EASY SOCIAL SECURITY FIX...AND A BIT MORE ABOUT DEMOCRATS

It's painful to have to say this again. And again. And again. To fix Social Security, you simply have to make the system fair. How? Raise the limit on compensation (not just salaries) to which FICA applies. Just that. All it takes.

Why not? What's so difficult? Because it's a tax increase, that's why. And tax increases are still toxic after all these years. I blame JFK, after Trump the richest man ever elected to the Presidency, who cut taxes on millionaires and called it an economic stimulus. We've been dealing with that fallacious reasoning ever since. Yes, it was JFK who popularized the phrase that 'a rising tide lifts all boats' from the Presidential bully pulpit. Not Reagan. JFK. It's one of the reasons that I never bought into Camelot, but that's a post for another day.

Currently, a wage earner pays 6.2% of their wages into the Social Security Trust Fund up to a wage base limit of $184,500. An upper limit, but no floor. Wage earners are taxed on the first dollar earned. No exemption or standard deduction. Let's look at what that means.

A janitor on the factory floor has an annual salary of $50,000. They pay $3,100 for Social Security. That's 6.2% of income.

The factory's general manager has an annual income of $250,000. They pay $11,439. That's 4.6% of income because they're only taxed on the first $184,500.

The CEO of the company that owns the factory has an annual income of $3,000,000. They pay that same $11,439. And that's less than half of 1% of income.

So, raise the ceiling. Simple as that. Adjust the tax rate as needed to monetize the fund. And, since you know that the wealthiest wage earners will try to avoid paying a tax that they can well afford to pay, define compensation broadly enough to rope in the schemers and the scammers like Elon and Jeff and Mark and Donnie.

It's so damn simple. They'll never do it.

Instead, they will propose raising the retirement age, cutting benefits, and the authorizing the smallest tax increase that they think that they can get away with. Damn near the exact opposite of what should be done. Burns my butt!

EDIT: Sen. Warren has just introduced a bill to lift the cap on salaries subject to FICA. Of course, the headlines call it a major tax increase. We'll see how it shakes out.

MORE ABOUT DEMOCRATS: The implosion of the Democratic Party begins. AOC tells us that she doesn't support Schumer for Senate Majority Leader. There was a time when the Houses of Congress refrained from mixing into each others' business. For a reason. Respect for boundaries. And Senator Van Hollen demonstrates his total deafness by declaring that the electorate voted for change, but associating that desire for change to mean a desire for progressive policies and not a fervent disgust with Trump and MAGA, two entirely different motivations. Leaving the hard work to Schumer for fighting the hard fight all these years in the minority, and then rewarding him by kicking him out the door, is the antithesis of my idea of uniting my party to do the work of governance.

I am not encouraged.   

DEMOCRATS: PLEASE DON'T BE STUPID

If there is a God, and if She listens to prayers, I implore Her to discourage Democrats from impeaching Donald Trump. Many have said that it would be their first order of business should they retake Congress. They have retaken Congress. Fine. I'm happy. My friends are happy. A majority of Americans are happy. Why spoil the party? Why do the stupidest thing that you can possibly do? 

Three reasons impeaching Trump would be stupid:

1)    You want to rebuke Trump? He's been rebuked. Big time. By any measure, the election was a disaster of monumental, historic proportions for a sitting President. And while Trump has been saying that Republicans would have won had his name been on the ballot, the fact is that his name WAS on the ballot, writ large. We all know it, even if he doesn't. The Republican Party had clearly decided to live or die on his coat tails, with a few backing off at the last minute, only after it was manifestly too late to change the outcome. The ballots have been counted. He's lost. Trump is the lamest lame duck in modern history. Move on.

2)    If you proceed to impeach Trump, there are two possible outcomes. He is convicted or he is not. The Nixon Option - resignation - is not on the agenda of a sick narcissist like Trump. If Trump is convicted, he becomes a martyr and Vance becomes President. Neither of those results is desirable. If he is not convicted, he's handed a victory by the very political party that just rubbed his nose in ignominious defeat. What would be the point of whupping his ass, then giving him a reason to celebrate?    

3)    Now that Democrats have been elected, the American people expect Democrats to govern. The reasons for the Blue Tsunami are complex and convoluted, but you can be certain that a continuation of name calling, blame gaming, and the weaponization of the courts and Congressional oversight was not primary among them. Every minute that Congressional Democrats spend pursuing such nonproductive activities sheds thousands of the voters that handed them the keys. Ever since 2016, Democrats have been obsessed with figuring out how to get elected. You've been elected. Now do the job that's been handed over to your care.

Sort out a single-payer, universal healthcare system that the rest of the developed world's governments have figured out how to provide to their citizens. Make certain that there is no space for government to participate in conversations between a woman and her doctor or her spiritual advisor. Climate change is real and strategies to address the warming of the oceans and the melting of ice caps and glaciers need to be studied and implemented. We can and should freely provide either academic or technical education to anyone willing to learn and grow. I want the United States to stop being the world's primary purveyor of weaponry and start being the world's primary promoter of peace among nations. And if we are agreed, we need clear strategies to implement these policies and metrics to determine how we're doing along the road.

If Stephen Miller can produce a lucid, detailed, and comprehensive plan for blowing up our liberal democracy and make it work, how much of a failure would it be if the politicians who surfed the recent wave couldn't do the same for our side? How much of a distraction, of a waste of precious political capital, would it be to return to the partisan sniping and unproductive bloviating that has characterized the recent political landscape?

Democrats, you've been elected. If you intend to stay in power, govern.  

 

SCENES FROM A FRENCH VILLAGE

I don't know if Small Town America still exists. I remember walking down Main Street as a kid in my home town in rural New Jersey of about 3,000 souls and having to keep an eye out for falling candy. The chief of police, sitting on the balcony of the local hotel, would toss those little squares of Bazooka Bubble Gum at you, hitting you on the head if you weren't careful. I can't imagine that happening today. Some woke parent would sue him for reckless endangerment.

I'm not saying that the town cop in our rural village in the south of France throws stuff at us. But he knows all of us, enforces the rules when he must, but does so with a light touch and with neighborly concern. Just a small town cop like that chief of police 70 years ago. I guess that's my point. When we moved to Quarante, we thought that it would take years to settle into a caring community like that New Jersey town that has changed so much in the interim. Instead, our new village folded us in as a matter of course. As we demonstrated that we had come to stay and that we intended to contribute, we were welcomed warmheartedly, provided with a social network (excuse the expression) that is rich and rewarding. Here are some examples of what I'm talking about.

THE BUTCHER I noticed that one of those four-wheeled carts with a basket in front that is used by folks with difficulty walking was parked outside of Pierre's butcher shop as I entered to pick up some saucisses de francfort for lunch the other day. Sure enough, an elderly gent wearing shorts that showed extensive purple bruising on his legs was bent over, peering into one of the display cases, deciding on his purchases for the week, taking his time, discussing with Pierre how much of this and how many of that he might need. As always, I waited patiently. After all. I'm retired. Every day is Saturday. No rush.

As the customer input his debit card info, Pierre loaded his purchases into a sack and then, after handing the gent back his receipt, he didn't just hand back the loaded sack. Pierre walked out from behind the counter, opened the door, helped the gent down the three stairs at the entrance, placed the sack into the basket, shook the gent's hand, and returned to the shop to take care of me. I told Pierre that I thought that he was very kind. He just shrugged in that French way, went behind the counter, and asked me what I wanted.

THE VEGGIE LADY Some French villages have extensive weekly markets with a myriad of stalls crammed into every nook and cranny of the village. Some have dedicated market squares with a set array of vendors. Quarante has a veggie lady on Wednesdays. Occasionally, once every few months, the mattress guy shows up. He keeps coming because it seems as though he always makes a sale or two. Other vendors come and go. The shoe salesman has a tricky trailer that opens up into a mini shop. The furniture guy and his son showed up once, putting inexpensive extendable dining tables on display. Our local caterer tried selling hot, prepared dishes for dinner for a while. But there's only one who shows up every week, every Wednesday, rain or shine. The veggie lady.

The veggie lady's stuff is always fresh, always seasonal, although a small greenhouse ensures that there's always lettuce. All manner of tomatoes during the many months that tomatoes roll in. Fruits in their time, including a brief, heavenly few weeks of strawberries. Always root veggies. Always carrots. I have often bought a couple or three carrots to feed the donkeys or the horses that we pass on our thrice-weekly walks around the village and through the vines. Maybe 50¢. I don't have to buy them any more. There's always a carrot or two that aren't fit for sale and, once she knew why I was buying the carrots, the veggie lady gave me the culls. Free. With a smile. Pour les chevaux. For the horses.

SPEAKING ENGLISH When folks are considering moving to France and ask for advice, the advice usually starts with learning the language. Not that it's easy. But you start with Good Morning and Please and Thank You and you work your way up from there. The hard parts? Tenses and vocabulary. I have given up on all but the simplest ways to express tense - past, present, and future. That's it. Hard enough. I'm too old to worry about conditional or pluperfect. And I get by. My French friends know that I'm trying. Contrary to the way that the French are often characterized, they appreciate the attempt and work with me. Not what you would expect from the trope of French being snooty about their language.

And a bit surprisingly, our local French are curious about our language. As I came home from shopping today, a neighbor greeted me with a comment about the weather, blue sky and a fresh breeze. I agreed that I was glad that our hot summer appeared to be over. All in French. Then he said,"Automne. La saison. En Anglais?" So I told him that it was the same in English. Autumn. Or fall, more often. Then I listed them in order. Fall, winter, spring, and summer. Automne, hiver, printemps, été. And he nodded, thanked me, we wished each other a good day, and we went on our ways.

Idioms can be hard. When the electric window on my car failed, I learned the phrase leve-vitre. Literally Up-Glass. I have taken courses, played with Duolingo and Rosetta Stone, and leve-vitre has never come up. When I told my mechanic that my fênetre electrique (electric window) was broken, he knew exactly what I was talking about. And then he taught me leve-vitre.

While we find French idioms difficult, our French friends can have trouble with the English instructions for the operation of all sorts of devices and materials. The server at the Bar 40 came to our table recently with a screenshot of the English-language manual for one of the pieces of equipment she was cleaning. She pointed to a word. Descale. "It is necessary to descale the surfaces regularly." While I tried to explain that scale was the white residue that hard water left on coffee pots, a friend pulled out his phone and found the corresponding French word: détartrage. Usually a word used at the dentist, but I suppose tartar and scale are comparable. And dentists have coffee pots too. 

FRANCE, MY BLOG, PÉTANQUE AND STUFF ON MY MIND

This week, my blog blew past 750,000 views on its way to 1,000,000. Like my age, it's just a number. But it's an impressive number nonetheless.

BREAKING BOUNDARIES When I was programming late-night blues or weekend world music on our local NPR affiliate back in the USofA, I was constantly getting myself in trouble. For instance, my blues shift began at 11PM and I was supposed to sign off at 1AM. Since it was the last programming of the day, and since we were going to close down the station until the morning shows began several hours later, I kept playing as long as I wasn't too tired and I knew that night owls were still listening. But no, the station manager said. Sign off time was sign off time. And by the way, don't talk too long, even if folks tell you that they like your "This Day In History" commentary. And while we're at it, don't break format. Just because Tinariwen, a Tuareg group of Algerian origin, feels like a logical progression of blues/rock, it ain't the kind of blues that most people who listen are into. Refrain.

Boundaries like that have always bothered me. I view boundaries as challenges. Sometimes, that attitude gets me into trouble, like at the radio station. More of often, breaking boundaries has led to personally satisfying outcomes. I suppose that's why this blog jumps all over the place. France. Food. Politics. Random opinions on random subjects. For some people, that's breaking format. I do get notified of the occasional Unsubscribe. So be it. No hard feelings. 

If you're still with me, thanks for sticking around.

LIVE AFRICAN BLUES

PÈTANQUE I suppose that you could describe pètanque as a cousin to bocce or curling. You send a ball (boule) down a court toward a target with the goal of getting your ball closer to the target than your opponent's ball. Relatively simple to learn and difficult to play with any real skill, outdoor pètanque courts (terrians) are visible in about every village in France. In Quarante, we have a sizeable steel building dedicated to indoor play, a boulodrome. In all the years that we've lived here, the boulodrome has only hosted one day of pètanque annually, a round-robin match called a concourse with the proceeds going to charity. Otherwise, community yard sales and Christmas markets and other non-pètanque uses have filled the venue.

A local restaurant has a pètanque court for the use of its patrons and some folks convinced me to join them. It can make for a fun summer evening, played with teams of friends, some with a more competitive spirit than others, followed by a beer or a glass of wine. So I wondered why the boulodrome remained empty. Long story short, I gathered some of my friends at the local bar and we decided to pursue a more intensive use of the boulodrome. We contacted the mayor, worked through some typical French bureaucracy that is still ongoing after two years, and eventually got possession of a set of keys. We now open the boulodrome to the public every Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday evening. Not a big crowd, but growing as the word gets out and the weather moderates. It's a story of how grass-roots community action is a thing, even in France. I'll dedicate a full post to the story in future.   

CLIMATE CHANGE If you haven't been paying attention, I have news. I've said it before. Climate change is real. I can't say whether it's due to the burning of fossil fuels, part of a natural cycle, or failure to pay proper obeisance to Oden. But climate change is real. Here in the south of France, months of searing heat and severe drought were preceded by windstorms that downed whole forests and have been followed by downpours causing widespread damage due to flash flooding. We've lived in the region full time for 12 years, not a lifetime sampling but long enough. Heat and drought have become serious, escalating concerns. Not believing that the change is real will have serious consequences, regardless of whether the language of change is scrubbed from government websites as in the USofA. 

I don't know if anything can be done to moderate the changes. I do know that, if the changes are inevitable, we have to prepare for the consequences. I've discussed this before. In the case of agriculture in France, the strict rules regarding what grape varieties can be grown in which regions to qualify for various wine appellations must be loosened and new strains that are heat and drought resistant must be developed if viticulture is to survive and thrive. The rules regarding importing cattle feed in some cheese producing regions have already been relaxed. (Interestingly, some farmers have insisted on abiding by the old rules for the sake of tradition and the taste of their product.) 

Zoning and planning needs to take into account sea level rise and flood plain management. We'll need smart, principled politicians and an informed electorate. Piece of cake, right?  

MY STEPSON We all need a purpose in life, the reason that we wake up every day knowing that we are needed, that we have responsibilities for the health and welfare of others. For me, that reason is Séraphin. His mother works in Paris but has a second home in Quarante. I water the plants in the garden. I turn on the boiler so that she has hot water before she arrives. And I keep a supply of cherry tomatoes on hand to feed Séraphin. Called a tortoue in French, he looks exactly like the Eastern box turtles of my rural New Jersey roots. He comes running when he hears my footsteps. (Yes, turtles can approximate running.)  He'll probably outlive me, but that's OK. It's enough to have been an important part of his life.

SOUTH OF FRANCE: TYPICAL DAY IN THE LIFE

The autumn morning broke crisp and clean as new money. The very air had shifted, from summer heavy to light and fresh with the promise of better days ahead. The afternoon sun would heat us up, perhaps uncomfortably so. But the slight morning breeze predicted that a particularly hot summer was breathing its last.

A group of us meet three times a week at the fountain in the church square. It's been a while since the town has run water through that fountain, in part because of a persistent drought, in part because kids can't seem to resist throwing stuff into it, clogging up the works. But it remains a convenient place to meet. Everybody knows how to find the church. That's important because not everyone who joins our walks lives in the village full time. Owners of vacation homes or folks just casually visiting our village who have learned of our walking group can easily find their way to the church.

Where we walk depends on who is walking. There are folks who like a full-on hike, 10k or more. Up hill and down. Serious exercise. And there are folks, mostly older, sometimes frailer, often wiser, who prefer a brisk hour on level ground and a leisurely coffee at the finish. I generally decide the route because I'm the one who sends out the weekly email with times and places. On this particular Wednesday, I chose the path leading to the donkeys. Some new folks were with us, folks with kids, folks who hadn't yet had their picture taken with the donkeys. It's a thing. Walk through the village and down a hilly path. Turn a corner. And there live a family of donkeys, coming to the fence when they hear us talking. Coming to the fence because they expect the carrots that we always bring. We're evenhanded. Carrots are cut into pieces and each donkey gets a chunk in their turn. We show the kids how to place the carrots in the palms of their hands so that the donkeys can slurp them up. Walkers take pictures to show back home. It's a thing.

We continue down the hill. Past the donkeys and the turnoff to a rugged camp in the woods guarded by gnarly-sounding dogs. We don't explore that turnoff. The well-used path deteriorates. It's still a path, but more an animal trail, twisting around shrubs, climbing up short rocky washouts. We stop to view a cluster of buildings across the Quarante River, just a good-sized creek where I come from, but it's a river here and it bears our village's name. A stone bridge, washed out for decades, used to connect Domaine Peche Laurier to the village. Formerly a wine domaine, the vines have been sold off, a party room and apartments have been added, and the domaine has been converted to a destination wedding venue. An alley of plane trees leads to a statue of Mary beside the Quarante in front of which vows are exchanged. A far cry from the living room of my Uncle Jack, the town's JP who married us in New Jersey.

Eventually, we loop around to the paved road leading back up the hill to town. The sun is full up and the sky has turned that particular shade of blue that I find hard to describe. Just blue. BLUE. You'll know it when you see it. And because it's so clean and clear, we can see the Pyrenees, a tad over a 100km away. When the morning mist clears in late fall or winter or early spring, you can see snow on the mountains from here.

It's a bit of a slog up the hill for us old folks. One foot in front of the other. We reach the outskirts of the village again, mostly newer homes in lotissements, the French term for a set of contiguous building lots - developments. ('Newer' is a relative term. In a village over 1,000 years old, a 1950 build is new.) Dogs warn us that they are on guard, sounding vicious. But they're well fenced and just doing their job. Then it's down hill to the Bar le Quarante, just Bar 40 to us. 

For some folks, the fellowship around the table at the bar is the most important item on the agenda. New owners have taken over Bar 40 recently, two young couples anxious to make a go of it. Johanna generally takes our order, cheerful and working hard on her English because there are a surprising number of English speakers in such a small rural village. (The table may include French, German, Italian, Swedish, Dutch, and/or Colombian walkers in addition to the Brits, Americans, Aussies and Kiwis. English is the common language.) The most popular drink is a café crème, an espresso bulked up with foamed milk. A few regulars prefer an allongé, an espresso with double the water. Tea, Perrier, and even a decaf crème might be ordered. And finally, one beel is tagged onto the order. (A beel is our name for a simple espresso. It's what Bill orders. Every time.)

So, we sit and we chat. Maybe half an hour, maybe more. New walkers introduce themselves. Folks with holiday homes keep us up to date. Someone notices that a house has come on the market. Does anyone know the backstory? Political discussions are allowed, political arguments are not. Casual polling indicates that the average expat leans left politically, but certainly not all of us do. So we keep politics mostly on the down low. 

Eventually, someone puts coins on the table for their share of the tab. Creative accounting ensues. Occasionally, someone announces that they are paying for the table, usually the result of the unwritten rule that the party on vacation who is leaving for home treats the rest of us on their last day. Since that leaves us regulars off the hook, we will sometimes pick up the tab ourselves.

When I get home, there's enough time before lunch to get a few things done. Clean the kitty box. Take out the trash. Do my daily crossword. Work on my blog. 

Then lunch.

Then a nap. 

Then there might really be serious stuff to do. But the important stuff has already been done. A walk among the vines in the south of France for exercise. A coffee in the local café with friends. I'm not certain that I remember exactly what I expected retirement to be, but I doubt that it could have been as good as this.

CHEZ JEANNETTE: ANOTHER QUIRKY RESTAURANT REVIEWED

Some restaurants are easy to describe. This one has a standard white-table-cloth-and-crystal vibe with food and prices to match. That one cares more about appearances than quality and smothers everything in a goopy brown sauce that tastes like it came from a jar. The reader can begin making a judgement about places like those after just a sentence or two.

Some restaurants demand a more nuanced discussion. Enter Chez Jeannette in Aigues-Vives. Not because the food isn't well-sourced and properly prepared. It is. Not because the service isn't cheerful and attentive. It is. But because this ↓ is the way two of our party were served the 20€ menu of the day - family style in the center of the table.

The pork was perfectly roasted, the new potatoes properly cooked, and the ratatouille featured veggies fresh from the garden, not overly cooked, and with crisp onions.

Or how about desserts consisting of homemade preserves over crème fraîche? Have you ever had marmalade made from sweet red peppers or poppy petals?

We were served little bits of quality charcuterie and a few leaves of salad at the start. Having opted for the 26€ menu for the steak, my charcuterie was slightly upscaled and I was served bits of cheese before dessert.

OK. Just a little quirky so far. But you walk into an old house, no signage, and make your way down a hallway that opens onto a room with tables on the right that could be the restaurant dining room but isn't, continue down the hall to a room on the left with a television going behind the counter and walls covered with local posters and news clippings and, well, it's either your kind of place or it isn't. No plastic. Bring cash. Handwritten receipt. And the full rate for two 20€ menus and one 26€ menu, with wine and coffee? 66€ of course. Can’t you add?

We'll return.  

 

AMERICAN FOODS I MISS, FRENCH FOODS I'VE FOUND

 

I can't buy Nathan's Hot Dogs in France, but our butcher puts together a very tasty frankfurter (saucisse francfort). 

Folks say that there are places in France where you can buy a decent bagel. I've tried to find them. I've looked in Paris, in Toulouse, in Narbonne and Beziers. I really have tried. In the end, I've learned to bake my own bagels. They're not perfect, but they are a reasonable substitute.

And that's what you'll have to be prepared for when you move to France. There's stuff that you can find and stuff that you can't find. To be expected. France is all the way across the Pond from the USofA after all. Such differences (inconveniences?) are to be expected. But in most cases there are workarounds. That's assuming, of course, that you are not an expat billionaire willing to pay for the international shipping of a pastrami sandwich from Katz's. We're not. So here are some examples of what we miss and how we've coped.

Yes. Pastrami. As with most other foods, folks will insist that you can buy it here. They know a place. But here in the rural south of France, I stop at every butcher shop and provider of charcuterie. Honest-to-goodness pastrami is simply not to be found. Corned beef? Same. How do you put together a sandwich without pastrami or corned beef? I've given you a hint in a past post. Head to the butcher. Order a few thin slices of jambon blanc - cured cooked ham. Stop by the bakery for a fresh baguette. Slice the baguette lengthwise, smear on a healthy dose of creamy French butter, and layer on a couple of those slices of ham. It's a sandwich called simply jambon-buerre (literally 'ham-butter'). It ain't a classic pastrami sandwich, but it's a classic French sandwich and that's good enough for me.

French beef sucks. Not corn fed or fattened up in a yard. Grass fed. Not at all marbled. Chewy and gamey. I keep ordering pièces du boucher (butcher's cut) in hopes of being served a thick, well-marbled steak. It's a recipe for disappointment. Three workarounds:

1. Forget beef in favor of pork or lamb. In France, both meats taste as they are supposed to taste and the French know how to prepare them. Even if you weren't enamored of their taste back in the States, give the French version a try. Oh, and don't forget duck. I had a seared duck breast with tataki sauce last night that knocked my socks off. You might be surprised.
2. Patronize restaurants or butcher shops that specialize. Since we've arrived, dry-aged Angus beef has become available in many supermarket meat counters and in mid to high-end restaurants, some of which specialize with their own glass-windowed drying racks. You pay a premium, but if you are a true carnivore, you pay the price.
3. Get a delivery from 'Bacon by the Box'. They ship fresh, properly-packed Irish bacon and sausages and, among many other Irish grocery products, about every cut of steak you'd want. And shipping to France is free for a moderately-sized order. There are other such purveyors, but these guys seem to have the best selection and price.

It's a sad state of affairs when microwaving popcorn becomes your preferred method, but popcorn just isn't a French thing. They do sell kernels for popping, but usually not in sealed jars or vacuum-packed containers, meaning that they've been sitting on a shelf for awhile and become stale. I was a fool not to bring my Whirley Pop with me when we moved. (If you don't know what a Whirley Pop is, you are not a true connoisseur.) I do keep some jarred kernels around and occasionally pull out the air popper or shake a batch in our deep cast iron skillet, but I do sincerely miss my jar of Orville and my Whirley Pop. So, on occasion, I fire up the microwave and pretend.  

Barbecue is a noun in our house. Smoked brisket, ribs, and sausage are barbecue. They are not barbecued. They are barbecue. And the nearest barbecue available to us is either a caterer who doesn't have a brick and mortar restaurant or a smokehouse in downtown Montpellier well over an hour away. We did have a smoker of our own for a while. Cathey tried to make it work. But if you're used to the good stuff, a cheap smoker on our terrace just doesn't cut it. There's really no workaround. You buy a top-end smoker, buy the best beef that you can buy, and spend a couple of years learning how to make it work. Or you drive to the nearest smokehouses and hope that you find one that's got it right.

For our first several years here, the pizza available to us can best be described as crackers with toppings - thin, crispy crusts with mild tomato sauce and odd fixings. No pepperoni. No Italian sausage. Not enough cheese. At least they hadn't discovered pineapple. Yet. We've tried making our own pizza and, truth be told, they are better than our village guy. (Don't tell Christophe I said that though. He's a friend and a good guy. And he delivered during the COVID shutdown.) Lately though, two pizza restaurants have opened nearby. Sicilians. Real pizza. Still no pepperoni or Italian sausage. But soft, tasty crusts and interesting toppings. So the workaround? Find Sicilians.

You get the idea. I could get picky on the edges. Dr. Brown's Cream Soda? Never. Monterey Jack? Sometimes. Goldenberg's Peanut Chews? Thankfully, I know the guy who bought the company. But we're living in France, fer chrissakes. One of the great cuisines of the world. Forget the past. Live in the moment. Enjoy.