Artichokes in their herb, lemon and garlic Bain Marie getting ready to bathe and steam and emerge beautiful and ready to enjoy.
Most folks have never had an artichoke prepared properly, at least not if they are American. I only prepare artichokes one way, the way I learned from my father, May his memory be for Blessing. I do not pressure cook them or steam them, these methods to me are the opposite of what I want to do with this incredibly special food. If I want to make something taste good I can never hurry in the kitchen, see my commandment number two, from my Ten Commandments.
I first soak the artichokes in a bowl or bucket of water and rinse them after I have cut around them in a circle to take off the spiky tops. This way the folks eating them are not getting poked by them or eating random dirt hidden at the bottom where the flower is tight. Then I prepare the Bain Marie.
It’s always better to use fresh herbs if you can get them or have them handy. Favorites for me are rosemary sprigs, parsley and tarragon. You can use oregano, thyme or marjoram as well. The artichokes will be infused with the flavor of these herbs, so pick ones whose flavors you enjoy. I put about two inches of water in the bottom of the casserole/dutch oven dish I am going to use for the artichokes. I add white wine or good sherry, and once again, don’t use the cheap stuff, the better the wine or the sherry, the better the flavor. If you don’t have white wine or sherry on hand you can put a dash of Mirin or some white wine vinegar. I rinse a lemon well and cut it in half and squeeze the juice into the water, then I cut the lemon into wedges or slices and add that into the water as well, you may not want to use the whole lemon if you are only doing two artichokes, but if you are doing more than two, go ahead and throw all of that lemon, rind and all in. Then I slice up several fresh garlic cloves and throw those in. Finally, I add some olive oil and often I throw some mustard seeds into this as well along with some ground coriander, good salt and some ground pepper. I let this bath/bain marie get hot, which only takes a few minutes, because it is not a lot of liquid. I place the artichokes in the water and put the lid on, they should have their bottoms covered but not much higher than 1/4 to 1/3 of them should be fully in the water. It is important that you use a pot with a tight-fitting lid and that you choose one big enough so that all your artichokes fit with their bottoms fully in the bain marie.
Bain Marie, getting ready to make some artichokes delicious!
I let the water come to a boil, this steams them and also infuses them with the ingredients in the bain marie. I turn the heat down just enough to keep them steaming, but not too hot so that all the water dissolves too quickly. You can’t have it too low either or they won’t cook. It’s a delicate balance. If you do the heat correctly, you will have a nice amount of herbed water left over to make a sauce with or to use as a stock for a yummy soup.
Doing artichokes this way takes anywhere from forty minutes to an hour, depending on the artichoke. You don’t want them so over done that the bottoms are mush. You have to tend to them and check on them and be careful when you take off the lid, steam burns are no fun. Also, if the water is evaporating too fast and your artichokes are still not done, add more wine and water before it’s all gone. Test the artichokes to see if they are done by grabbing a leaf directly from them in the pot, if the bottom part you are eating comes off pretty easily and isn’t mush, they are done. If the leaf doesn’t come off easily from the whole flower or you can’t get the bottom part off easily, they aren’t done.
Once they are done, if I am serving them immediately, I remove them from the pot and place them on a large plate all together or in individual bowls. I then pour some of the bain marie water with the herbs over them. You can eat them this way with no other flavors, but being French, that never works for me. I make a fresh mayonnaise to go with them or a lemon butter sauce or a vegan lemon, garlic and herb olive oil dip.
Mayonnaise Jacques
Mayonnaise Jacques,selons les directions de Papa (according to my father’s directions):
All ingredients need to be at room temperature for optimal blending. I use my vita-mix now, but you can use an electric hand-held mixer as well. Mayonnaise is tricky and won’t always come out properly, it’s something of an art. If it doesn’t plump up, it still tastes good and is more like a sauce than a thick yummy mayonnaise. Don’t give up trying to get it right. You will one day.
Two eggs
1/2 cup to a cup of good olive oil
a teaspoon of Dijon mustard
juice of one lemon
white wine vinegar
salt and pepper
freshly chopped tarragon or dill
dash of paprika
In a small bowl combine the Dijon, white wine vinegar, salt, pepper and the lemon juice, mix together well.
In the blender or bowl using the mixer, add the eggs and mix on high for at least a minute or more, then add the lemon/Dijon mixture and keep blending for another minute or two. This is the tricky part now. You will slowly, very slowly add the olive oil in tiny drips or a slow very thin steady flow. It can take at least five to ten minutes to do this depending on how much olive oil you are using. The mayonnaise should start to thicken and will be warm from the whipping it is getting. When you’ve added all the oil, remove it from the blender (if you are using a blender) and put it in a bowl, fold in the fresh herbs and the dash of paprika and put it in the fridge so it cools. You need to do this before you make the artichokes. You can use this on sandwiches, on fish, on vegetables or just eat it by the spoonful, because it’s that good.
Always remove the center of the garlic cloves when using garlic.
Vegan Sauce:
In a small saucepan combine juice of one lemon, freshly and finely chopped garlic (one to two cloves), and 1/4 cup or more olive oil. You can also add some fresh herbs to this and some salt or keep the salt out if you are doing less salt. The garlic and fresh herbs with the lemon give a great flavor. Heat this until it is warm and stir, but do not cook on high, you don’t want the garlic to get brown or the olive oil to smoke.
Enjoy these lovelies, they can really be your meal when made correctly. You will need a large bowl for discarding the petals once you’ve eaten the bottom parts. To eat the heart, you have to remove the protective urchin like threads that are inside the heart. This is easy when the artichokes are done right and not too hot, just run your thumb between the heart of the artichoke and the stuff you want to remove. You cannot eat these threads, they are pokey as well and don’t taste good.
Here are the artichokes or artichauts (once cooked with the bain Marie poured over them) in their golden bowl waiting to make someone’s tummy happy. I cooked these in my father’s honor tonight as I remember him on what would have been his 96th birthday. I am so grateful for all the wonderful meals we shared together and the way he taught me to make food taste like something out of a fairy tale!
When I roast a chicken, I always keep the bones and carcass and whatever parts don’t get eaten up in the first day or so. If I don’t have time to make the soup then, I throw the chicken parts and the vegetables I roasted it with in the freezer until I have time. The trick here is to not be in a hurry. If you regularly roast a chicken you will regularly have chicken bones and can make stock. You don’t have to do it the same day or the next day.
Ingredients:Leftover chicken, yams, potatoes, carrots, celery, lemon juice, fresh herbs, salt and pepper to taste, curry powder and cayenne (optional).
Take the bones, and remove as much of the cooked chicken as you can and set aside in a bowl in your fridge. Then using good water, so if you have a filter, use that water, fill your soup pot 3/4 up with water. Put the whole chicken carcass and various bones into the water. It’s okay for their to be some skin and bits of chicken. Let all of this boil for at least an hour, you can turn the heat down once it starts boiling, but you want it hot and cooking for a long time. I usually do two hours.
Then, I strain the liquid and let the chicken carcass and bones cool down. I put the liquid stock back on the stove. At this point I add whatever left over vegetables I have that I roasted with the chicken if there are any. I add a yam or two, a whole onion, carrots, celery, fennel, basically whatever vegetables I have on hand. I let all of this cook for another hour. I put a liberal amount of curry powder in and salt the soup as well. I often add a little cayenne or other spicy peppers depending on who will be eating the soup. I like a little kick, but this is optional. Once all the veggies have gotten soft. I blend this soup with the leftover chicken pieces from before and whatever remaining chicken I claim from the now cooled down bones. Once all of this is blended, it goes back on the stove and I add the juice of at least one lemon if not two, freshly cut herbs if I have them. The best herb for this soup is tarragon and you can use dried tarragon. I add chopped parsley and basil as well. These are the three main herbs I use for this soup. Basil helps with colds and flu, tarragon gives this soup a sweet tang and parsley is everywhere in my cooking.
Vegan Variation:
Ingredients: Roasted Root Veggie stock (see recipe link below), yams, potatoes, carrots, celery, lemon juice, fresh herbs, salt and pepper to taste, curry powder and cayenne (optional).
This soup is delicious without the chicken stock or chicken, but you need to make a roasted root vegetable stock to get the warm flavor, see the Brazilian Sweet Potato Tomato and Carmelized Onion soup recipe for directions on that. Once your stock is strained and ready, just add the vegetables as mentioned above and follow all the same directions. You just won’t be adding any chicken parts. You can also cook some of the veggies in olive oil before adding the strained roasted root veggie stock to give the soup more oomph!
Serve this soup with crackers or bread or just by itself. I always make a big batch and put several small containers in the freezer. Speaking of storing food, it’s important that you know how to do that properly. You should never put hot soup in the fridge or freezer. I put the soup into 1/2 gallon glass mason jars when it is still hot or warm. I fill a big bowl or a plastic tub with cold water and some ice-packs and let the soup cool down in these containers before putting it in the fridge. I don’t freeze any of it until the following day when I take the cold soup from the fridge and then put it into plastic freezer safe containers. I always label with the month and year and list the ingredients as well so the soup can be given to my vegan friends or my chicken eating friends in need.
As with any of my recipes, if you have questions, email me or contact me through this blog. I’m more than happy to help you have a great soup!
Jack Lawrence on the jeep he drove in London during WWII
This memoir is a guest, posthumous, sharing of my father’s wartime memoirs published originally in French and in the journal of the Free French Forces called Le Lien. My father and I, along with my brother Paul Barchilon, worked on translating these memoirs while my father was still alive. The last few pages I had to translate on my own as he had already died.
An (almost) unknown moment in the life of General de Gaulle
By Jacques Barchilon
(Born Casablanca, Morocco April 7, 1923 – Died, Bayside, California, USA, June 19, 2018)
This translation is from two issues of Le Lien and includes two articles, #28 July 2012 and #29 November 2013 that have Papa’s war-time stories originally in French. Nicole and Paul both worked with Papa during the last few months of his life. He translated for us from the French and we typed his words. The first twelve pages of this narrative were done in this way.. After Jacques’ death, Nicole finished this translation, without Papa’s voice as guide and gauge, but his spirit has hopefully come through regardless.
The following narrative is a firsthand account From Jacques Barchilon, who was a young man and soldier during the French Resistance. An 89-year-old man, the author of this article remembers having seen General de Gaulle in Gibraltar, on the 29th of May, 1943 in the following circumstances.
Four days before, on the 25th of May, in the black of night around 10:30 p.m. on the beach in Tangiers, where I was living with my family, in the expectation of an emigration visa to the U.S. I had jumped with two other escapees into a Portuguese fishing boat, secretly bound for Gibraltar. For the past few months I was in contact with the head of the Gaullist network in Tangiers (we can call her now, after so many years, Madame Many). She was the wife of a doctor by the same name. Without understanding it very well, as a young student of twenty years old, I was already a member of the French Resistance. Madame Many then organized the escape towards Gibraltar. It was necessary to leave secretly because Tangiers was at the time under Spanish control (Frankist/Fascist government of General Franco). I mention these circumstances to give an idea of the somewhat poisonous atmosphere of a city supposedly neutral but which was, in reality, sympathizing with Germany and the Vichy regime.
Nevertheless, after a rather dangerous night crossing (with terrible sea-sickness, bad weather, and all lights extinguished), in the morning of the 26th of May the little Portuguese fishing boat we boarded was accosted by a security ship of the British Navy. One of their officers welcomed us, rather warmly, and the weather became magnificent. The harbor of Gibraltar was filled with British war ships, which dominated our miniscule fishing boat. I noticed an enormous aircraft carrier whose name escapes me, (Arc Royale, Prince Royal?). I was happy to find myself in a world at war and glad to have left behind me the school-like routine of the Lycée Français of Tangiers. I was ready to join the Free French Forces.
Once landed I was led into the British barracks where I was immediately transformed into an allied soldier, duly dressed in the traditional British battle dress in khaki wool. This kind of get-up was rather warm in this last week of May. Through the streets filled with English soldiers much more comfortably dressed in tropical shorts, I was led to the top of the city in an office where I met two French policemen, who looked like ordinary French officers. The two gendarmes gave me a form which I was supposed to fill and sign. It was my “promesse d’engagement dans les forces Françaises Libres, a dater du 26 mai 1943.” (promise of commitment to the Free French Forces, as of May 26, 1943) All I had to do now was to wait to embark in the direction of England, where I eventually signed other documents about my volunteer enlistment for the duration of the war plus three months, Army Number of the FFL (Force Française Libres) 55, 742. I was onboard an American transport ship called the Santa Rosa, amongst a large contingent of soldiers, perhaps 3,000 ready for England. That was my case, but on this ship, there was also a future leader of the French resistance called Pierre Lefranc. We were not all soldiers for the Free French Forces, rather a cosmopolitan group of Americans, Poles, and other Europeans. From the deck, I was admiring the beautiful bay of Gibraltar when all of a sudden, while leaning barely on the bannister, I saw a small group of French officers on the gangplank going up on our ship, the tallest of them was General de Gaulle.
I was then, a barely twenty-year-old soldier without great knowledge of historical circumstances of the war; at the time, I had no idea of what the general could be doing in Gibraltar, precisely on that day. Why had he come aboard? Did he want to talk to the soldiers and officers ready to go to England? Many years later, thanks to the reading of the excellent war memoirs of General Pierre Billotte, I learned of the early morning of the 29th of May, 1943. General de Gaulle was flying from London en route for Algeria with the intention to create and direct with general Gireaux the CFLN (Comité Français de Libération Nationale). In his memoir, Billotte wrote:
“the 29th of May in the morning we say goodbye to London. De Gaulle is accompanied by Massigli, Philip, Palewski and myself. We leave for Gibraltar by means of a modest bi-motor. The Germans would have had an idea of our passage over the ocean in Spain, would they have made a mistake of a day. The fact is that an aircraft similar to ours but going in the inverse direction would be shot down. On board, was the admirable English actor, Leslie Howard.” (pp 248 and 253)
In his famous memoirs (Paris: Edition Gallimard-Pleiade, 2000) General de Gaulle does not mention his Gibraltar stop-over. Without knowing the book of Pierre Billotte, one could believe that he arrived in Algeria directly from London. Here is a passage from General de Gaulle: “the 30th of May, noon, an aircraft of the fighting French with Marmier as the pilot, we land at Boufarik, an airport near Algeria” (p.365). Looking at these passages, essentially that of Pierre Billotte, it is clear that the general and his cabinet of four members must have spent the night in Gibraltar. I mention these details because, insignificant as they may be, they matter because they concern historical figures. From Issue: No. 29, Le Lien, November 2013: Souvenirs of daily life in England and London in the Free French Forces, 1943, 1944.
First Weeks: I
The Santa Rosa American Troop transport having left Gibraltar the 30th of May 1943, after a crossing in a convoy, arrived in the great bay of Greenock, near Glasgow Scotland. It was then the 6th or the 7th of June. We landed and immediately boarded a special train ready to take us to London. It was cold. The kind assistance of the English Red Cross warmed us up with our first cup of strong British tea with sugar and milk. We left immediately, arriving late in the evening in London. We were lodged at the “Patriotic School,” a group of large buildings in the south of the capital, in the district of Camberwell. There were luxurious accommodations. In the big meeting room, a placard informed us that “We must be patient. We are welcomed by the General de Gaulle,” but were told that “England is a fortress defending itself at its doors.” The placard is signed by General de Gaulle himself. A few days later, the French singer Germaine Sablon entertains us with patriotic songs. I remember: “Paris is ours, every street, every house and not for the enemy.” In spite of this all, most of us were a little discouraged by so many trials, so many dangers in the resistance and in our escape and then, there we were, still more or less prisoners under control of the British government. We were quizzed and interrogated by different officers of the intelligence service. We didn’t understand all this distrust, but were glad to provide the English Intelligence Service with information on the German army in France or North Africa. Some of us could even pinpoint locations of German airports.
After two weeks at the Patriotic School, we were on leave for two or three days in London and then were transported to the boot camp of Camberley in a suburb of London where we really began our military life in the Free French Forces.
II
The Free French volunteers contributed to the resistance and to the liberation in their work in London and England in 1943, 44. May the reader forgive me for writing in the first person. In the enormous historical background where great actors, great statesmen work for the liberation of Europe, the modest soldier that I was, is making his modest contribution. With a memory better than mine, other veterans have also made more interesting contributions (see attached bibliography).
The Camberley Camp Camberley is a little pleasant town in the county of Surrey. It is about 50 miles, one hour by train from the London station of Waterloo. This is the location of the military academy of Sandhurst, the English equivalent of the American West Point. The majority of British statesmen and generals of Great Britain, including Winston Churchill, are former students of Sandhurst.
The basic location of the Free French was on a large plateau, well above the city. We were under order of colonel Renouard. Our barracks were a vast settlement of Nissen Huts (semi-circular shelters of corrugated metal). General De Gaulle mentions our troops at Camberley in his memoir by saying: “at the camp of Camberley the colonel Renouard introduces me to a battalion of infantry, a small artillery unit, the telecommunication units, etc….Every six months a group of soldiers graduates.” (Paris: Gallimard, Pleiade, Edition 2000, p.242).
The officers and non-coms do their best to form various promotions every six months. Some of my friends had a very distinguished career after graduating from Camberley. My great friend Serge Cany, from Madagascar, graduated as a sergeant, and eventually became a lieutenant. He distinguished himself in the campaign to liberate the south of France. He has a mention in the book Compagnons de la Libération (Jean Christophe Notin, 1061 Compagnons, Paris: Perrin, 2000, p. 741).
Among the officers entrusted to our training, I remember the name of Mantoux. There were two Mantoux brothers, sons of the professor and diplomat who was an interpreter between Clemenceau and Woodrow Wilson after the first World War. Military training is often a painful routine, but there were a few pleasant moments; in particular the 14th of July, 1943. The Free French marched through the streets in front of friendly Londoners, as we are on duty in front of the statue of Maréchal Foch, behind the Victoria railroad station. I am proud that I was a member of this company, of my own volition, at that historic honoring of France, occupied currently, but honoring the liberation of the Bastille on the 14th of July, 1789. This was the last parade of the Free French in London. After the short service, we were free and could stroll in the quiet sunny capital. The summer of 1943 was very pleasantly warm; the afternoons were long. We could relax at the Camberley swimming pool and playing sports was encouraged. We were even allowed to wear civilian clothes outside the camp in order to play tennis. There was a nice library of donated French books.
We were roused daily from sleep by the trumpet blaring the famous and ubiquitous “Reveille.” Every day after Reveille, we have a period of exercise on the parade ground. One of our southern officer’s could never pronounce it right and calls it the “paragroum.” We were barely awake and very high in the blue sky, we saw the white tracers of planes on their way to devastate Germany. We heard the hardly muffled sounds of large American bomber planes, called “flying fortresses.” The camp was comfortable and well warmed with coal. However, the cooking was often very bad. I remember having been sent to the infirmary because the military doctors were afraid of an epidemic of dysentery.
Another form of sickness was depression and lethargy, among us, was common. The time was long and we were impatient to start active training and it weighed on us. The two chaplains (whose names I’ve forgotten) were here to cheer us up once in a while. The more paternal of the two, said, “Boredom is a form of depression.” The other chaplain, whom I talked to surprised me by saying that I received a lot of mail. This seemed suspicious to him. Needless to say he was also censoring all of our mail. The reason why I received a lot of mail is because in Tangiers, neutral territory, where my family was living, there was a little post office which happened to be British. The proximity of Gibraltar made the routing of mail easier. In general, soldiers whose families were in North or South America could also receive a lot of mail, even if all letters were militarily censored. Needless to say, very little mail came from Nazi occupied Europe.
At the end of our basic training we were finally scattered all over the map, duly provided with a military British driving permit, I was assigned to London, which meant, I had to learn to drive on the left.
LIFE IN LONDON January 1st, 1944 is an unforgettable date for me. With three or four other comrades, we emerge from the Waterloo railroad station. It was raining and we made our way slowly through the slippery London streets, on our young shoulders, we balanced the heavy British duffel bag. We arrived at Dolphin Square, Greenville House. S.W.1 in the Victoria Station-Belgravia district. We had to register at the office of the Free French. I was not told then, but through other drivers, I learned that the young female drivers were no longer assigned to work with the French officers, and that they (the French officers) were especially forbidden from going to their rooms to wake them up, for obvious reasons.
Male drivers were a safer choice. We were moving between the garage and the headquarters of General de Gaulle at Carleton Garden. The officer in charge of the chauffeur service surprised us, pleasantly. He told us that in over-populated London there is no room for military barracks for foreign soldiers. This is why we had to be lodged and take rooms among the civilian population. We were given 25 shillings each for renting rooms. This can seem somewhat surprising, like a special favor, but in reality, our lodging endowment did not allow us to be lodged in an apartment. We could only be in a room, there was no great luxury. For the noon meal we had a free Dolphin square canteen. For every other meal we had to make do on our own. We didn’t have much money and looked for cheap meals for students.
London was then an enormous cosmopolitan city bursting with allied soldiers of all kinds: Poles, Belgian, Dutch, etc… These soldiers were going to different paying canteens for their meals, where we can sometimes afford to go as well. The American canteens were only open to Americans. We used to say: “The Americans are over-fed, over-sexed, over-paid and over here.” (added by Nicole and Jacques in 2018).
Two kinds of visions dominate my memory, on one hand the complete black-out; you had to learn to navigate in the dark among unlighted streets bumping into all sorts of people in the dark, not to say anything about prostitutes. On the other hand, the memories of subway stations (underground) where poor families were sleeping directly on the ground, sheltering themselves from constant bombing.
Our work was at once serious and important. At seven in the morning we had to pick up our service cars in the garage of Dolphin Square, on the edge of the river. We were to pick up various officers in their apartments and drive them to Carleton Garden, or elsewhere according to their assignments. In the basement of Carleton Garden there was a waiting room for drivers on duty. After six p.m., we had to return our little service cars to the garage; these were either requisitioned service cars or camouflaged Renaults or Peugeots. When we were on night duty, driving was difficult in the black-out (no headlights to guide us in the black night). I remember in the obscurity of a certain evening, a tall and distinguished looking gentleman in civilian clothes asked me to wait in a parking lot of a building I didn’t know. This was General François Astier. He guided me slowly to a parking spot and asked me to wait. After 45 minutes I saw him on top of a stairway shaking the hand of a man round and smiling dressed in a kind of mechanic’s outfit. It was Winston Churchill. I remember a few other night’s service, two or three officers whispered delicately behind me, they did not specifically give me a destination, they simply told me “turn left, turn right, etc…” I didn’t know where I was, some secret destination. The next day, a comrade driver, more experienced than me, explained it to me. “You have driven an agent, having spent his last night in London, before being parachuted into France.”
After a few weeks we spent more time waiting in Carleton Garden, but also in the district of Mayfair. It was the headquarters of General Koenig. General Koenig was in charge of all secret service in occupied France. In his office there was a room full of advanced radio equipment broadcasting secret messages to French agents.
All the officers who were driving through London showed a certain sympathy towards their chauffeurs (“since when have you been in England, where’s your family, etc..”). It was obvious they were happy about their military assignment and that it was important. I noticed that they had frequent rendezvous to a certain address, well-kept guarded in the American army. They told me, “Go to Kingston.” I soon knew by heart the way to Kingston. It’s only after the war, fifty years later, that I learned the secret of Kingston. It was there that the supreme commander General Eisenhower had located his headquarters, in a quiet suburb, because he prefered the quiet of the suburb.
I was quite aware that these officers were preparing the immanent D-Day landing. They were responsible for the liaison with the resistance in France. Among these officers some were unforgettable, like the American John Hasey. When I asked him “what is this decoration green with black stripes?” he answered proudly: “C’est la Croix de la Liberation” (It is the cross of the liberation of France). Among many others: Bernard Dupérier, the squadron commander, and especially the late Étienne Mantoux (dead in Germany, a few days before the end of the war). He is fondly remembered for his activity during the liberation of Paris. He was the brother of Lieutenant Mantoux of Camberley, also the son of the translator of President Woodrow Wilson, many years before, at the end of World War I.
D-Day soon arrived. The officers went back and forth between Normandy and London. They come back with Camemberts, which they graciously give to the staff still working in London. At first I didn’t know how to eat them, until I was told that the crust was also edible.
Here we are now; this is the pièce de résistance of these memories. My microscopic contribution to the liberation of France. I’m telling things I did not quite understand at the time: simple private that I was then.
During two or three days after D-Day, around the 15th-20th of June, I heard everybody saying, quite frequently: “Monsieur Coulet!, Monsieur Coulet!” without knowing who he was. Here is how I understood without understanding, as I finished my work at Carleton Gardens, the motorcyclist picking me up told me, “Get in the back of me, we have an important mission, urgent!” We arrived at the garage, where they showed me one of our Peugeot light duty trucks in which there was something which I recognize like the twin wheels of a French car. I was told of immediate departure: “you’re going to Portsmouth, deliver this to the Free French navy.” I had no written order.
I left immediately with my shipment. I did not know the way to Portsmouth, but I managed. I asked my way while talking to various policemen, the way was long and slow in the night of the blackout. I arrived at my destination in the black night around three a.m. I was shown where the French navy was. A sailor, hardly awake, takes my shipment and doesn’t give me any receipt. As he unloads what’s in the truck, to do so, he has to remove the back door and doesn’t put it back. I fell asleep, in hunger, in the truck. I woke up around eleven a.m. and then noticed that I had no back door for my truck. I drove to the lost and found, an enormous place. A nice woman in charge said, “Anyone seen a part of a French lorry?” and then I got my back door back. I kept looking for the Free French. I found them under an enormous camouflaged tent, like the top of a forest.
The officer in charge, John F Hasey, recognized me, and said, “Lunch with us.” I would have liked to stay with this small detachment of the Free French. In London, I would probably have been reported as a deserter from my position, with my own countrymen. But, I came back to London and to my position before nightfall. The adjutant Vauxcelles, my superior, berated me, for not having delivered my confirmed regulation receipt. “Where is your return order?” What could I do? I had no orders written of any kind. That was the Free French efficiency.
Many years later (see the bibliographical annex), while reading books telling the history of D-Day. I understand clearly that François Coulet was at Bayeux with general de Gaulle as soon as the fourteenth of June 1944. He was the first French governor of Calvados, appointed by general de Gaulle. I assume that in his function of delegate of the French provisional government, he needed a car, a really French car. Part of that car was what was in the truck in the night delivery. Remember that the Free French soldier Jacques Lawrence had just delivered this French part to be fitted at Bayeux, the first important city liberated in Normandy.
One should read the pages 372-378 of the souvenirs of the Free French called “des hommes libres.” In it, the French diplomat Francois Coulet said: “The general said to me ‘tomorrow, the 14th of June, first visit of the allied bridgehead, I will leave you there as provisional delegate of the French Republic, you will manage.’ But that wasn’t easy, because the allies had not recognized me as a regular French officer.” {Churchill and FDR had created a fiction called AMGOT American Government of Occupied Territory they had not recognized Coulet as a delegate of Eisenhower. They had appointed Americans to all the posts that French men were already chosen for by the Free French} “…I was weighed down by my responsibility, which included an enormous iron truck containing thousands of bank notes of the French. Why? To pay the administration of the French regions to remove the traces of the Vichy government that were everywhere.” {American forces landed in Belgium, they used Belgian money printed in Washington. They tried the same thing with French money, which was why Coulet had real French money in his truck. The Belgians paid their taxes with this false money and all of this contributed to the enormous confusion in Europe.}
One can only imagine the general confusion between AMGOT and the legitimate money under the control of Coulet. One example will suffice. General Montgomery, the son of a high dignitary of the Anglican Church, recognized the authority of Francois Coulet when he is told that Francois Coulet is not a Catholic but a Protestant like him. They were attached to the preparations of D-Day.
Section III
Last weeks in London, V1 Bombs falling and the return to Paris
It was impossible to forget that we were at war every day. In fact, hardly a week after D-Day, on the 13th of June, the first guided bomb, the V1 falls on the capital. We pretended to ignore them by pure stoicism, like all the London citizens. But in reality we were afraid. The bombs arrived over the city with a sinister slowness, at the end of their fuel. We could see them distinctly. On their tail they had the radio control mechanism. The characteristic buzzing of the engine stopped. How could we know where the bomb was going to fall? It fell in an enormous explosion, destroying a whole five-story apartment building. In driving through London, you could take a fatal turn from one street to the other. It was a new blitz. The destruction was visible everywhere. My room on Pembroke Road, near the French Lycee, was one block from the Earl’s Court underground station. On reaching my room on the third floor, I found there was no door, the hinge had been undone by the explosion. You could only enter the room by lifting the door and moving it. In front of the underground you could see that half the streets were an enormous ruin. We were all stoic Londoners.
With a comrade from the French navy we went to see the British ballet, we had free tickets. It was the first time that we saw a ballet, it was Coppelia. In the middle of the show, the V1 bombs started falling. Outside the theater, the air raid warnings were sounding. In the theater, we heard nothing. But in front of the stage, employees brought an enormous poster to warn us of the air raid. Needless to say, nobody got up to go to the air raid shelter.
The month of July passed quickly during this period of bombing. Perhaps as many deaths as in the original blitz of June 1940. We were all asking ourselves the same question : “When do we go to France?” But we were still in England. As long as General Eisenhower was in England, the French mission stayed. There was a lot to do to command the internal resistance by radio. There was a well-organized infrastructure, and orders were communicated by reading poetry on the air. The French poem by Paul Verlaine, Les Sanglots Longs, was read as a coded message:
“Les sanglots longs, Des violons De l’automne Blessent mon cœur, D’une langueur Monotone.” (Long sobs, the violins of autumn injure my heart, a monotonous languor.) Once completed, the poem indicated that D-Day would be tomorrow morning.
* From this point forwards, translation is solely by Nicole Barchilon Frank, minus the help and voice of her father Jacques, who died before we could finish translating.
Finally, Paris is liberated, and everything goes very fast. General Koenig is in Paris. We are at his orders. With the Warrant Officer Vauxcelles and my friend Sargeant Barbeau, here we are all three of us, in service, ready to go to France. We were supposed to drive to Paris, with two service vehicles, on the one hand the caravan-trailer from the campaign, with Warrant Officer Vauxcelles and my friend Sargeant Barbeau, and on the other hand, an American model car that I’m driving. Before leaving we are secretly loaded aboard a cargo ship in a port of the Thames with our vehicles.
The freighter shakes in the night; the next morning we are in front of the coast of Normandy. We land at a slow speed; rolling in on gigantic pontoons of the artificial port the Mullberries, that relays our cargo to the coast. We are finally on French soil, d’Arromanches-les- Bains. This is the still secret site (Gold) of the landing of the English and Canadiens a few weeks before us. After celebrating our arrival by toasting together in a cafe of the Arromanches, we inspected our cars and refueled. I remember checking that the little revolver I was given was in the pocket of my battle-dress.
We drive in the middle of the “Red Ball Road, the one-way road which, night and day, without stopping, carries ammunition, food and gas to the troops of the front already located in the east of Paris. “ [Pierre leFranc, D’une résistance, l’autre, Paris: François Xavier de Goubert, 2005, p. 312]
I clearly remember going through a city in ruins: Caen. Today, tourists can buy post cards with juxtaposed photos of the city from 1944 and modern beautifully rebuilt Caen. We arrive in Paris, just before night, and deposit our vehicles in the garage of the Invalides. My adventure in the Free French Forces in England during the war is finished.
POSTSCRIPT OR CONCLUSION
From the perspective of my 90th year, I “run” back the film of my life. I notice that I started serving France during my years in England and continued doing so in the United States in my university career. Indeed, emigrating in 1947, I obtained my first diploma with a Bachelor’s degree in history, continued with graduate studies at Harvard University, to finish with a Doctorate in Romance Languages and Literatures. These diplomas allowed me to teach French language and literature in several different universities during many years. Since 1991, I am Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado.
This long paragraph above has a certain relationship with the story, as clearly as I can remember it, of my service in the Free French Forces. It is in my activity of professor, in the work of my publications on the history and the classics of French literature: the “Grand Siècle” (dear to de Gaulle) of Racine, Corneille, Molière, Pascal, La Rochefoucauld (including Perrault and other storytellers)- that I learned and appreciated research and scholarship.
One final reflection. I have sometimes been discouraged (what’s the point?) during the writing of these memories. I found a little courage in thinking about the young students invited to our reunions. It is very important for them to know how their elders, their parents lived. How can I not think that I heard Raymond Aubrac (95 years old) declare that “we must visit the schools … that the children know, that we must not forget.”
~Jacques Barchilon*
* Former soldier of the Free French Forces. Engaged at Camp Camberley England, suburb of London, June 23, 1943 under the name of war “Jacques Lawrence” Matriculation number 55472 Last assignment to the reinforcement battalion of the Second Division Blindée, Demobilized October 25, 1945
The link below: “Video of Papa” is my father speaking about his brother Arturo Cohen and Arturo’s friend, the painter Renau,in the years leading up to and beginning of WWII in Spain and France. This story is about saving art and secretly outmaneuvering Facist and Nazi forces.
For everyday life in England and in London, and for a general interest in the resistance, here are several important works, simply in alphabetical order. We must insist on a common observation in all of the following works: the British civil and military people have always been hospitable, amiable and friendly throughout the years of the war.
Pierre Billotte, Le temps des armes, Paris: Published in, 1955. Essential work and cited. This is how Pierre Billotte talks about life in England when he leaves London at the end of chapter III (p.246): …for myself, I will leave a part of my heart there … the welcome the British, of all conditions, have given us will remain unforgettable. “
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. First Edition: 1948
Charles de Gaulle, Mémoires, Paris: Gallimard-Pléiade. Édition 2000. Capital work, essential and quotes
John F. Hasey, Yankee Fighter, the Story of an American in the Free French Foreign Legion, Garden City: New York, 1942, 1944, Garden City Publishing Co. Inc.
Pierre Lefranc, D’une Résistance, l’autre, Paris: François Xavier de Guibert, 2005. The tale of the escapades of life in England is often pleasant, with rather picturesque incidents. Exemplary career in resistance and liberation.
Jean-Christophe Notin, 1061 Compagnons, Paris: Perrin, 2000, Essential and cited work, necessary for the lists and biographies to read about the famous Companions.
Daniel Rondeau et Roger Stéphane, Des hommes libres, Paris: Grasset, 1997. In this essential and quoted work one must have read the pages 372-378, remarkable to understand the importance of the mission of Francois Coulet from the time he arrived at Bayeux on June 14, 1944.
Serge Vaculik, Bêret Rouge, Paris: Artaud, 1952. Same remarks as Pierre Lefranc’s book for the “picturesque”. On the other hand, an important chapter is entirely devoted to Camberley. One must read how the author escapes his execution by the Gestapo thanks to his courage, and an incredible chance.
Solo Shabbat in Eire, Holy Hill Hermitage, Ireland, in my cabin named Clare in the Fall of 2016
Simple Shabbat, the basic structure is a phenomenal series of steps and prayers and practices to elevate the soul and align us with the essence of creation. I am writing this piece because a young woman, who was also on retreat, three years ago at the same hermitage as myself in Ireland, asked me about the order of the prayers. I led a few Shabbat ceremonies, both in my cabin and at the main house, for the other people on retreat. I was mostly alone, but there were moments of connection with the other hermits, clerics, and other folks taking sacred space in solitude.
I remember once being told by a dear friend of mine, Stephen Jenkins, professor Emeritus at Humboldt State University, who was getting ready to teach a three-day session on Judaism in his World Religions class, “Wish me luck, Nicole.” I responded with: “I don’t want to wish you luck, I need to come in and teach this part of your class.” I’m not sure those were my exact words, but this was the beginning of my lecturing in his World Religions Class. I have guest-lectured, during the Judaism portion of his classes, for over fifteen years now.
Some things cannot be put simply and survive the stripping down, especially when we are talking about Shabbat or Judaism in a three-day period of time. The mere idea of three days in a class on campus, to cover the topic, made me a little sick to my stomach. It felt kind of like asking me to describe the magnificence of the sunrise or my love for my children or any other sublime and mysterious, historical and elemental quality of the universe. It’s just not a three day or a one minute text or email kind of thing.
So, thank you Chelsea Smith, for asking me this question about the order of the prayers and why we cover the challah. I’m going to try to be brief, completely contradicting myself from the previous sentences. Of course, me being brief, is an oxymoron in and of itself.
When I lead a service I have a basic structure that I follow, which is not my invention and which has changed over the thousands of years that Jewish folks have been observing the Sabbath. I choose from various prayer books I like or I incorporate elements into my practice from those prayers when I am being a little looser in my observance.
You really begin by preparing for the time and setting the space. I clean my home, cook special foods, make challah (a braided Jewish egg bread). I’ll get my recipe up here one of these days. You then create an altar. When the Beit Ha Midkash/Holy Temples were destroyed, Judaism did not die for many reasons. One of the main reasons is that we took the elements of our sacred service and rites that were observed in the Holy Temple and brought them into our homes and into our dining rooms.
As long as you have light (candles or oil lamps), wine, salt, bread, water, and prayers offered from your heart, you have the elements of the basic service. This means every Jewish home becomes a sacred temple in time and space. No one can say it better than Abraham Joshua Heschel, who wrote a simple short book called The Sabbath. I won’t begin to go where he has, but he describes Shabbat/the Sabbath as both a Sanctuary and as a Palace in Time.
So, we begin by clearing and cleaning as if to welcome a sacred guest. That guest is the Sabbath Queen or the Shechinah or the Seventh Day. She is likened to a bride, she is always referred to in the feminine. We make special foods. For folks with little time or money, even during the Shoah and times of tremendous ugliness and torture, Jewish folks would hide a crust of bread or save one olive so they’d have two on Shabbat instead of one. Folks keep their best cheeses, oils, foods of any kind, for the three meals that occur beginning 18 minutes before the sun sets every Friday evening and ending when there are three stars in the sky the following night, Saturday. It’s roughly twenty-five hours or so, a little longer than one rotation of our spinning planet.
In Ireland, I couldn’t go buy a challah or get bread from Josh Fox, my favorite local baker, here in Arcata. I needed to make it. My little kitchen in my cabin, didn’t have an oven, so I had to make sure I could use the communal kitchen and arrange a time to be taking it over for many hours. I didn’t always do this, for many reasons, but here’s a picture of two small challahs I made for one of my blissful solo Shabbats.
Small challahs, one in a traditional three braid form and one shaped like a Jewish Star of David, there’s also that key element SALT!
These Challahs are uncovered here, but they are traditionally covered with a cloth when we recite all the blessings before eating our Friday evening meal. This was the original question from Chelsea, “Why do you cover the bread again?”
We cover the bread because it is the final blessing we say before beginning our festive meal and we don’t want to hurt its feelings. This tiny piece of spiritual technology teaches us that if we are concerned about the feelings of our bread, so much so that we cover it, so it doesn’t know its the last in a long line of blessings, we better be that concerned about the feelings of all those we encounter. The bread thinks it’s the only blessing or the best blessing or the special blessing, because it somehow hasn’t heard or experienced all the previous ones. This seems a little comical, but it’s essential to Judaism. We physicalise our practices in small and large ways to make it not a mental exercise, but to embody the essence of what we are reaching for.
So, once the bread is made, I prepare the other foods and make my home and body ready to receive my guest. I take a bath or a shower, or I do a Mikveh (ritual immersion in living water, see Mikveh Movement and Me). Then I lay the table. I put the candles or oil wicks I am going to light out, I get the wine ready, open it and let it breathe so it is at its best. I make sure I have my prayer books or other readings I want to use, I pick fresh flowers and set the table more beautifully than I do for the rest of the week. It’s truly a special time.
My Shabbat altar from my window seat in Clare.
Once all is ready, and usually this is minutes before you are required to kindle the lights of Shabbat, if I have time I meditate or center myself and let the week’s events play through my mind and release them. My beloved teacher, May his memory always be a Blessing, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi sometimes used a small cardboard box that he passed around and asked folks to deposit their weeks’ cares, worries, and experiences into. He would then take it and put it outside the room or the house. I sometimes do this with children. It’s a great way to physically demonstrate the practice of letting go.
Then I cover my head with a shawl (creating a sacred space in my body) and light the candles and move my hands over them to bring the light of Shabbat into my whole being, I move my hands over them in a circular motion and bring their essence over my head, eyes and body three times. I then recite the first of many blessings. This blessing is thanking the Divine for instructing us to kindle the lights of the day and to observe the practice of it by resting deeply.
Photo by Temple Beth El’s President Joseph Hale, from one of my Lay-led Shabbat Services
It’s very hard to talk about even one of these blessings in a short way, but that’s my assignment right now. Arrrggghhhh! Each one of these practices have books and teachings about them that deserve attention. Simple structure, okay, after the blessing for the Sabbath light (remember how light was the first thing created in the Universe?), we welcome the Angels of the Most High (the special Shabbat-only angels). These angels only come down to this earthly realm if they are invited and your space is ready for them. Did you set a space for the sacred guest, did you create a place of beauty for Holiness to hover? We welcome them and ask them to bless us with peace and then we let them depart. They have to go everywhere they are invited, so, they can’t linger. Their blessing though is so magnificent that it imbues the rest of the evening. As angels they can and do move through space and time differently than we do.
This is my favorite blessing, and even if I’m not doing more than just the basic layout, I almost never skip this one. I close my eyes and feel their presence and I am uplifted to the realm of the Holy One, for just a second or a moment, but that’s simply sublime!
Detail with Angel, sculpture in glass, given to me by a lovely woman who was at Holy Hill for a few days and who was part of a discussion about angels that miraculously occurred and which connected me with the incredible Irish mystic Lorna Byrne who sees and speaks with the angels.
Next we bless the children. This blessing is not just for folks with children, in my way of doing things, but a moment to name all the children in our lives or that we are thinking about. In a traditional setting the parents place their hands over the heads of their children and recite three blessings. One for boys, one for girls, and one for all of the above. I just generally do the all of the above since there are many folks who aren’t identified as one or the other. The prayer said over everyone is the priestly blessing originally offered by the Kohanim, (of which I am one). I like the male and female blessings as well, so sometimes I do all of them and just ask folks to align on the gender spectrum, however they wish, male, female, somewhere in between, or inclusive of it all.
Next is the blessing over wine. This is the VERY modified order of blessings at the table. There are many, many more, but if you do these blessings you are basically covered. The blessing over the wine isn’t just about giving thanks for the wine or grape juice. It’s the blessing that recounts the order of the Holy One’s creating of the universe and ending with the day of rest. It’s a blessing you do while holding a glass of wine, but it’s about acknowledging, thanking and sanctifying the DAY of rest. It’s longer than the other blessings and it’s beautiful!
Shabbat Table, chez moi in Bayside, wine open and breathing, Challahs covered, salt on the table and right before candle-lighting. Artwork by Thao Le Khac, Joy Dellas, my grandmother Perla Barchilon and some Italian tile maker from a hundred years ago.
After the wine blessing, we do a ritual hand washing with a special two-handled cup. We aren’t cleaning our hands, we are purifying them. It’s a mikveh for our hands. We recite the blessing with our hands raised above our heads after having poured water three times over our right hand and then three times over our left hand and drying them with a clean cloth. The blessing basically says, Blessed are You, Holy One, who has instructed us concerning the raising/lifting/immersing of our hands.
This is crucial. Before we actually eat our meal, we’re almost there (I promise), we raise our hands towards the heavens. I think of this as dipping my hands in holiness and sanctifying them so that they only do good. I want to bring down the honey and love and goodness of the Divine realms and only have my hands be the vessels of that. I never want my hands to be hitting or hurting or tearing or harming others or the earth. No small task, which is why, we need reminding, hence the blessing!
Then we uncover that poor challah, who now is the most rich indeed. We’re hungry and excited, the challah is golden and the light of the sun is gone. We have the glow of the candles and the light reflected off the windows and each other’s eyes and now we give thanks for the miracle of bread. Bread is a miracle. The play of water, salt, yeast, grain and magic that makes it rise is how we too are made. Like the bread, we need to rise. We need time, rest, the right ingredients and balance of earthly elements, sugars and salts and magic to create pockets of air, or lightness so that we are magnificent.
Then we break the bread and dip it in the salt, which represents the promise of the Divine. Salt is a preservative, the original one, way back in the day. It reminds us of the value of commitment, of time moving across millenia, it’s the taste of the moon and stars and the ocean and our sweat and it connects us to our ancestors and life.
Then we eat and share stories and talk for hours. There’s another whole bunch of blessings after the meal….. but I’ll leave those for another day!
My Papa Jacques Barchilon, enjoying his Shabbat dinner, over a year ago. He’s in Heaven now, where the food and the company far exceed anything I can create here. I miss him so!
A very small amount of the hand mushed and textured version of Baba Ganouj/Ganoush. The small cup is a favorite of mine, meant for green tea, but graced with a frog (my favorite creature) and sitting on one of my brother Paul Barchilon’s tiles.
1–5 eggplants (the big round/long ones, not small Japanese ones). The variation in amounts of eggplant is related to how much you want to have on hand for the volume of folks you are serving
tahini 1 tablespoon per eggplant
juice of ¾ to one whole lemon per eggplant
salt (a few shakes or pinches of good salt, not table salt) See my post Let’s Talk Salt.
drizzle of olive oil (approximately ¼ cup for 2 or more eggplants)
1–3 cloves of peeled garlic per eggplant. It is crucial to remove the centers of the garlic cloves for this dish, so your Baba is not bitter.
DISCLAIMER: The following recipe descriptor is considered inappropriate by some. It is R rated and for mature audiences.
This is the easiest eggplant dish there is, and in fact the key is to forget you are making it. Wash your eggplant and fork it, then place it on a baking pan in the broiler or oven. You can do this over a flame or in a cast iron pan on the stove, but I don’t recommend doing it that way. It takes a lot more effort on your part. You have to turn it every few minutes so all the sides get exposed and the eggplant cooks through and through. The oven method is less hard on your fingers, but the flavor will be less smokey. Preheat your oven to 400° or use the lower rack of your broiler. The broiler method is much faster cooking and you have to turn the eggplants at least once, so it’s not the walk away method.
The key here is that once you’ve placed that eggplant in the oven, with some oil spread on the baking sheet or on a piece of tinfoil, walk away, wash your hair, write a few letters, do something else! When you smell the eggplant and wonder what that aroma is, then it is done.
It will be collapsed and mushy. This can take anywhere from 20–40 minutes depending on your eggplant. Using a hot pad or glove remove your eggplant from the broiler or oven. Let it sit for about twenty minutes until you can handle picking it up by its stem. My hands are seasoned from years of cooking, so I do this fairly quickly. You can wait an hour if you want. In a bowl, start to peel your eggplant, with your fingers. It will start to fall apart, that’s fine. If it’s a very seedy eggplant, get rid of as many seeds as you can with your hands. You need to gentle the seeds away from the pulp. The seeds can make this dish bitter. It’s very hard to get all of them without also losing some of your eggplant, so a few seeds is okay, but you want to remove as much of them as you can.
Warm eggplants minus skin, waiting to be gently separated from their seeds.
This is the best part of the dish. Getting intimate with a warm wet eggplant is like interacting with a certain lovely part of the female anatomy. In fact making this dish can be a good prelude to sexual activity. When you’re done enjoying yourself put the eggplant pulp into the blender or if you want to continue your sensual experience, mash it with your fingers or use a fork. It will be wet and juicy.
I often do this step directly over the blender if the eggplants aren’t super seedy since I want the smoked eggplant oils as part of the flavor. Discard the stem, the peels and the extra seeds. Combine all the other ingredients into the blender or your bowl and mix. Add more salt if you need to or more lemon. Serve warm with a garnish of fresh chopped parsley. This can be eaten with crackers, bread, vegetables, or served over rice. It is best at room temperature or warm. It will keep in the fridge for a week or so. Some folks like their Baba more blended with a creamy texture, others like it more thick and wild. Use the blender for the smoother variety and the fork and finger mushing for the chunkier variety. No matter which way you like your eggplants, you will enjoy making this dish!
From my heart, hands and other parts of me, Lots of Love to you as you get into your Baba! See Commandment number 6!
