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I just set Silas down for his afternoon nap.  Thank God we still nap.

Even better, it’s thundering and lightning outside so I can’t mow the lawn.

Yippee!

So, I’m here again. And, yes, that means more silence.

Maybe you’ve gathered that I have little to do but read, and write, and do housework.  And since, more often than not, I avoid the housework, then, well, I have little to do but read and write.  And, now that I am a Facebook member, I also obsessively check my Facebook account.  Not quite sure what I’m expecting to find there.  Perhaps I’m just lonely.

I did go for a long hike today.

So, onto Mirielle Guiliano.

As I’ve said, I’m reading French Women Don’t Get Fat by M. G.   And here is my honest analysis:  While it may, in fact, be true– that french women don’t get fat– I do declare that french women get awfully pretentious.  (And, honestly, I’m sure there have to be some fat french women out there.)

Just the title of the book alone evokes a sense of snootery.  Who says a thing like that?  You get fat, we don’t.

At first I thought it was cute, but now I just think it’s just ludicrous.

Madame Guiliano even makes a point to shove it in your face:  “…my business requires me to eat out about three hundred times a year… I’ve been at it for twenty years, never without a glass of wine or Champagne…  these are full meals, no single course of frisee salad… and I’m not overweight.”

Congratulations! And, what the hell is a frisee salad?

Okay, you’re thinking I’m just jealous.  And, you’re right.  I’d love to eat out three hundred days out of the year and eat full portions and drink wine and be slim.  Who wouldn’t?

And, generally, I don’t mind hearing about it.  Except, for now.  When it comes from the mouth of the French.

My father, and this is no joke, hates the French.  I don’t think he knows a single French person, or has read a single French book, or has seen a single French film.  But, he hates the french just the same.  “We bailed them out in WWII,” he’ll say.  Or, in more current history: “they are too chicken to help us in the Iraq War”.

What juvenile, helpless bastards!

(The fathers I mean, not the French.  I fooled you, didn’t I?)

But, and I know this, though I wish I didn’t, M. Guiliano has a point.

She talks about quality ingredients (I’m sure she isn’t eating out at Mickee Dee’s everyday) and portion sizes (don’t those fancy restaurants actually serve appropriate portions?) and about eating for the intense pleasure of it (yum!).

So, French or no, I have to hand it to her, her philosophie makes good sense.

Still, as I continue to read, her cute little use of French phraseology is starting to get on my nerves.  As is her commentary about American diets.  I mean, I can make fun of American diets all I want.  But, a foreigner, huh!, has no right.  (In case you don’t know me, I am being sarcastic.  Although her phraseology is really getting on my nerves.)

I mean listen: “In fact, lots of French people adore hamburgers… some even like corn on the cob, though in France it is usually reserved for livestock.”

Moooooooo!

I get it.  We eat like cows and pigs.

But, you know, we do.  And, it’s not just the French who say so.

I remember when I was pregnant I became, at one point, completely obsessed with what I was eating.  I not only kept a food journal, but an erasable tally chart of the food groups on our refrigerator.   I tried (after the first trimester) to steer clear of ice cream and I walked everyday.

Still, my midwife, when I told her that I had a pregnancy-related addiction to cereal, she said the same thing:  “That is what they give to cows and pigs to make them fat.”  I was aghast.  But, again, she was right.

So, what to do with our barn house ways?

I for one, am going to keep reading zee book and my friend Carrie’s ‘Nina’ website.  (I don’t think she’ll mind me saying so, but the author of that blog does look rather nice in a swim suit.)

I am going to ask myself what pigs eat and am going to stay clear.

I am going to continue to go hiking and biking. (Well, I don’t bike.  It just rhymed.)

And, I am going to make the most of my ingredients.  Eat for pleasure.

And, lastly, when I go to nap, I am going to take Mireille with me.  Or, at least her book.

So, will you join me?  Join me in the fight against barn yard food?

Thanks.  Write me a comment and let me know how you’re doing.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 27th, 2009 at 3:19 pm and is filed under On Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.