No European Summer? Here's what to do instead.
A love letter to bike racing, French food, and my VPN.
This year, in the rush of a (relatively) post-COVID travel boom, everyone is going to Europe. My Instagram feed is full of photos of peripheral friends on sailboats in the Mediterranean or sitting on terraces for long dinners under the Spanish stars. My brother is off to Milan this week for a conference and has a trip to see extended family in Portugal next month. I'll consume every bit of social media proof of his travels, trying to taste the Michelin star food through the phone. After all, though it may seem like it, only some are Europe-bound.
European Summer - fleeting and elusive. A lucky privilege of the financially fortunate. Our newspapers publish articles about it, our social media feeds are full of it, and our minds are dreaming of it. Wine tours through Italy, sailing past French beaches, tapas on a terrace in Barcelona, train travel, and walkable cities – Americans want Europe.
You may be one of the lucky few who get to partake in the great summer migration across the pond, or you must make do with other plans and save your pennies for future travel. If it's the latter, my condolences. We have to make do as best we can, even amid jealousy.
In a pinch, European Summer tastes are accessible from home. Watching Call Me By Your Name with an apérol spritz is excellent for an evening, but it's not enough of a fix for me. Only one thing truly transports me abroad when I am otherwise stuck at home: the Tour de France.
Every summer, for three weeks, I get to pretend. I watch 175 cyclists speed through provincial towns, and I imagine I am one in the hordes of fans cheering from behind the barriers. Other entertainment gets put on hold. There is no House of Dragons on HBO for me; I spend my mornings or evenings checking on the tour, waiting for sprinters to sprint and climbers to climb. Time ticks by as I clean my apartment, cook dinner, and work on personal projects, but with the tour in the background, my everyday tasks are tolerable.
While the race occurs mainly in France, there are other reasons it's a perfect European Summer stand-in. Watching it from home creates the same lazy, sprawling relaxation one gets on vacation – when the days are long, and you have nowhere pressing to be. What's a few hours at the beach before a long lunch and an afternoon nap? How about a stroll through the nearest museum while waiting for a sudden summer storm to pass? Or popping into a random pub or cafe only to find old Belgian men drinking beer and watching cycling? Join them! You have nothing better to do! A four-hour bike race provides slow, leisurely entertainment. Tune in, tune out, don't miss the finish.
Admittedly, my interest in the tour is not entirely of my own creation. My brother, a cyclist and a much stronger athlete than I could ever dream of being, brought summer bike racing to our family years ago when he started his athletic pursuits. Though athletes ourselves, we weren't a family of mega sports fans. We didn't gush over the Olympics, buy season tickets to college football games, or tune into FIFA championships. But for those three blissful weeks, the TV was on, running the tour not once but twice (just in case someone was at swim practice or work and missed it). The race was taboo in the house until the second stream finished each day, and discussing the day's losses, crashes, and wins was safe. Over the 21-day event, we got to know the cyclists and found our favorites - Andy Schleck from Luxembourg was my first bike racing hero and will live in my heart forever.
It all culminated in the summer of 2014 when, thanks to a random connection between my college and a small suburb of Paris, I spent a few weeks "researching" in France. I toured around, journaled, and expanded my horizons. Fortunately, my family spent a couple of weeks together abroad when I finished, and the trip aligned with our favorite sport. So, soon after reuniting in Paris, we loaded into a tiny car, drove across northern France, and caught a stage of the tour in person. At the top of a mountain near the Swiss border, in the rain, we waited for hours with hundreds of fans for the cyclists to cross the finish line, of which we had a reasonably good view. It was cold and wet and wonderful. My brother and I got buzzed on glasses of beer accompanied by sausage, bread, and some very stinky French cheese. I cheered with the rest as Andy Schleck heaved over the peak and crossed the finish line.
A part of my bike-race-loving heart is still up on that mountain. Every year, I click into the tour and out of reality. Some years, I feel more connected than others, especially as the race has become increasingly difficult to access. Two years ago, I couldn't find a way to watch it live and gave up after a few days. YouTube recaps tied me over. Last year, I was moving across the country during the first half of the tour, but I caught the end with my dad back home - he and I, enjoying a cold beer and talking about bikes, a small revival of summers past. This year, the time difference between France and Japan makes watching stages live nearly impossible. Most days, I catch the extended highlights of the previous day's stage. On weekends, I allow myself the entire four hours as I laze in pajamas, sipping coffee and crunching on toast. Even alone, tracking points and who is wearing the green, white, yellow, and polka dot jerseys is fun. I text my dad occasionally about particular wins, and I gush to my friends about this absolute masterpiece of a bike race. They smile and nod. I appreciate the effort.
I realize that I've romanticized the tour. It's not just a bike race; it's a cultural experience. In my family, Tour de France summer meant cooking ratatouille (much to my father's dismay), making French raspberry currant jam (much to my mother's dismay), and drinking exclusively affordable French wines all month (to the pleasure of us all). It meant refreshing our minimal knowledge of the French language and learning about the heritage sites dotted around the country, captured by race helicopters as they flew overhead.
It's all pretty French. Sports, though, don't heed national boundaries, do they? And the Tour de France is no exception. Riders from around the globe bring their families and fans to the sidelines, creating valuable opportunities for cultural exchange. Around the dinner table at the chalet my family stayed in when we saw the tour in 2014, the conversations between us, our French hosts, and the Dutch family also there for the race covered nearly every topic under the sun. We ate, laughed, and debated through courses of delicious food. Wine, gratefully, made any language or cultural barriers unimportant as the sun set on the mountaintop, plunging our little valley into darkness.
Get ready; my former athlete is about to show - sports bring people together (yes, even in the great rivalry between Ohio State and the University of Michigan football). When watching a game, a match, a meet, or a race, we let our guards down . We become willing to find a connection with whoever happens to be standing nearby in the living room, the stands, or the random bar in a nameless European town on a Tuesday afternoon. Under the influence of a drink, a competition, and any fried potato snack we can get our hands on, we cross bridges, make friends, and - wait for it - expand our horizons. It doesn't get more European Summer than that.
This July, I am writing from my desk in my Japanese apartment. I don't have access to French food or reasonably priced wine. I haven't found anyone nearby interested in talking about Mark Cavendish's record-breaking 35th stage win or Binjam Girmay becoming the first black African cyclist to win a stage and secure the green jersey (for now). I am not sunning myself on the beaches of the Mediterranean, meandering through street markets, watching the Swiss Alps pass outside a train window, or hiking to the top of a foggy fountain for a bike race. Instead, I am left dreaming of coming European Summers and the finances I'll need to support them. I am left watching my bike race on an iPad screen while I attempt to make stovetop ratatouille. It's not the European summer I've been fortunate enough to taste in the past. It's definitley not Instagramable champagne on a sailboat in Greece. But it'll do.
Dear readers, thanks for clicking on today's post! If you ARE lucky enough to travel anywhere this summer, not just Europe, where are you going? I'd love to live vicariously through you, so the more juicy details, the better! If you aren't going anywhere, the tour will be on until Sunday. I suggest you check it out. French food and wine are optional but highly recommended.
Ending Notes
Listening To: Some sad news - Françoise Hardy passed away. The French singer became popular back in the 60s and has shared the stage with Edith Piaf for most recognizable French vocals ever since. Whenever I am really missing France and the tour isn't on, she is who I listen to. I love her debut album, released in 1962. It feels like summer. Here is a taste to get you started!
Recent Eats: After all these years of making it, my father is finally coming around to ratatouille. Not only is it a cute Pixar movie, but the actual dish is fresh and delicious and uses up all those squash and zucchini that keep magically appearing in your garden. My mom always says she must resort to chucking unwanted squash in open car windows this time of year. I think ratatouille is a kinder alternative. I've tried a few recipes, but here is one in case your garden looks like my mother’s - Food52: Ratatouille from Alice Waters.
Such a wonderful trip to France that was! Amazing that we all didn’t strangle each other. It’s French redcurrant raspberry jam 😊 as the gooseberries and elderflowers are long gone. The Tour is on daily here at home. And there’s a pan of ratatouille on the counter for dinner a la David Lebovitz’ My Paris Kitchen. Thanks for the remembrance of times of the heart, when we all expanded our horizons.
I haven't been to Furansu or even Europe, for that matter, as my destiny was set when the USAF sent me off, totally unprepared and highly impressionable, for two years in Japan and a year in Vietnam. Then in graduate school at FSU, I took a course in ethnomusicology that focused on Asia. So, it's not like I had a chance or anything.
The ratatouille looks good, especially the one you took a pic of. I think my invitation to lunch at your place must have gotten lost in the mail... As a chef (Note that the word is in lower case and used loosely), I have experimented lately by making something slightly similar, though without the tomato paste or sauce (tomato, tomahto - you get the idea). I use an inch of Japanese dashi soup in a frying pan, put in diced and preheated sweet potato (さつまいも）, diced squash (any variety), diced onion, cilantro (みつば in Japan), S & P, and a sprinkling of cheese (mozzarella?) and simmer 'til done. Egg sunnyside up on the top, optional. Ymmm, if I do say so myself.
Keep 'em coming! Nihon wo tanoshinde kudasai!
Not the same as ratatouille, lately