Je suis arrivée…

For the past eight years–my God, that’s a long time–I’ve spent an inordinate amount of my time in airports.

First it was Boston-NY, the shuttle that I could buy from a machine as soon as I showed up at Logan, which ran every half-hour. It was there that I first realized how few clocks airports have, and how much an airport needs clocks… or perhaps the fact that I should wear a watch. At any rate, I found myself collecting my things every fifteen minutes and moving just enough to see the closest clock until it was finally time to board the flight, which lasted hardly an hour, the better part of it without any form of entertainment, considering we were only allowed to turn on electronic devices for about 20 minutes. The other people on the flight, mostly businessmen in suits, waited, their hands poised on their briefcases, until they could pull out their laptops and do 20 minutes of work before putting them away again.

Then it was Toronto, the flight from Pearson to LaGuardia that had me going through immigration and customs before I even took off, the time in between a sort of in-between country, where I wasn’t in Canada anymore but not yet in New York.

Finally, France, where the travel time was nearly a day, from the moment I left my apartment until the time I arrived in Paris centre after more than an hour on a train, the trajet from the airport to my apartment longer than the entire Boston-New York flight. Each time, I had these moments of routine activities I had since memorized–the check in, security questions, remove your shoes and laptop, quickly chug the entire contents of a 32 oz. Nalgene full of water–that have become regular and normal for me. I didn’t realize until this trip, when instead of hurtling myself out of the passenger’s seat of my mother’s car and attacking the check-in desk by myself, my sisters and father followed me in and helped me with my bags–how much I revel in that time alone to prepare myself for the voyage to come.

This time, instead of being quietly lost in my own thoughts as I answered the requisite questions about who packed my luggage and checking my gate for the thousandth time, activities that have always happened in that in-between state of mind that isn’t the city I’ve left nor the one I’m going to, I was left at the security line with hugs and kisses from my sisters and my father, my dad waving at me til I’d gone through the line. By the time I made it to the other side of security, I was still in New York, and by the time I boarded the plane, the bilingual stream-of-consciousness that is usually a normal part of my Paris-NY trajet was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t until I landed that I had that realization that usually hits me as soon as I get to the airport, that calm that reminds me that I’m going somewhere that I want to be.

I’m here now, in my new apartment. I’m slowly climbing into my new life and trying it on for size, applying for jobs, registering at school and stocking my kitchen with the essentials. I wonder what the patrons of Franprix thought of me when I made my way through the line buying wine, beer, garbage bags and apples.

I don’t have anything to show you yet, as far as new recipes are concerned. I’ve been making meals out of tiny green lentils simmered in tomato sauce and heads of soft green lettuce. Instead, I’d like to introduce you to a shop I’m eager to revisit as soon as I have the time and the reason, my favorite cheese store, near Bercy, where the camembert au calva, my favorite cheese, rivals its cousins elsewhere.

“C’est un fromage fort,” the patron said to me, impressed, when I bought my first one, adding a Banon that, upon opening, wafted through the house and refused to leave for days. I nodded and smiled. It is a strong cheese, but that’s the way that cheese is supposed to taste. So strong that spending too long in the refrigerator in the back thanks to the Almost Frenchman’s school connections can make a person–this person–faint.

Yes, I fainted over cheese. I find it satisfying, somehow.

“Sometimes,” I confided to the Almost Frenchman, “When I’m feeling particularly French, I buy a bunch of cheese and make caramelized onions with a bottle of white wine and eat it all with another bottle of wine. Then I feel sick. But it’s worth it.” And it is.

Fromagerie de Paris – Eric et Patricia Lefebvre
229 Rue Charenton