The Year in Revoise

I hate these lists that every news agency known to mankind makes at the end of the year . . . “A Year In Pictures” blah blah blah . . . so I hate myself even more for making one. But I guess as the proprietor of a website about food (or would it better be called “so-called proprietor”?) I suppose I have to comment in some fashion.

You just knew I had to, din’t ya, ya cynical bastards? So here it goes.

France. France was major, but on many levels it was majorly minor. They are the gods’ crème, swimming upstream, in their minds. But truth be told, I had some of my most mediocre food experiences in France. McDonald’s is still McDonald’s. Domino’s is still Domino’s.

The few places I actually went to were remarkable for their sheer mediocrity; the service, meanwhile, was remarkable for its general laxness. I have not been as insulted as I’ve been in France, and I SPEAK VERY GOOD FRENCH! Even French people probably couldn’t have told, with a few words from my mouth, that I was not French.

But need we go down the list?

That brasserie near the Musée D’Orsay, when I was delayed sitting down and my companion was already there (I was busy trying to avoid getting hit by a car) and the “waitron” asks me, BEFORE I EVEN FUCKING TAKE OFF MY COAT AND SIT DOWN, what I want to eat. I swear, I was standing there, flustered, trying to come to terms with almost dying and almost eating, and she fucking wants to take my order!

But the moment she realised I wasn’t French she got even more surly, pardon my French, the cunt.

Fuck that noise. FUCK THAT NOISE.

That place next to the Place de Bastille. I’d just gotten off the fucking plane and had taxied in and needed to find a phone number, which happened to exist only on my laptop. I was confused and anxious, but the only place to open the laptop was some café table. There were exactly ZERO customers. Middle of the day, rainy. But someone hurried over as quick as fucking mercury and said “Can I help you with something? Oh, you don’t need anything, then, I’m sorry, m’sieu . . . you can’t sit down here.”

Yes, you can help me with something. Go fuck yourself.

That nightmare dinner when I asked where the bathroom was and they told me “There’s always the sidewalk.”

I KID YOU NOT. Giggles all around.

Well, here’s what I have to say to France, and listen to me clearly: FUCK YOU. You made my stay in your country miserable, because your country is just crawling to stay afloat in its miserability. Every fucking time I came to your country you did your best to make sure I never came back, with your rudeness, your sense of self-entitlement . . . your pathetic egotism . . . yeah, well, guess what. I ain’t coming back, ya fucking Frogs. I may be American but at least I wake up every morning with the realisation that I’m American. You fuckers have to wake up knowing you’re FRENCH. I just can’t wrap my mind around that, that would be pure misery to wake up knowing I was French.

So . . . that was France. Hey, see, I’m just getting warmed up here! (Yeah, I know, “But how do you really feel?”)
Then there was being lacto-ovo-pesco-nonwheatanism . . . possibly the best experience of my life. It was incredible to not even eat an ounce of meat of any kind except fish, to not eat pasta, to really have to search on a restaurant menu for any alternative . . . frankly, now that I now eat anything again, I miss that time. I guess it’s like being Kosher . . . you’re heavily restricted but you get used to it, even begin to like it, prefer it.

So that was a mind-bender. But now I’ve graduated, somehow, with both experiences . . . I swear I will never be the same again after this year.

It was the best of times . . . and . . .