Where the Battle of Algiers rages on ...Rick's Cafe Americain

I wrote this last Tuesday but forgot to post it. I have to get better about that.

November 6:

I had a salad for lunch today. This would be unremarkable but for the fact that Carrie and I just returned from our Paris and Madrid where we redid our honeymoon and dramatically improved the experience.

To recap the comparison:

LOW POINTS
Honeymoon 1: I feel asleep at the wheel and drove into a very large tree and we got to see a Tompkins County ER.
Honeymoon 2: Our passports ended up in the laundry and we got to see the U.S. Embassy!

HIGH POINTS
Honeymoon 1: I won $15 in a four person poker tournament with friends from college.
Honeymoon 2: As we looked down at the lights of Paris from Montmartre ... do I really need to finish this sentence?

Anyway, back to the salad. This was my first normal salad in over two weeks because, strangely, they don’t have vegetables in Europe. After our trip to Barcelona two years ago, we didn’t expect to find any in Spain. (It is my current understanding that it is illegal to either grow or import vegetables in that country. Which explains the pat down at the airport.) However, France shocked me. France is the epicenter of cuisine; I figured that green vegetables was part of the repertoire. I figured wrong. Potatoes? Lots. Squash? Sure. But NOBODY simply sautees some spinach or asparagus or broccoli. Even as a side dish.

There was nothing in all of Paris that could reasonably be called a salad by anyone not consulting for McDonald’s. Vegetables are apparently only to be used as garnish. And the only salads we ever saw were meat dishes ... on a bed of lettuce.

On our last night in Paris I thought we had finally stumbled upon something that looked like a salad we would understand: “frisee aux lardons”. I assumed I’d get a plate of frisee (I am the only person who would look forward to such a thing, I assume) with a bit of bacon for flavor. What I received was a plate of lettuce with a pound of diced, thick-cut bacon on top.

I will always regret that it was the one day I forgot to bring the camera.