Food for Thought and Notes on Strasbourg

Bloom Coffee Shop

I’ve just arrived in Strasbourg and I’d like to call it a quaint town, but I’ve only seen a ten minute walk so far. I’ve already gotten a glimpse of those ideal Germanic homes and moreso than Marrakech, this place looks like how I pictured it. I make my way through the drizzle and chill to Bloom, a tiny little coffee and breakfast spot near Petit France. The entryway has a sign of roses that reads, “Love & Chill.” Wide windows let in the light and there are flowers everywhere: tucked in a nook, used as a runner where the wall meets the ceiling. Leaves are draped over the espresso machine where teal and robin’s egg blue-colored coffee cups are stacked. Only one other table is occupied. Three girlfriends sit, talking about who knows what. I guess they must be students at uni; it’s 9:30 on a Tuesday morning. My Earl Grey is served in a cup without a handle, but I almost don’t mind the hot porcelain. The tea has a very strong bergamot flavor that wraps me in citrus. I order pancakes - not traditional, I know, but I know there will be plenty of opportunity to try other, more Alsatian fare. They’re so fluffy, at least two inches high, sitting in a pool of maple syrup, topped with raspberries, blueberries, and currants, and garnished with micro greens and violet. What pancake isn’t soaked in syrup or juice is so light, with large pockets of air, I can’t really taste anything. The punch of raspberry is cut by the vegetal micro greens and while it’s not bad, I’m suddenly wishing I ordered eggs or something more substantial. It seems too much for me - my tastebuds haven’t fully recovered and my own sick sounds are unappetizing (made so much more obvious by a new customer’s sick sounds). I nurse my cup of tea to kill time before my next activity - touring the city in a boat.

Like a tourist.

Maison Kammerzell

Wandering around and tottering on cobblestones apparently makes you hungry. The cheesy pretzel I stopped in a boulangerie for wasn’t heated up and I put it away after two bites to be savored later this evening after a trip to the oven. This medieval-looking restaurant I’m in is located right next to the Cathedral Notre Dame where I spent nearly an hour trying to find God and instead saw my breath. It’s hard to pray for physical healing when you’re crying so hard, your eyes are swollen and your hands are warming in your pockets.

I feel I’m in Gaston’s hunting lodge (I’ve had several songs from “Beauty and the Beast” stuck in my head as I roam these streets), but instead of animal heads, bucolic scenes of country life adorn the walls, crests in stained glass let the afternoon sun stream in in subtle rainbow colors, and the dark wood seems to radiate warmth. It’s dusty in here, like the forgotten study of an ancient chateau, and I notice I’m the youngest person here. Everyone else seems to be of some lost generation.

I don’t feel comfortable ordering water in French from the male waiter, but when the female one asks me if I’ve made a choice, I respond, “Je voudrais le foie gras, et le poulet, et un verre de vin blanc.” Shen then asks if I’d like a dry wine or sweet; all I really understand is ‘sucre’, so that’s what I ask for. And it is sweet. Incredibly sweet. Like drinking fermented sunshine - it’s super bright with a citrusy kick. I get halfway through the glass before I realize I should save it for my main course - I don’t like wandering around drunk and more than a glass could do it.

Foie gras is one of those foods you think only pretentious and pompous people eat and you’re probably right. I always feel super fancy and uppity when I have it (which isn’t very often - just like escargots - because…America); but I liken it to eating butter - it’s so creamy, fatty, and salty and if I eat it on it’s own, without the chewy toast it’s served with, it feels wickedly decadent. A savory gellee and blueberry compote accompany the foie gras that enhances both the sweetness and the subtle poultry flavor. Man, I’m bougie.

My chicken is placed in front of me - it’s a lot of beige. No wonder I’m sick - not enough vegetables. Do I have scurvy? I could, however, swim in this mushroom sauce. The chicken is so moist and the chives do add a bit of freshness. The spetzel is super doughy - I feel like I’m eating matzo that’s been soaking in broth. But that sauce…Dude, it’s so rich and earthy - I feel it’s got marsala in it to give it that deep depth. The wine now has a bit more of that medicinal hit after pairing it with the chicken. I don’t know anything about wine, but I don’t like what’s happened to it.

The wind howls outside, rattling the windows. Do I dare order dessert just to be protected from the elements?

Naegel and a Paris Brest

What is wrong with me? I am not having a pastry a day like I had originally planned (oh my, so many plans) and I decide I need something stat before my time-killing nap. After spending hours in the Palais Rohan, I make my way back to a patisserie I passed wandering around yesterday and order a Paris Brest - my first and likely not my last. It looks like a giant choux pastry Oreo sandwich, set on a golden seashell platter. It’s topped with dark caramel, chopped hazelnuts, and candied pistachios. A dark chocolate ribbon snaps, a milk chocolate curl has the sweet nutty flavor of hazelnut and it sets up an anticipation for the rest of the pastry. I pick it up - who needs a fork when devouring heaven? - and it’s heavy. Not surprising that, while the choux is incredibly light, the dessert is mainly whipped buttercream. It’s got a hint of sweetness, but it tastes of delicious heavy cream and butter (weird). It melts in my mouth and the texture of the cream, the almost egg-custardy tasting puff, and the soft crunch of whole hazelnuts keeps me on my toes.

It’s times like these I thank my lucky stars I’m not diabetic or gluten-intolerant.

January 29

I don’t know if I’m giving too much time to these places I’m visiting and I’m only on my second trip. I’ve got at least 8 more.

I feel like I spend so much time aimlessly wandering; nothing I plan on going to is open, both here in Strasbourg and in Marrakech. I find myself ready to go home- to Paris. I love travel, but I think I’m so unused to it. In America, it’s not easy - five hours could see you on the same coast. Outside of a trip maybe once every year, I didn’t go anywhere new. Growing up, my mother made sure we were always going somewhere. In Europe, five hours will have you in another country, on another continent. I was always traveling to places for swim meets, soccer tournaments, and performance workshops: Germany, Spain, England. I had birthday trips to Venice and Siena. Travel was a way of life. My mother made sure of that. I remember a conversation we had once: she was sure God gave me to her because He knew she needed a travel companion. Kids are portable; she taught me that by showing me.

And when I moved back to the States for my third year of college, I didn’t really leave until I moved to a new place. I stayed in San Diego, I stayed in Boston, I stayed in Minnesota, I stayed in Boston again. I went to a different country once in a decade (thank God for that, because now I live in that country), as opposed to once in two weeks. I also never travelled alone until I took myself to Vermont for my 30th birthday. Travel has become brand new to me again (if only books could be the same) and I don’t know how to handle the freedom when it comes to planning and not being beholden to time. I love that I have the ability to do what I want, when I want. But when I have no direction, no idea of what I want to do? That’s unsettling.

Strasbourg is beautiful, but I could only take so much of the pretty houses and the cobblestones and the picturesque Instagram-worthy scenery before I just grew weary. I know how I’m feeling is affected by how sick and cold I am (I have been cold since I got to Paris), but I can’t help feeling like maybe this place wasn’t worth the trip, just like Marrakech. Look, I’m not coming to these places to become a completely new person (at least, that’s what I’m telling myself); that’s just too much pressure. But I do feel I’m in a battle between wanting to do nothing and feeling guilty for wanting to do nothing. I am so incredibly blessed to be able to do what I’m doing: to live without working, to travel to new places, to eat so much food, to have so many freaking choices. I think I may be feeling like I’ve chosen wrong. I had a meal last night where I liked nothing: I tried bone marrow for the first time and I thought it was basically like drinking fat. I ordered a thing called Charcuterie Royal - basically a bunch of cooked meats with sauerkraut and two tiny boiled potatoes. I devoured the latter two, but the meat was bland but also incredibly funky (I think there was some type of innard?). I finished with an apple strudel which was so disappointing - soggy and not enough apple. And I wondered if I just made the wrong decision when it came to ordering instead of it just being a bad restaurant. It couldn’t be a bad restaurant - it’s gotten so many positive reviews and it was recommended by a friend who I trusted to make good recommendations.

When I have the freedom and independence to make choices, feeling like I’ve made detrimental or incorrect ones is a bit devastating and very discouraging. The whole point of travel is to experience the new, the novel, the nuanced, and with both trips this month, I’m either not appreciating the experience or holding it up to some imagined standard, so much so that I don’t see the new, the novel, or the nuanced. And I know I keep coming back to it, but it’s because I AM NOT FUCKING LEARNING to just be. Nothing is good or bad, it just is. I determine what it is and that can either be good or bad but my thinking it does not make it so. I am constantly reminding myself that I am able to take up space and time and matter because I am constantly forgetting just that. I don’t know what’s going to kick me in the ass and really make me understand that I can’t do anything about what happens - that it’s all out of my control - and the only thing I can do something about is my reaction to what happens.

I’m reminded of a thought I had one day when I was walking to work. I was walking down a tree lined street in the South End, observing and marveling at the changing colors as I do every fall in New England when I said to myself, “I’m learning to expect nothing from the universe except its constant invitation to delight and be aware of it’s very existence.” That happened so long ago and I’m still learning. In the continual pursuit of being present, this is a mantra I need to adapt and adopt. I want to be able to take experiences like Strasbourg and sit and delight in the fact that I am a woman who is in a town in a country on a planet, doing something she’s never done before: simply being.