Cauliflower

There's cauliflower all over Grenoble. The market has an entire display case of the blooming stuff. It looks beautiful, in that Body Snatchers sort of way.

One week ago, our neighbor Rita had a dinner party for Canadian Thanksgiving. I couldn't find corn on the cob, so I steamed a head of cauliflower and a bag of carrots. I don't like cauliflower. It was a good dish to bring as there would be no threat of me eating half of it. Someone suggested that cauliflower could be mashed, like potatoes, and served with gravy. 'Try passing that idea in Idaho,' I thought.

It reminded me of the apocryphal story my family tells of an uncle who, as a child, was disgusted by the dinners served in his older sister's home. "Send for the first plane to Florida!" he wrote to his parents, "I hate it here! They make me eat my potatoes."

Last night I was at a party thrown by friends Lionel and Vincent. I stood near the window chatting away in broken Franglais to whichever unlucky souls would wander too close. On the opposite side of the room I caught a glimpse of an overflowing bowl of popcorn. Popcorn is hard to come by in France, and expensive when discovered. I couldn't take my eyes off it.

"Oui, je suis en France depuis l'année dernière," I stuttered to a woman who worked for a replacement hip and shoulder manufacturer, looking past her own shoulder (probably not a replacement), wondering if the popcorn was salted and buttered. "If you like, we can speak in English," she said.

I watched another guest pick up a kernel of corn and dip it in a bowl of sauce before popping it into his mouth. Lucky bastard. "If we speak in French it will help me, but yes it will be a simpleton's conversation," I said to her. "A simpletons?" she asked. I wondered if the popcorn was microwaved or airpopped or made on the stove. Maybe it was JiffyPop! Maybe Lionel and Vincent were in the kitchen cooking up more aluminum packaged popcorn right now.

"Mon francais est un petit mal. Maintenant dans mon cours j'etude le subjunctif. Je deteste le subjunctif." She agreed with me that it is difficult. "It's not very common to use the subjunctif," she assured me. We were joined by Benoit, who is married to a woman from Kansas and he speaks Midwestern. "Of course we use the subjunctif," he said, "more so in written French than in spoken."

There was an empty spot on the floor near the bowl of popcorn. "Excuse me one moment, will you?" I said, pivoting to keep the popcorn in sight. "I'm going to refresh my ..." I looked at my full glass of wine ... "enjoyment of French pop music."

I maneuvered across the room, moving through the smokey haze of every enclosed space in France. The bowl, that holy grail, moved into range. I plunged my eager hand into the clammy cool chill of a bowl of cauliflower.