Once in a while you have a chance to realize and appreciate how amazing your friends and family are. It shouldn’t take a party to make that happen, but the love and excitement and support that surrounded me yesterday at our crepe brunch was incredible.

When I applied for the writing residency at Kitchen-at-Camont, I of course wanted it in a major, major way, but at the same time was worried about the cost. We have a trip to Czech and Slovakia coming up at Thanksgiving that we’ve saved for months for. My freelance writing funds our travels, but it doesn’t replenish quickly enough to let me buy another international airfare so soon after paying for two. So my delirious excitement at landing the residency was tempered with a nagging kill-joy that insisted on running budgets to tally airfare, room and board,  trains, two extra days in Paris and miscellany costs. Eep!

My friend, artist Bryce Hudson, convinced me I needed a fundraiser for the residency, like he’d had for his artist residency in Beijing. I felt a little squiggly about asking people for money but Bryce and some friends talked me into a crepe party at Bryce’s studio. We set it into motion, put out word on Facebook, Twitter and by email, and on a perfect, crisp blue November Sunday, about 50 people showed up to enjoy crepes, wish me well and drop money (the kind that folds!) into vases for me.

Crepes!

It was a fabulous combination of family, friends old and new, colleagues from work, and friends of Bryce’s.  Brian and I stationed ourselves at the kitchen counter and took crepe requests — we made Serrano + Manchego with Black Pepper Jelly, Brie + Pumpkin or Apple Butter, Red Fig Jam + Goat Cheese, and Pear + Gorgonzola. For about 3 consecutive hours we enjoyed turning out crepe after crepe to the crowd — luckily a patient group, as we had a queue of about 15 or 20 at one point. Thanks maybe in part to the Dumante mimosas with drinks contributed by Dumante Verdenoce Liqueur it was a lively crowd too, milling around examining the art on display, listening to the French music on my playlist, talking, laughing, and eating crepes. It was perfect. My only regret is that I had so little opportunity for conversation with anyone aside from “what kind of crepe would you like?”

At the end of the party, exhausted in a good way, and cheered on by Bryce and my family, we counted the overwhelming pile of money left by the guests. After the party expenses, there is more than two-thirds of what I’ll need for airfare, generosity that even brought tears to my mom’s eyes. As for me, I was humbled and overwhelmed. And at the risk of sounding maudlin, I counted my blessings as even greater than the money I counted.

Brian takes a well-deserved break

My deepest thanks to everyone who came out and shared in the day and helped make it possible for me to embark on the opportunity of a lifetime in France. Thanks to Beth Newberry for making the video. Special thanks to Dumante for the drinks, and very special thanks to Bryce for convincing me to do this, hosting it at his studio and making sure that it was fabulous. And most of all, thanks to my husband. Brian not only supports me gallivanting off to France while he works, minds the dogs and takes care of the house, he gave up his Sunday to work by my side, flipping crepes to help make my trip happen.

[Typed this on the plane Saturday but didn’t get to post it till now]

Dana with Arthur Frommer

From the kindly gentleman Arthur Frommer to the anything but Anthony Bourdain, I had a rollercoaster of a travel and food night Friday night. I’d love to have the life of either of these giants for a day. As close as I’ll get was the fabulous opportunity to interview Mr. Frommer and a media pass to take in Bourdain’s presentation at the Idea Festival.

I only found a couple days ahead of Mr. Frommer’s appearance at a travel show in Louisville that he’d be here – I shot off a request for an interview, not hopeful, but it never hurts to ask! To my extreme delight I was granted a meeting with him.

Preparing to meet Arthur Frommer

I was as nervous as a little kid going to see Santa Claus about talking with him. Brian and I met him briefly a few years ago at the New York Times Travel Show and I remembered him as a lovely gentleman. But now I’d be sitting at a table talking with him!

Brian accompanied me, ostensibly to take photos, but really because I wanted him to have the chance to talk with him as well. Mr. Frommer considerately arrived in the lobby of his hotel a few minutes before our appointed time, beaming as if there were nothing he’d rather do than talk with some writer in Louisville.

Though I was still nervous and excited, he put me as at ease as possible, handing me a copy of his new book Ask Arthur Frommer and talking nearly non-stop as we walked to the hotel café. I wanted to giggle as we were seated – if only the waitress knew who he was!

Though I had a list of questions they largely went unasked, as he told story after story. I would have loved nothing more than to sit all night listening to his tales, smiling at his enthusiasm for the HP Netbook, Skype for iPhones, and China.

Though I could never quite forget I was talking with the patriarch of travel writing, I was able to relax enough to thoroughly enjoy the occasion. He gave me his personal email address (an AOL account, which just added to his grandfatherly charm) and his daughter, travel writer Pauline Frommer’s, telephone number so that I could ask her about travel with kids.

I smiled ear to ear all the way downtown to see Bourdain’s show after our meeting. It was a great honor to spend an hour with him, and I’ll not forget it.

Next up, my great love after travel – food. Anthony Bourdain was in town to talk about what makes a culture of good food. I scored press passes for the event for my Louisville.com story, and arrived with conflicting feelings. (As I type this on my flight to NYC he’s sitting five rows ahead of me which amuses me to no end). The man has my dream job – to travel the world and eat. I enjoy his writing and find him comedic but despair at his needlessly over-the-top hating on vegetarians. He seems to respect people of other cultures in every country he visits, but those of us who, for whatever reason, don’t eat meat here in his own country, he disparages at every possible moment.

In the event though I was wildly entertained by his monologue, and finally got to hear his reasons for the anti-veg stance. Imagine you show up in a remote village in Asia and they kill the only duck they have for you. Are you going to decline it? Though he has firm ideas of what’s a pet and what’s food, he claimed that if he were offered puppies his answer would be “bring on the puppy heads.” Moreover, he compared traveling as a vegetarian to going to the Louvre and refusing to look at any art that’s not red. Duly noted, Tony.

Anthony Bourdain, gate A14 SDF

It occurred to me he’d likely be on my flight to New York, as I was on the only non-stop flight the next day. Brian had the brilliant idea that I print two copies of my story—one to give him and one to have him sign. And sure enough, as I stepped away from the Continental check-in desk, in strode Anthony himself. My heart fluttered like a teenager. “Great show last night!” I said. He forced a smile. Clearly talking to the locals in middle America, no camera in tow, was not his thing. I babbled something (why *do* we act like we lose 20 IQ points when talking to a celebrity?) and gave him a copy of the story plus one to sign. He asked my name, scrawled on it, and I left him to his business, noting that for someone that claims to have quit smoking, he certainly smelled of cigarettes.

I strategically stopped before security to fiddle with my belongings in order to place myself ahead of him in line. He was more receptive of the security staff’s shouts of “Anthony!” than he was of our little encounter.

the autograph

I settled myself at my gate in a spot where I’d be sure to see him, and debated whether to approach him for a second time. If he weren’t famous I’d be all about talking to him — swapping food and travel stories is just about my favorite thing to do. I felt like an 8^th grader asking a boy to dance when I finally gathered my resolve enough to walk over to him and ask if it was too early for a drink. For the record, the Anthony Bourdain on No Reservations and in his books would never feel it was too early for a drink. And with a camera man behind him he’d leap at the chance to get cozy with a local. But not today in the airport with this average white girl from Kentucky. He at least smiled when he said ‘no thanks,’ leaving me to slink off embarrassed, but glad I’d had the nerve to do it.

All in all I much preferred the company of Arthur Frommer.

Kitchen at Camont |Photo by Kate Hill

So when I told my mom I’d landed the writer-in-residency in France I’d applied for, she replied with a dismayed “oh no!” The residency part scared her I think (knowing my tendencies and dream of moving to France long-term). I hastened to add it’s two weeks. Not that I wouldn’t love to do it longer, but I’m giving earn-and-burn a workout, using half my vacation time by mid-February.

So here’s the story behind what I think will end up being one of the coolest things to ever happen for me:  Last week on Twitter I saw a post from @KatedeCamont , a cook, writer and all-around fabulous person in rural France.

Taking applications 4 NEW culinary residencies in France for winter 2010 for writers, artists & cooks.

I went home that night and didn’t even eat dinner, just got right to work on my application/letter of intent, which boiled down to answering why I should go to France and what I would write about. Hmm, why should I go to France and spend time at a culinary center, immersed in French food and culture? Wow. Why should a truffle pig bury his nose in the dirt? But I had to say more, so I did.  I also asked some lovely people to say nice things about me for a reference, and was so happy at the way they quickly agreed to help.

Then I waited, and dreamed, and pored over the lovely photos of Kitchen-at-Camont and read aloud to my husband the description:

The Kitchen-at-Camont is a rural culinary center housed in an 18th century farmhouse, surrounded by the fertile fields and orchards of Gascony, in Southwest France.

The focus of the Kitchen’s programs is on close-to-the-earth gastronomy. Weekend students, long-term fellows, and apprentices alike learn how to cook with the ingredients that are grown in the gardens that surround the Kitchen, as well as those produced by nearby farms.  Taking part in the Kitchen-at-Camont doesn’t just mean learning to cook an artful meal, it also entails planting vegetables, shopping at local markets, plucking a chicken, preparing foie gras, or learning how to butcher and preserve a whole pig.

Here, everything is hands-on and immersive. More than a classic cooking school, Camont is a creative retreat, a sort of French kitchen camp where participants work alongside artisan food producers and skilled cooks to discover, define and reconnect to food as it is meant to be enjoyed. There’s also time for aperitifs and a game or two of boules, for meandering lunches, and for surprise visits to sample local specialties like honeysuckle eau-de-vie.

I got the news this week – I’m in! It was hard to resist the urge to dance, shriek and/or do the little jump and heel-click.  Two weeks at Camont (and of course I’ll tack on a weekend in Paris at the end) to fairly steep myself in French food, have time to write, to photograph, ohhhhh and to eat.

133 days till France — not that I’m counting or anything.

I’ve learned to say that I don’t eat meat, and point to objects and ask if they contain meat in probably a dozen languages. I stopped eating meat a few months before our first trip to Europe in 2001. I’d never much liked it — in fact I remember my mom bribing me at a quarter a bite to eat liver as a kid.

Touring the meat pavilion at Rungis Market in Paris

Upton Sinclair broke my teenage heart with his depiction of meat-packing plants in The Jungle, furthering my feelings against meat, and Eric Schlosser’s hideously sad stories in Fast Food Nation left me sitting on the couch one day, tears streaming, vowing I was through with meat (and fast food). Rather conveniently for my later sushi-loving self, he didn’t address fish, so I kept fish and seafood in my diet. Aside from my early over-exuberance, I don’t think I ever became a horrid, holier-than-thou type. I didn’t join PETA or Earthsave. I simply stopped buying beef, pork or poultry. I’d never eaten game, but I lumped that in with the rest.

As we humans tend to do, I read a lot of material that supported my decision. Then Barbara Kingsolver in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle gave me pause.

Should I overlook the suffering of victims of hurricanes, famines, and wars brought on this world by profligate fuel consumption? Bananas that cost a rain forest, refrigerator-trucked soymilk, and prewashed spinach shipped two thousand miles in plastic containers do not seem cruelty-free, in this context. Giving up meat is one path; giving up bananas is another. The more we know about our food system, the more we are called into complex choices. It seems facile to declare one single forbidden fruit, when humans live under so many different kinds of trees.

I didn’t run out and start gobbling up free-range turkeys, but it did plant a seed of wonder. Like Kingsolver and many others, I have no doubt factory farm raised meat is destructive, cruel, flagrantly wasteful and the cause of may ills.

I took from the book the main message of eating locally and seasonally, and enrolled in my first farm share, learning to eat with the seasons again, still with no meat.

I continued reading — Michael Pollan, Mark Bittman, people I admire greatly and neither vegetarian. But both agree meat production in our country is anything but sustainable. I began to wonder about game though, especially after reading Omnivore’s Dilemma.

After many months I was ready to ask myself why I don’t eat game. I checked my reasons for not eating meat against game — wasting resources on feeding cattle, growth hormones, antibiotics, cruel treatment and inhumane slaughter, dire conditions for the meatpacking plant workers — none of them apply to game. It was simply that I’d never eaten it and it slid in along with other meat.

So not only do I find myself with no reason to not eat game (other than tenderhearted sadness at thinking of a beautiful deer or rabbit cut down)  some part of me is in approval of the person who eats wild game and uses it all — honoring the animal by not wasting any meat, and all that notion.

I’m not ready to run into the woods with a gun, but I am, for the first time in nearly nine years, ready to consider putting something on my plate not vegetable in origin. But as much as I don’t want to be that obnoxious person at the cookout who climbs on her high horse and announces she only eats free-range, organic, grass-fed, hand-massaged-by-virgin-princesses beef, please do not offer me a grocery store hamburger or hot dog.

monsieur shopping in Paris

I dream about France a lot — usually Paris. Sometimes I get confused about what I’ve dreamed and what I’ve lived it’s present so much in my subconscious. We thought we may move there once a few years ago. It’s a long story that ended with my mom relieved and Brian and me bitterly disappointed. I still think a lot about moving there, we both do. I have terribly unbecoming pangs of envy when I hear about Americans who are living there, especially those writing for a living, and *especially* those writing about food for a living.

So what’s to keep us from doing it? (Aside from all the things that actually are keeping us from doing it, that is?) We don’t have kids, not that that need stop anyone, but it’s certainly less to uproot should we decide to move across an ocean. Neither of our families live in the same city, so we see them only a few times a year as it is. I have a little bit of French — a pitiful amount really when you think of the years I spent studying and conjugating, but I could get us by until we learned more.

Dinner in Provence

So why not seriously just do it? We may yet, but I wonder about the difference in dreaming it and living it. I know the difference in dreaming of travel to a place and the reality of being there.  Alain de Botton explains it beautifully in The Art of Travel — part of it is that we are still who we are, no matter our locale. Our petty worries and little unhappinesses travel right there within us.

My real fear is that the living will destroy the dream of living there. My dreams mix up the best of rural, Provencal France with the best of Parisian life. And obviously in both dreams money is not a concern. In real life, we’d have to pick one or the other and would be worried always about having enough euros. In daydreams I’d eat baguettes and oozy cheese every day, shop at the markets with a little basket and cook fabulous meals with amazing ingredients. In real life we’d likely be in an apartment half the size of our current house where we already get on each other’s nerves trying to work together in the kitchen. We could be pressed for time and have to go the a supermarche instead of the street markets. My French would not be sufficient for more than ‘one of this’ or ‘one of that’ making meal shopping a trying and frustrating experience. I’d get huffy about the subway being crowded, and be dismayed when the weather was grey.

It makes me sad to think of losing the daydream of living in France to the bureaucracy and boring details found in the reality of day to day life in a foreign culture. But not so much so that I’ll stop daydreaming that someday, we will just do it.