{"id":332,"date":"2014-08-10T21:53:19","date_gmt":"2014-08-10T21:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=332"},"modified":"2014-08-17T21:54:23","modified_gmt":"2014-08-17T21:54:23","slug":"332","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=332","title":{"rendered":"High Noon in the Midi"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"photo-53\"<\/a><\/p>\n

High noon in the south of France is the time, exactly midday, exactly like the rest of the world, when the sun is the highest point in the sky and shadow of an object the shortest.<\/p>\n

Unlike a film where there is a shootout, or the high pitch of a crisis, the cusp of noon – \u00a0midi<\/em> – in France is one of near-perfect balance. The morning speeds up to noon\u00a0 with an almost religious fervor, and then midi arrives\u00a0 – ah, rest, stillness, the center point of the day. \u00a0In the countryside, we feel the verticality of the pole, \u00a0the solidity, the weight of things.\u00a0 That green oak tree, that ochre house, that stone hold its place like nothing else could.\u00a0 Their shadows are practically nonexistent. \u00a0Nothing else could exist at the place at that moment. \u00a0There is the feel of rule or decree to the sud. \u00a0Its silence is the power of a focused energy.<\/p>\n

In the charming city of Perpignan, urban dwellers give midi a slightly different spin.\u00a0 Like many things in France, it revolves around lunch.\u00a0 Before lunch, there is a frenzy in the stores, like the half hour before Shabbat.\u00a0 Lines suddenly materialize at the cash register for which there are never enough workers. \u00a0Women who are late in their food shopping rush in with their baskets, people juggle coins in their palms as they wait in line for their bread.\u00a0 Cars pulling up to a boulangerie,\u00a0 leaving the motor running as they dash for their baguette.<\/p>\n

Then midi – actually 12: 30 – arrives, merchants pull down their metal grates over their store windows and as they stroll over, diners are already cross-legged, comfortable in the little alleyways between the color-washed buildings.\u00a0 The sun is bearing down over there, but they are well centered with their food and quiet chatter.\u00a0 The plate of appetizers arrive, they sip a glass of rose, with a fork take the first bite between conversation.\u00a0 The glow, the rightness spreads as time slows and the pleasure of life savored.<\/p>\n

Try to have lunch at 2pm in Perpignan and you’ll be disappointed.\u00a0 C’est termin\u00e9, madame.\u00a0 Lunch is at midi, midday.\u00a0 C’est comme ca.\u00a0 That’s the way it is.\u00a0 There is a balance to the day, a sense of proportion.\u00a0 The French feel it in their bones, with the same genius of their impeccable instinct for food.\u00a0\u00a0 The archicture of their day and the structure of their food is like balance of the Greeks in their stunning temples. \u00a0The French are the inheritors of the classical sense of proportion.\u00a0 The natural order of things is in the culture, in their bones like a balance between shortest shadow and longest sun ray.\u00a0 They don’t have to articulate or question or explain.<\/p>\n

Bon app\u00e9tit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

High noon in the south of France is the time, exactly midday, exactly like the rest of the world, when the sun is the highest point in the sky and shadow of an object the shortest. Unlike a film where … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s4D5qU-332","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=332"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":345,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions\/345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}