Return to Paris: A Memoir by Colette Rossant

Author:Colette Rossant [Rossant, Colette]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Autobiography, Biography, Cooking, Food, French, Personal Memoirs, Regional & Ethnic, Travel
ISBN: 9780743439688
Google: TedCmWbMwJcC
Amazon: 0743439686
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Published: 2004-04-19T23:00:00+00:00

In the next few weeks we got several postcards from Jimmy addressed to the family. Nothing special for me. He was having a great time, he wrote, and hoped to see us in September. In early August, we left for Hendaye, a small town not too far from Biarritz where my grandparents spent many vacations in their house before the war. Hendaye had a beautiful beach, and the small hotel where we stayed was more like a pension. The food was great, especially the fish and the seafood. My favorite was a bouillabaisse with sardines—a rich fish broth simmered with fennel and served with sardines and toast covered with a spicy aioli. After a long morning swim, I devoured mounds of deep-fried tiny fish or rich rillettes spread on country bread served with a green salad. But my favorite dish was mussels cooked with ham and lots of garlic. At night we had fish with a red vinegar sauce or fresh tuna with green olives and roast potatoes. I stuffed myself with strawberries and peaches and somewhat forgot for a while Jimmy and my loneliness.

One day, after we had been in Hendaye for two weeks or so, we received a telegram from Jimmy. He had decided to join us in Hendaye for a week. I was in heaven. I went to the station to pick him up. “You are so brown” are the first words Jimmy said to me. “I am glad I came here.” As we drove back to the hotel, Jimmy told me how beautiful Italy had been but he had had enough traveling for a while and wanted to swim and look around. For the next two days, we swam, lunched, swam again, dined, always in the company of my grandmother and brother. I was getting quite desperate. On the fourth day Jimmy announced that he had caught a cold and was staying in bed. I was dispatched to bring him some chicken consommé. I quietly knocked at the door of his room, came in, and found him asleep. I put the soup on the table near his bed and looked at him sleeping. He was so handsome. I bent down and kissed him lightly He grabbed my hand and kissed it. We both laughed. I sat on his bed and we talked. How to get rid of my brother, my grandmother, and be together, we asked each other. I had a brilliant idea: my grandmother was very vain and liked to flirt with men. An elderly gentleman staying at the hotel had befriended her. I said to Jimmy that I would go and talk to him and ask him to help us. I found him in the salon of the hotel and told him how I needed to be alone with Jimmy and how my grandmother never left us alone. He smiled and said he loved young lovers and he would take care of her. For the next few days he took my grandmother away on

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