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The
Flowers
in a quiet nook of the Parc André Citroën.
Heinz
products are now very easy to find in the
Haricots
coco.
Flowers
in the Champ de Mars. |
Monday, July 30 The Tour de
France 2007 is over. I shall miss it, but
I guess it means we’ll have more time for other things. Am I bothered by doping in the sport? Sure, but from what I read in the
newspapers, I gather that the doping was far worse in cycling in the
1990s. At one point in the race this
year, most of the riders staged a brief sit-in to protest doping. In the 1990s, they would have been
protesting all the drug testing. The
newer, younger riders are cleaner, on the whole. I still do not
believe that Lance Armstrong ever doped.
Armstrong is a physiological fluke, a guy whose body just does not
produce the acids that make muscles ache and cramp. He also had the disaster of cancer breaking
down his body, giving him the opportunity to rebuild his bod in just the form
required for bicycle racing. (Before cancer, he had too much upper body mass
from swimming in triathlons.) And
finally, he had the kind of super-determined, ultra-disciplined mentality to
rebuild his body and then to train in such a way that it ruled his entire
life -- an approach to life that the
French would call “déséquilibre.” Many
of the French hated him for this super-organized approach. Others did, and still do, revere him. No wonder the
top French rider was way down at number 27 this year – the lowest point since
1903. Maintaining equilibrium in life
is great for most of us, but if you want to be a legendary athlete, it is not
for you. If you want to be a legendary
athlete, you must become an organized machine, as Armstrong was during his winning
years. About the
Floyd Landis matter, I don’t know what to think except that it does not make
any sense for him to have taken testosterone at that point in the race last
year. It would not have done him any
good; that’s not how that drug works.
It would not have produced the results that happened. And he is behaving as if innocent –
spending unseemly amounts of money on lawyers, trying to clear his name. Tom and I
differ somewhat in our opinions about Michael Rasmussen, the Danish rider who
was caught lying to the media and to his team. Tom says he wasn’t actually caught doping,
so therefore he should have stayed in the race and won the Tour. I say that his lying, especially to his
team, was pretty wretched and that the team was perfectly justified in asking
him to leave. Vinokourov was
such a disappointment. We both really
liked that guy. But I guess he is
guilty of doping, and his career in cycling is over. Too bad.
What a shame. We’re so very
proud of the Discovery Channel Team,
with three team members in the top ten riders of the Tour! And that Alberto Contador in a yellow
jersey is so unbelievably cute. Mattel
should make and sell Contador dolls.
The team director, Johan Bruyneel, must be the best in the sport. He led the team through the Armstrong
years, and he continues to succeed even post-Armstrong, with other great
riders like Hincapie, Leipheimer, and Popovych. Will we
continue to be fans of the Tour de France in the future? You bet.
I will be a fan because of the riders, even though I think I detest
the Amaury corporation that owns & runs the tour as well as these
wretched yellow-journalism newspapers, L’Equipe
and Le Parisien. The riders are great young athletes, and
their sport is beautiful. On to more
basic things like food. You never know
what you’ll find at Ed, our local discount grocery store. A few days ago, we noticed neatly packaged
sets of two hamburgers, marked “Charolais”! This is the best kind of French beef
(although that isn’t saying that much;
American beef is far better than anything you can find in For the
cheese, it is not possible to find cheddar here in the grocery. But Ed had a “Mimolette extra,” which was
pretty darned close, even in color, to a medium or mild cheddar. The tomatoes we
buy here are good; not as good as tomatoes from We’d already
managed to buy Heinz ketchup and mayonnaise at Ed. This would not have been possible in 1998,
when we first started coming to For mustard, I
bought some Kosher Dijon with the brand name of “Yarden,” appropriately
labeled “extra forte” because it is indeed very hot. And very good. The onions we
buy here are fine. But I do miss
Vidalias from So, we had the makings for a couple of great hamburgers. And they were great. They were a bit different from what we’d
get at home, but in some ways, they were better. Lunch break On the same day we found the Charolais beef,
I also bought some giant snap peas called “haricots coco.” I’ve never seen any so big! They are from The salad was
good and very healthy tasting.
Haricots coco are big, crispy, tasty things, but not as sweet as snap
peas. The seeds inside are quite white
(sometimes the French remove the beans, or seeds, and dry them for later
use). I washed and cut them up, mixed
them with some taboule,
cooked chicken breast pieces, chopped tomato (de-seeded, of course), olives
(only 1 euro for a double package of olives from Les Arcs-en-Provençe!),
salt, pepper, and olive oil. |
