter Travers at Rolling Stone said that "Vatel acts like a pre-Food Network Emeril taking time out for bedding a courtesan (Uma Thurman) and stopping the king's brother (Murray Lachlan Young) from buggering little boys. This putrid dish marks a new low for director Roland Joffe and - mon Dieu - he's the guy who gave us Demi Moore in The Scarlett Letter." And that's kind of it in a nutshell. Mon Dieu indeed.

La Décadence Part One

It's time to move away from emotional love letters to my friends and family to what you're all here for -- juicy stories. Any time you study French culture, you're going to run into France's dirty laundry, so today is your lucky day if you're into France's decadent past and its revolutionary history.

For Christmas, I asked for and received a favorite movie, Marie Antoinette, with Kirsten Dunst in the title role. Based loosely on Antonia Fraser's biography, Marie Antoinette: The Journey, the movie is a luscious look at the child queen's reign and downward spiral toward her death. The stylized scenes -- shoes, food, clothing -- are mouthwatering and I loved the modern score underlying all of the period costuming and scenery. It got mixed reviews, but I've always liked Sofia Coppola's sympathetic portrait of Marie Antoinette as an innocent pawn. Kirsten Dunst is luminous as Antoinette and is a believable virgin queen who waited seven anxious years for her marriage to be consummated. As I'm sure you are all aware, poor Marie Antoinette's story ends with the beheading of Louis XVI, followed by her execution nine months later. The tragic story continued with the imprisonment, abuse, and eventual death of their third child, Louis-Charles, who should have succeeded his father to the throne. There were many pretenders to his title, but modern-day science has proven that none of the claimants had Louis and Marie's DNA and it is now assumed that Louis XVII died in June of 1795 as was claimed at the time. The movie, however, leaves the viewer in the carriage with Louis and Marie as they leave Versailles for the last time under armed guard and does not force us to witness the violent last months of their lives. If you love costume dramas with a twist, you'll love Marie Antoinette as much as I do.

Every time I write a post, I get distracted by the researching and historical facts that I uncover. This time, I discovered that Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun became Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI's court painter and was the most famous female painter of the eighteenth century. Over a six year period, she completed thirty paintings of the queen and her family, including the infamous "muslin dress" painting. Completed and exhibited in the 1786 Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture (Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture) Salon, Marie Antoinette was shown wearing a straw hat and a white muslin dress with tight pleated sleeves. The Queen was becoming more unpopular by the minute, and critics said that she had portrayed herself in a totally inappropriate blouse. Coppola clearly channeled Le Brun's painting when creating her version of Antoinette's clothing when she was living informally at the Petit Trianon with her cronies.

Marie Antoinette appears to have been a silly young girl who became a loyal spouse and a loving mother. I found this Le Brun painting of the Queen and her children, which also appears in the movie, to be very poignant. Marie Antoinette is shown with her three children, Marie Thérèse, Louis Charles, and Louis Joseph. The empty cradle recalls one-year-old Marie Sophie who died of tuberculosis. One year after the painting was finished in 1787, Louis Joseph died too, and the Queen had the painting moved because every time she passed it it made her cry. The painting was exhibited in the Salon of 1788 and was the last of the thirty Le Brun portraits of the Queen and her family. She was criticized for her choice of the elegant red velvet dress and for posing in the royal Mirror Gallery at Versailles, an inflammatory choice given the unrest brewing in France at the time.

I've always felt sorry for Marie Antoinette; she just couldn't catch a break from anyone. Although this movie shows us in living color why the French people became so disillusioned with their royals, its lavish spectacles are a treat for the eyes. Next time, I'll give you a taste of another period movie that isn't quite so kind...

Julia and Joann

On Monday it will be eleven years since my beloved mother-in-law passed away. Joann was a child of the Depression, raised on a farm in Ohio, and was a part of a close-knit Mennonite family. Her trajectory from a stunningly beautiful young woman at Goshen College, through her years as a respected and beloved teacher in Rye, New York, and finally to her retirement in Arizona as the "hostess with the mostest" is one to be admired. She was kind, generous, and although she was not without her mistakes, she welcomed me and my son into her family with open arms. I miss her every day. Since we inherited some of Joann's prized possessions, including her cookbook collection, I am surrounded by memories of her. This is how I came to have a 1961 copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking on my bookshelf.

At some point in her mature adult years Joann became enamored of all things "Country French." Although she and my father-in-law traveled extensively in the United States when their sons were young, they turned their sights farther afield when the boys left the nest. They traveled all over Europe and went to Russia, Egypt, and India. They were on one of the first tourist groups into China and regaled us with the stories of the "luxurious" dormitory-style accommodations those early groups encountered. She tracked down her Mennonite relatives in France and visited the ancestral farm. Joann and Art hoped to instill their love of travel in their grandchildren and took each of them on a trip of his or her choosing for a graduation present. But, Joann wasn't just cruising through these countries. Among her books are photo essays on the culture, furniture, ceramics, glassware, and art of the places she visited and wanted to visit. Joann's amazing intellectual curiosity and love of beautiful things kept her vibrant right up until her last days.

It was always France that drew her back, though. She collected French pottery and furniture, and redecorated her houses around her collections. She scoured antique stores looking for just the right piece and it seemed like she bought every piece of Quimper that she ever encountered. As I have studied Quimper faience pottery, however, I find that she did actually specialize, and it is interesting that Joann mostly bought pieces from the Henriot factory that were made in the early 1900s during war times in France. Maybe it was the relatively inexpensive price, but I'd like to think that the earthy Breton peasant people who inhabit these plates reminded Joann of her farm roots, even though she moved far away from them as an adult.

The other thing that Joann collected and educated herself about was cookbooks and cooking. She found that when she moved to suburban New York she needed to upgrade her expertise and staple recipes in order to participate appropriately in her new social circles. In her cookbook, she would write the date and a list of the guests next to the recipe that she served them so that she would not repeat it the next time, and this is something my husband and I still do today. Joann's cookbooks are a treasure trove of information about the life she and Art lived and how they entertained, and they bring back memories of meals that she cooked for us. I can remember being picked up at the airport after a trip through O'Hare and La Guardia airports with two small children at Christmas time, and arriving in Rye to find an amazing meal almost ready for us. She purchased jumbo shrimp through a seafood buyer -- they really were jumbo, that's not an oxymoron! -- and we always looked forward to her cooking.

So, that brings us back to Mastering the Art of French Cooking. There are parallels to be found between Joann and Julia. Both were women who reinvented themselves as their lives demanded. Although Julia was not blessed with children, her life-long love affair with her husband is similar to the more than fifty happy years of marriage Joann and Art enjoyed. One of the reasons that Julia learned to cook was that she needed to entertain Paul Child's business associates, and by the time Mastering the Art of French Cooking was published in 1961, Joann was also trying to be an executive wife to her upwardly mobile husband.

It is disappointing to me to find out that apparently she did not use this cookbook because it is almost pristinely clean. You can see from my photo that it still has its original dust jacket with just a small tear in it. I wonder where she got it; did she buy the cookbook herself or did someone give it to her? It is a Book Club edition; did she get it because it was the most popular cookbook of its day and it just came automatically? I wish I could ask her, but both she and Art are now gone and the minutiae of their daily lives is gone with them. Since, thanks to Joann and Art, I live with beautiful antiques all of the time, I refuse to feel guilty about using my 49 year old copy of Julia. I intend to read it, to cook from it, and that will probably include getting it dirty. We will write in it just as Joann taught us, and I can't help but think that both she and Julia would be proud. Je t'aime, Joann.