Hot Pot, Can't Stop....a Culinary Experience

Do you know what Chinese Hot Pot is and where you can find it in Paris?

Chinese Hot Pot simmering on tabletop stove

Well, you’re not alone.  I didn't either.  At least, not before I recently went to one of WICE’s social events.     You might not know this, but in addition to classes, WICE also offers a variety of free social events for members. 

Stove tabletops

A couple of weeks ago, I attended the WICE event: Hot Pot - Can’t Stop.   Although I had never heard of Chinese Hot Pot cooking before, with this catchy title, I could not resist giving it a try.  On one of the rare
hot and sunny days in April, seven of us WICE Members met for lunch at a small restaurant called Au Ciel, in the 11th arrondissement.

Chinese Hot Pot (also known as Chinese Fondue) is a soup-like dish in which you cook all of the ingredients yourself, at your own pace while you’re eating.  It’s been around for over 1000 years and can be cooked with various combinations of all kinds of vegetables, seafood, meats, and noodles. 

At the restaurant, the conversation started off easily with the typical ex-pat conversation about where we all came from and why we had chosen to live in France.   Since most of us had never met each other before, it was fascinating to hear each person’s unique path to Paris.  After ordering, the server came to each of us, leaned over, and pressed some hitherto unseen buttons in front of us to turn on our individual cooking surfaces.  As newbies to the Chinese Hot Pot experience, we hadn't realized that our shiny black glass table where we had been casually resting our elbows on was also our stovetop.  

Table overflowing with ingredients  

Next, we each received a large metal pot filled with a savory broth, a plate of green leafy vegetables with uncooked noodles, a plate of sliced meats, and rice.   Once the broth started to boil, we could add our

ingredients as we pleased and cook them to our own liking.  Mid-meal the server came walking by with a humongous metal tea pot, stopping at every table.  Now I’m used to Chinese restaurants serving tea in small, dainty ceramic cups, so I wondered, “Just how thirsty does she think we are?”

Actually, she wasn't serving tea at all.   She was offering refills of the soup base for all our hot pots.  Because you let the pot simmer the entire time that you’re cooking and eating, the broth slowly evaporates.  You need the broth refills to continue cooking until you've had enough to eat. 

By the end of this meal, I was stuffed.  I’m definitely going to go back to try a new combination of ingredients from the extensive menu of Hot Pot choices.   This WICE event successfully delivered its promise of a good meal.  As an added bonus, I discovered a new neighborhood to explore and met some pretty interesting people.    How cool is that, for only 9€80 (the price of the lunch menu)!

Next time you’re looking for something different to do, try one of WICE’s free social events.

Post and  photos by Veronica Kugler

WICE 2013 Summer Writing Course - Zoë Brân's thoughts on Non-Fiction

Zoë Brân 

These days it's easier than ever to write and be read by a wide readership, even a global readership. Writing for a publisher who will pay you is however becoming a more difficult prospect, certainly more difficult than it was nearly 20 years ago when I wrote my first non-fiction book. This is not to say that there's no money in writing, on the contrary, online writing is fast becoming an excellent source of income. So, it's important for writers whether aspiring or established to be aware that we are now at a turning point in the history of publishing when the ways the past - author, agent, publisher - are currently being superseded by the Internet and online publishing. This is an exciting development and one that we should welcome as it offers a previously unknown level of artistic licence and author freedom.

What I encourage all my students to do, in any discipline of writing, is to consider what they want to write and why they want to write it. One of the best ways to ensure publication, in any form, is to be absolutely clear about your commitment to a chosen genre and certain that it is the best way to express what it is you want to say to the world. Non-fiction offers a wide variety of possible genres from autobiography and biography to travel literature or blogging about food or make up. Which of these many possibilities is right for you? Finding the best use and direction for your skills and talents is one of the things I particularly enjoy working on with students.

Perhaps you are already well advanced with your writing? How is it possible to improve it? Non-fiction walks a line between storytelling and fact and one of the key elements of almost all writing, regardless of genre, is the weaving of research into a harmonious whole. As a former Writer in Residence at The University of the Arts here in London I worked with students across many topics, including journalism, fashion and business, helping them manage their research and edit their work. The second key element, common to all genres, is of course, editing. How do you go about your research and editing? Is it possible to make them easier and simpler?

Ultimately, any success in terms of readership, income or both, depends upon the happy conjunction between what it is you want to write and what is the world wants to read. Awareness of the market, trends and the links between online and hardcopy are essential for any aspiring writer. Online social networking platforms are increasingly important to many non-fiction publishers seeking to maximise their marketing and sales advantage and these are things that any writer is able to develop for themselves.

We are all limited by our expectations and perceptions of the world around us and these limitations naturally feed into our creativity and our writing life. Over the years I have used simple techniques to open up students’ creative thinking processes thereby allowing fresh perspectives and new directions to emerge. Changing the way we see writing itself (I dictate all my writing, including this blog post), the world of publishing and our possible readership, can help us to find our voice as a writer and the best place to express that voice.

© Zoë Brân 2013

-Zoë Brân's The Art of Non-Fiction course will be offered at:

What:  WICE's 2013 Summer Writing Course

When:  June 24, 2013 to June 28, 2013

Where:  The American University of Paris

***Enrollment is limited.  Reserve your spot now at The Art of Non-Fiction (PWU242).

For more information about Zoë Brân visit www.zoebran.com

Visit Paris in English, with Family Twist

Now that you’re staying in Paris, do you find that everyone wants to visit you or get your expert advice on things to do and where to stay in this beautiful city? 

Are you clueless about which activities to suggest for kids who don’t speak any French?

  

Starting the keepsake book.
photo by Veronica Kugler

Creativity with the art instructor.
photo by Veronica Kugler

Don’t worry!  Now there’s help from Family Twist which specialize in planning vacations and activities in Paris, for English speaking families.   With the focus on children, Family Twist offers fun and exciting activities so that the entire family can enjoy and make the most of their time in Paris.

We all know that even the standard tourist attractions can be problematic for families with young children.  Take a visit to the Louvre for example: 

With long lines, a language barrier, and works of art filled with religious and mythological symbolism, the Louvre can be daunting for even the most enthusiastic families with small children.   

Admiring her brother's work.
photo by Magali Déchelette

For a more enjoyable experience, Family Twist organizes an expert-guided private tour in English that covers many key works of art, presented in the context of a kid-engaging treasure hunt. 

After visiting the museum, the family has the option to participate in a workshop where a professional art instructor takes them further in the Louvre experience.  At the art studio the kids (and parents, if desired) get a hands-on experience creating their own masterpieces. 

At this specific workshop, the family was given a blank accordion book, paints, pens, photocopies of the works of art that they had just seen, and instructions to use their imagination to create their own designs.  The challenge of the project was to visually connect each picture in order to create one long design.  

After working together on their drawings, the family really had a fun and creative bonding experience that was connected to the famous works of art.  Moreover, the completed accordion book became the family’s keepsake souvenir of the workshop.  What better way to remember the Louvre!

Team work.
photo by Magali Déchelette

Artist deep in thought.
photo by Magali Déchelette

The Louvre tour and workshop is just one example of the many services that Family Twist provides.   From à la carte activities, such as neighborhood walks, cooking classes, and science workshops to complete vacation planning with accommodations, transportation, activities, express ticketing, restaurant reservations, and babysitting, Family Twist can provide the level of service that is unique to each family’s vacation needs. Furthermore with the à la carte option, Family Twist can be useful to those families already living in Paris. 

***Want to take a family trip to the Loire Valley?  With their Loire Valley services, Family Twist can take care of you there, too!

Ta da!  All done!
photo by Veronica Kugler

For more information, visit www.familytwist.co.uk.  

Post by Veronica Kugler

Springtime in the Luxembourg Gardens?

Will Winter Ever End?
Photograph © Margot Hanley

The Intrepid WICE Photography Explorers

It was officially spring by the calendar, but the branches were bare, the air cold, and the clothes layered.

Jardin du Luxembourg
Photograph © Lorena Coletta

The WICE photography exploring class was studying the style of Robert Doisneau, one of the great Paris humanist street photographers. Dosineau paid homage to the ordinary gestures of ordinary people in ordinary situations—"seconds snatched from eternity."

Le Select Café
Photograph © Pamela Fickes-Miller

And so, we went in search of the ordinary—scenes that moved us, places that made us stop and reflect, and people who made us look twice . . . ordinary Parisian characters who are, in fact, far from ordinary when you take the time to get to know them.

Who Needs Spring When You Have Crêpes?
Photograph © Mark Sebastiani

From the joyful galette maker in her highly decorated trailer to the solo picnicker in mid-bite, we covered the area with the eye of a hunter.

An "Urnest" View of the Garden
Photograph © Sheila Clementson

Here is just a taste of our "seconds snatched from eternity."

Photograph © Bob Levy

Post by WICE Photography Instructor Meredith Mullins; Photographs by the intrepid exploring class.

A Victorious Chess Player
Photograph © Meredith Mullins

Flying Bras for a Worthy Cause

News Flash:  Last Sunday at the Esplanade du Trocadero in Paris, a crowd of women performed a striptease act, with a grande finale of bras thrown into the air!

  

Pink Bra Spring - March 24, 2013

Pinkbrabazaar.org

What is this madness about, you wonder?  Surely arrests must have been made; these in addition to the anti-gay marriage arrests taking place further down the road. 

No, these burlesque dancers braving the cold in their sexy outfits, were all part of Pink Bra Bazaar's annual event, Pink Bra Spring, to promote breast health education.   This striptease not only entertained, but it was also instructional for the audience.   An important aspect of the dance was how it incorporated the movements for performing your own self-breast exam.  

Julia Palombe at the rehearsal

The show opened with several popular songs sung by the Mélodie du Bonheur choir. From the middle of the choir, out sprang Julia Palombe, burlesque diva, and the dancers - fishnets, feather boas and all.   Then at the end of their dance, scores of other women (and a few men and children!) joined in with them to throw their bras into the air.   Shutters clicked non-stop to capture the bras mid-flight, since this was the moment that the press and all of the photographers had been waiting for.    

[Note: to keep this event lighthearted and family-friendly, only the bras worn on top of people's clothes were removed.] 

 

Burlesque dancers getting ready for the grande finale.

Pink Bra Bazaar was founded by WICE's very own Kate Kemp-Griffin (Creative Writing Program Director). Here in the ex-pat community, it's easy to meet people who have decided to follow their dreams and pursue their passion in Paris.  But what's rare to find is when that passion selflessly focuses on helping other people.   Kate created Pink Bra Bazaar to serve the dual purpose of:

• Preventative breast health awareness
• Support for women who are diagnosed with breast cancer

Dancers demonstrating how to perform a self-breast exam

In today's culture, the main focus is on the appearance of breasts.  As women, we spend lots of time thinking about how our breasts look.  As a result, inordinate amounts of time and money are spent on making our breasts look more beautiful with lingerie, pseudo medical products, and cosmetic surgery. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about keeping our breasts healthy.  For too many women, self-breast exams and mammograms are just an afterthought, if thought of at all.  

Through Pink Bra Bazaar, Kate aims to bridge the gap between having beautiful breasts adorned with lovely lingerie and having healthy breasts.  By working with the Lingerie industry to spread awareness, Kate wants to make self-breast exams and mammograms become commonplace topics, and more importantly, routine practices for women of all ages, young and old.   

A young supporter at the event

To support women diagnosed with breast cancer, one of Pink Bra Bazaar's current efforts is to raise money to buy iPads for women to use during their chemotherapy treatments at Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière.    The iPads will be preloaded with several applications providing resources and links to current events, fashion, beauty, travel, art and humor.   The goal of this program is to help women mentally escape the burden of their treatments.

Kate Kemp-Griffin
Founder of Pink Bra Bazaar

Congratulations Kate for putting together such a unique and fun event for getting people talking about and spreading this important information to everyone! 

Please support Kate's efforts by learning more and donating to Pink Bra Bazaar at pinkbrabazaar.org.

***This post is dedicated to the memory of Vanessa Kugler who left behind a wonderful husband and three amazing and beautiful daughters.  May we find a cure so that other families do not have to endure the inconsolable grief that breast cancer causes.

Post by Veronica Kugler

Photos by Kayla Kugler (8 years old!)

Time to get off your A!

Luxembourg Garden

A as in the Automatic setting on your digital camera, of course.

So you’ve got this great SLR camera with 36 million pixels and just as many functions, but you don’t have a clue how to use them.  Surrounded by all of the amazing sights in Paris, you're frustrated that your photos don't seem to do justice to the beauty that you saw with your eyes.

To unlock the mystery of your camera, take Meredith Mullins' photography classes at WICE.  Here you will learn that 'capturing the moment' is a delicate balance of artistry and technical skill. 

   

Meredith Mullins

“Everybody can take photos.  But not everybody takes the time to compose, connect, and think about why they are clicking the shutter.  That's what makes a great photograph; when you’re actually creating it. "   

As a young girl, Meredith's love for photography was born when her parents first gave her a camera.   Over the years this passion for photography led to her becoming a fine art photographer and teaching at Monterey Community College and Hartnell College, in California.   For Meredith, the ultimate goal of an artist is to evoke an emotional response in the viewer.  Her photographs should create a connection that makes someone think about or feel something.  

Here in Paris, many people take Meredith's classes to gain greater creative control and a stronger voice in their photographs.  The key things that she focuses on in the introductory classes are:

·         Connection:  Deciding what interests you about a scene and then capturing that emotion.

·         Lighting: Understanding how your camera reads light and identifying what the quality, direction, and quantity of light is doing to the subject.  

·         Shutter Speed:  Determining whether to freeze or blur action.  (Personally, Meredith likes the idea of seeing time pass in a photograph, so she's a blur action kind of person.)

·         Aperture:  How much of the scene is in focus.  

According to Meredith, when you have the perfect lighting or see a great story unfolding, if you have to think about too many things, then you're going to lose the moment.  By teaching the camera functions in small topics, little by little it all becomes instinctive.   Once the mechanics of photography become second nature, you are then free to have clear artistic expression. 

By changing her classes and keeping them new and interesting each year, Meredith has built a loyal following of students.    In her Exploring classes, Meredith discusses the technical or artistic focus of the day and then takes her students out to unique parts of Paris, to explore and make photos.  In this supportive and friendly environment, students can comfortably get feedback on their work. 

With each class, Meredith is always pleasantly reminded that each student brings their own unique artistic view.  Although they were all walking in the same streets together at the same time, each person's photos always turn out vastly different from the other's.

In the Creative Path class, she focuses more on the creativity of photography and finding and honing one's voice.  As a final product, the students in this class have made calendars, books, or art gallery exhibits of their work.  For Meredith, seeing how her students have progressed to the point where any one of their photographs would be applauded by the outside world is her reward and motivation for teaching.  

As for her own style, Meredith considers herself a street photographer.  She loves to wander about town, observe, and see things that are not ordinarily seen by other people.  She likes to capture life unfolding in a real way.  One of the highlights of her photography experiences was an early morning walk making photos of the pristine, untouched snowfall in her Parisian neighborhood.  Transformed by the flowing snow and the golden glow of the street lights, the normally mundane inanimate objects created a magical connection where she was able to capture some of the best photographs of her career.

In addition to teaching at WICE and also being on its Board of Directors, Meredith does exhibitions of her own work every couple of years.  She's also the Co-Founder and Director of the International Fine Art Photography Award which had 4,000 entries from 72 countries, and was viewed by 8,000 people at its exhibit last November.  As if that wasn't enough to keep her busy, Meredith's also a blogger for ‘Oh, I see!’.

*****

Montmartre Soccer

- Do you need to have an expensive camera to take her classes?  No.  Meredith believes that once you've learned the technical basics and how to make a connection with your heart and eyes, then you can make beautiful photographs with any kind of camera.  

- Become friends with your camera now and start making your own photography magic!  Check out and enroll in WICE's upcoming photography classes.

***** 

Meredith Mullins

- From April 24th to May 1st, Meredith will be exhibiting some of her photographs along with the work of some of her former WICE students at the Studio Galerie B&B, near the Canal St. Martin.  

- To see more of Meredith’s photographs, visit www.meredithmullins.artspan.com.

Post by Veronica Kugler

Photos by Meredith Mullins

Stephen Clarke: A Self-Publishing Success Story

Meet Stephen Clarke – self-publishing star and writer extraordinaire of the hilarious and wildly successful Merde series.   With 10 books to his credit and another one on the way, Stephen Clarke is one of the most popular Anglophone writers in Paris today.   

Stephen Clarke signing his book
Talk To The Snail

The book that started it all - A Year In The Merde - is the tale of British expat, Paul West, living the fish-out-of-water experience in Paris.  Through Paul West’s adventures and more often misadventures, this book sheds a humorous light on all the peculiarities of French life- from an Anglo perspective, without being malicious.   Paul West is the star of five of Stephen Clarke’s novels, while the other books range from the funny side of historical non-fiction to the not-so-futuristic science fiction.  

How did all of this great Merde success begin? 

Once he had finished A Year In The Merde, Stephen knew that he had written something special, in spite of all the rejection letters.   Instead of crawling away and disappearing as the publishing industry was suggesting, the conviction that everybody was wrong and he was right led Stephen to self-publishing. 

But Stephen didn’t want to go about self-publishing as if it were a vanity case of him wanting to see his book in print. Instead he treated it as a professional get-your-foot-in-the-door attempt.  Lots of time, energy and money was spent creating a high quality published book, from the professional looking cover all the way down to the ISBN #.   

Furthermore, to thwart any self-publishing sniffer-outers, he cleverly created his own fictitious publishing house, so that his book could have a ‘professional’ looking home. But yet, a professional publishing house cannot exist on just one book alone, so Stephen created pseudonyms for his other two ‘homeless’ books that he had previously written and voila – Red Garage Books was born.  3 books and 3 authors (2 of which were non-existent).    

Stephen Clarke's books
Including  the original pseudonym covers

With a great looking cover, a fabulous story inside and publishing house peers, A Year In The Merde was ready to hit the pavement in search of Parisian Anglophone bookstores.   2.5 million copies of all of his books sold and translations in over a dozen languages have proved that Stephen’s singular vision of his book was right!  

How have the French responded to his books? 

Even though his books good-naturedly poke fun at the French, the French readers were initially the catalyst for making A Year In The Merde such a great success.   Now his books are stocked in all bookstores in Paris –both French and English.   Additionally, the most recent sign of French adoration of his work was  having his non-fiction history book 1000 Years of Annoying the French be short-listed for the Prix Guesclin in December 2012 at the Salon de l’histoire “en littérature”.

WICE members have had the pleasure of hearing Stephen talk about his books last year at the Paris Writers’ Workshop and at Kate Kemp-Griffin’s Write-In course.  Once you talk to Stephen, you understand why his books are so successful.  The understated humor that makes his books so engaging to read seems to be how his brain is hardwired.   There’s never a boring conversation to be had with him, and you’ll always find yourself laughing at his witty comments. 

****

Be sure to check out the details of the upcoming WICE events and courses so that you don’t miss out on any fantastic opportunities to meet interesting people like this!

For more information about Stephen Clarke and to read his books, visit stephenclarkewriter.com.  

Post by Veronica Kugler

Photos by Kate Kemp-Griffin