French food can be so bland after awhile. Lamya and I were both starting to crave the spice [the Spice...The spice extends life, the spice expands consciousness, the spice must flow]. And so..off to Little India and then to Monoprix...

HOW TO MAKE ACHAR CHICKEN for 2 [with compliments to Lamya Talpur]

Ingredients:
2 boneless chicken breasts
1 can of whole peeled tomatoes
Cooking oil [Olive is not cooking. It burns too easily. Use olive for other things---like salad dressings]
minced garlic paste
minced ginger paste
Shan Achar Gosht Curry Mix
Plain yogurt

As always start by pouring 2 glasses of wine -- one for yourself and for your sous chef. [We went with Chardonnay]

If the chicken isn't fresh but frozen, thaw it in a bowl of hot water.

Cut the chicken into bite size chunks. [If you're too generous it wont cook right]

Blend the tomatoes. You might be thinking, "Why not skip that step and buy a can of pureed tomatoes instead?" [My thought exactly] But apparently it wont taste the way it's supposed to if you do it that way. In the end I was able to rationalize it by likening it to those bags of shredded cheese they sell at the grocery. [Like, ew! Totally plastic tasting!] I always prefer to buy the block and shred as needed. But I leave it up to your own psychology.

Pour a glug of cooking oil into a pan. Preferably a non-stick Wok, if you have one on hand. You're going to heat that up and then add 1 teaspoon of minced garlic paste for a bit and then 1 teaspoon of minced ginger paste after that. Be careful. It might sputter. Stir it up with a big wooden spoon.

Next, empty a packet of Shan Achar Gosht Curry Mix. Good luck finding that.**

Add more oil if necessary.

Add the blended tomatoes.

Stir some more.

Then add the chicken.

Cover and then let simmer. About 10 minutes.

Mix in plain yogurt to offset the spice. We used a single carton serving (which converts as 125 grams in France).

Cover again about another 5 minutes.

Serve with naan. Eat with your hands.

i am so drunk. all i ever do lately is drink. it's gotten to be really bad. not to make you worry or anything, but paris can be so much. the city...it's sensory overload. it can make you feel like a vampire. and all that's left sometimes is to placate your senses with booze.

[sigh]

so yah. that's what i've been doing lately. hanging out in sebastien's section at le buci. drinking white wine and snacking on peanuts. it's not healthy. but i meet the most interesting characters there.

oh god. do you think i'm one of them?

"In Europe then we thought of wine as something as healthy and normal as food and also a great giver of happiness and well being and delight. Drinking wine was not a snobbism nor a sign of sophistication nor a cult; it was as natural as eating and to me as necessary," --Ernest Hemingway

"Creation's probably overrated. After all, God made the world in only six days and rested on the seventh."
--Ernest Hemingway

"When they said,'It's great, Ernest. Truly it's great. You cannot know the thing it has,' I wagged my tail in pleasure and plunged into the fiesta concept of life to see if I could not bring some fine attractive stick back, instead of thinking, 'If these bastards like it what is wrong with it?'"
--Ernest Hemingway

"Ici, je suis moi" -- Marie Antoinette

Did I mention the blackbird that sings outside my window almost every night?

You know how it is when you first move to a new place and everything is strange and unfamiliar? but then you meet people, you find the places you like to frequent, you get to know your neighborhood, or you find a job in a different part of town and get to know that neighborhood...etc..until it starts to feel more comfortable? smaller than before?

and then [in my case, anyway] you start to feel antsy by the smallness of it. because inevitably the smaller the space around you becomes, the bigger you start to feel in it--until there's no room left for you to grow. so you leave. and find a new empty space to fill. but somewhere along the way you stop to wonder things like,

For how long will i find it necessary to go on this way?

How much world out there must i take up?

Will I ever find that place where I realize I've gone as far as I could go, that there's nowhere left to go?

and be fine with that?

enough to feel finally for the first time in your life "at home" ?

And that last thought makes you start to feel really sorry for yourself, almost like you want to cry but you don't because [again, in my case] you never cry..because girls who just pick up and leave like that don't cry easily. they're kind of cold and selfish in that regard.

the thing about Proust is...he bites into a cookie and then gets carried back in time to his childhood which takes up thousands of pages...I mean, whose childhood lasts that long, really?!

*met someone interesting this morning

We started the night off last night, at a housewarming party. Friends of Lamya from Branksome Hall in Toronto. Girls with names like Constance, Victoria, Josephine and Sophie. I spent most of that portion of the evening talking with Zeeshan about the perils of trying to do business in Dubai via Karachi [the other City of Lights].

After much deliberation over where to go for drinks we ended up at Chez Georges, and then, sometime around 3 or 4 a.m. we were back at her apartment...she, Zeeshan and I, piled up on her bed, smoking cigarettes, listening to music.

But hardly any of that matters. That night out was really just an excuse to get to know Lamya better, her friends merely an extension of that original intention.

The interesting part came after. After our night out ending and starting a new day just a few hours apart, being awakened by the not-so-distant sound of church bells, I quietly slip out the door, hair freshly washed and towel-dried, face powdered but unrouged, wearing a pair of Levis, folded over at the bottom and tucked into brown suede boots....a brown, faded zippered hoodie layered over an equally faded henley..and a willow-green pashmina--so two seasons ago [the color I mean], wrapped over everything.

If it seems I am going into great lengths to describe this entire assemblage, a look that seemed to scream "I dress without mirrors", just hear me out. There is a reason for all of it.

..So, there I am, drinking my moyen Chai Tea Latte avec soja, at Starbucks, of all places, poring over Pearl S. Buck's, "Mandala" [the part where Prince Jagat first sees Brooke Westley playing piano in the hotel lobby, thus beginning their mutual attraction to one another], when I look up, noticing a young woman giving a slow stare towards me. She literally walks past with her head craned back. Less than a minute later she comes over and asks to take my picture.

In the first pic, I look directly at the lens but then she tells me to ignore the camera, and just keep doing whatever. Afterwards, I hand her one of my letterpressed cards, and ask her to send copies of the photos to my email address. And then she asks me where I'm from, and what am I doing here?, and How long will I be in Paris for?

I tell her I'm from L.A. That I'm staying with friends till June. And then she casually mentions she used to live in Austin.

Just like that. Not Texas. Or even, Austin, Texas but just Austin. Which is where I'm really from. Where I was born and raised, as we say.

CAN YOU BELIEVABLE? A random Parisian stopping me on the street like that?

I find it all so very intriguing..this coincidence of crossing paths with the few people I will ever meet in my lifetime..out of however many billions there are out there.

And then she woke up one morning, suddenly realizing she'd turned into one of those women who finds Kissinger attractive. Who knew that elder statesmen thing could be so sexy? I guess i've really come of age then.

shudder.

Ahhh, yes. The Sorbonne. Our classroom smells like used condoms [not that i even know what that really smells like]. I've given up on trying to figure out exactly who or what it's coming from. Maybe if I take up smoking it wont bother me as much?

I'm debating whether or not to go out clubbing with these twenty year old Pakistanis tomorrow night. And they want to take me to some casino in Monaco but my horoscope is always telling me i shouldn't gamble. hmmm...

as buckaroo banzai once said, "no matter where you go there you are".

living in l.a. i see famous faces on the street all the time. but i've only ever been starstruck once before--when i saw bianca jagger sitting across from me during one of the shows at mercedes-benz fashion week.

that may seem strange to some but she flustered me. her presence and all it brought to mind...the stones, andy warhol, studio 54, and yes, even billy joel.

today i was starstruck, once again...

on the sidewalk, somewhere off st. germain, i saw jacques chirac. the former president of france smiled and said hello to me..he was handsome. he had panache.

to be perfectly honest, i really don't know anything about his politics.
but i like him now. he's a charmer.

he certainly charmed me.