Paris, March 7, 2012

 

Cloudy descent into Paris airport – a little bumpy this landing in the city of haute cuisine.
The taxi ride to my first accommodation in the 19^th arrondissement goes smoothly: beautiful older apartment building with worn out wooden stairs and a sign to please wipe your feet. My friend is not home but his wife Paula and lovely 3 year old daughter Olivia are – she speaks Spanish, French and English – what a way to grow up. My bed is made in the office – there are big glass doors with a French balcony overlooking the court yard.
 
The next day the driver from the Estonian Embassy picks me up and we deliver two cases of books to the Paris Cookbook Fair grounds – nobody is there to receive the books but we leave them where the bookstore will be set up and hope for the best.
 
In the afternoon I check out the vegetable and health food store nearby to see whether they carry all ingredients I will need for my cooking demo on Sunday – for the most I can find everything except beets – the only beets I can find are pre-cooked. But Paula is able to get me some from another market.
 
First ride on the metro – everything goes well, except I don’t know that you have to push a button for the door to open – I just stand there and wait – luckily others want to get out as well and push the button for me.

 

In the evening I meet the Estonian Ambassador and his wife at the Folies Bergere theater for the Awards Gala. There are many categories of wine and cookbooks – many emotional, some funny, some witty responses to winning the first price. I am thinking and rethinking my acceptance speech – you only get 30 sec to say something. My book Essential Nourishment is a finalist in the health and nutrition category – 2 hours go by – and then the moment of truth arrives – I am nervous, excited, hopeful – but when Mr. Edouard Cointreau mentions my book second in, I know that I am not the winner of the first place. He says however “… a book that everyone should read” – and my book lands on third place. I will not deny that I was disappointed.  C’est la vie …
 
It’s Wednesday, the first day of the book fair – I take the bus but halfway to where I am going the driver makes an announcement that I do not fully understand – however I get that there will be a rerouting – I stay on and hope that this rerouting will happen before we get to where I need to go. I follow the moves the bus makes on my map only to find out that it goes further and further in the wrong direction and instead of stopping every couple of blocks as he had done before there seems to be no stop in sight, I bravely walk up to the driver and ask what ever happened to rue Riquet?  When he finally stops he points me towards another bus stop and tells me to take that bus back. So it is the same bus number but going the opposite direction and it will take me to where I have to go – go figure.



I arrive at the Paris cookbook fair. The atmosphere is relaxed and friendly. I go to the Gourmand office to pick up my certificate. It says Best Nutrition Book in the World, Third – I like how that sounds.
 
I get the catalog and rip out the pages that have the layout and a list of all presenters with stands on it. I start marking up who I want to speak to and approach them one by one. Everybody is so nice and almost apologetic, when they have to tell me that my book is not for them. Sometimes they recommend other publishers who might be a better fit for my book. My goal here is to find foreign publishers who would like to translate my book and publish it in their country.  When I introduce my book I tell them that it won third place the day before in the healthy cookbook category and it really does not sound so bad. And they happily congratulate me. I have some promising exchanges with several German publishers and a Brasilian publisher. Lunchtime approaches and I am in the mood for a hearty lunch, knowing that dinner will be on the light side. There is a French café/restaurant in another part of the building. I study the menu but do not understand most of it. Luckily the waiter does speak English. There is a lunch deal where you get a discount if you order an appetizer and a main dish. My body tells me, go for it! My cravings for vegetables I quench with a cauliflower soup and for the main dish I order the one thing I recognize as a French classic thanks to the movie Julie and Julia – it is Boeuf Bourguignon – or something like it. I must admit that I am quite ignorant when it comes to French cuisine but am an eager student. I am not a big meat eater either but will try to eat like a Parisienne when in Paris. And again a flashback to the movie – I was tempted to make loud moaning noises just like Merryl Streep as Julia Child always did, when she dined with her husband - that expression of utter surprise and unexpected pleasure – but I controlled myself – however I must report that that beef was the most tender and juicy I have ever encountered – it literally melted in my mouth – I mean it was truly incredible – wow!

 

In the evening there was a party for all professional guests of the cookbook fair.  A Swedish chef prepared 8 dishes for 300 people with the help of some 20 students of the Cordon Blue Culinary School. It took place in the International Show Kitchen, so we all could watch if we were so inclined. I stayed for the beginning, as it was interesting for me to see how he organizes his work and how he gives instructions to the students.
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About those New Year resolutions

Sometimes I wonder whether all this goal oriented living is the way to go. Some healthy goal setting is useful for sure, don’t get me wrong. However, if we constantly live for something that will happen in the future, we might be in danger of not living in the present. If we are so fixated on the goal we might not be aware of the process. We might not be fully present to what is happing right now. By chasing the rainbow we miss being still. Without being still we cannot open up to allow things to come to us, to receive.

So I came up with a different set of resolutions this year. Maybe you’d like to add one or two to your list as well:

1.  Trust the process of life

2.  Listen to my inner voice and act on it

3.  Consult my heart first when making decisions

4.  Create moments of stillness throughout the day

5.  Use every chance to appreciate beauty

6.  Release the need to be perfect

7.  Find pleasure in all that I do

30 lucky winners have been chosen

by an online random number generator to win a copy of Essential Nourishment.

In alphabetical order per first name - the winners are:

Aire Roosma

Anilia Hornsby

Annika Kaljurand

Dale Stalnaker Heffer

Dawn Gobel Knoblock

Deidre Lynn Smith

Desiree McKnight

Diana Fink Nagy

Erin Melito

Göran Valdre

Grazia Della-Terza

Heather Wood Johnson

Janet Luongo

Jayne McAllister

Jennifer Magnetta

Jocelyne Buorgeois

Karine Fournier

Katherine Meyer

Kathryn Nelson

Kellie White McGarry

Laili Aunap

Laurie Laird

Linda B Schiller

Lisa Shozuya

Lynnette Seitz Ingram

Margie Heggings

Melissa Mann Saubers

Sumi Tonooka

Tiiu Oga

Tricia Hagedorn Lucas

Congratulations to all of you! Please send your postal address by email to essentialnourishment@gmail.com during the month of September to recieve your copy of Essential Nourishment.

Enjoy some sunshine

One of the things I really look forward to each spring is to be able to take a sun bath on my back porch. On some days around noon, even if the temperature is merely 60 F and there isn’t too much wind, I will lie down on my yoga mat and it will be just perfect. The sun is warm enough in the middle of the day to deeply penetrate and warm my body. And if I were a cat I would be purring from pleasure. One of the pluses of working from home is that I can choose to spend a part of my lunch hour basking in the sun. And I love it! As a northerner I revere the sun. But there is more to it than pure pleasure. It is actually very important to spend some time in the sun - without sun screen. You might be surprised that a health conscious person like myself would say a thing like that, but unless you get some unfiltered sun your skin will not be able to produce Vitamin D, a crucial vitamin to help keep you healthy and young.

A sun screen factor of 8 or more will not allow the rays of the sun to turn the cholesterol in your skin into Vitamin D, which technically is not a vitamin but a prohormon. 20 min at a time is a good amount of time to be out in the sun to produce Vitamin D. Sufficient amounts of Vitamin D in the body can prevent a host of illnesses, from hypertension, cancers, diabetes and heart disease to multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis and psoriasis.

Take your time getting used to the sun, start with 5 - 10 minutes per day and gradually increase until 20 minutes. When the weather gets warmer, spend mornings in the sun, before it gets too strong at midday. After 3pm is also a good time to be out in the sun. But use common sense and avoid getting sun burnt.