On April 6th, the Sarah Lawrence College Paris program took the students to Dijon for a gastronomic and historic visit of the city. Here are all our students beneath the city's arc de triomphe: 
Despite being at the center of the Bourgogne wine region, Dijon is known first and foremost for its mustard. As early as the 13th century the city was recognized for its mustard sauce made using either white wine or the sour green grape juice, or "verjus" pressed from grapes not yet ripe enough for wine-making rather than using vinegar, as was common in other regions.Although Dijon is still recognized by most people as the mustard capital of the world, Dijon mustard is not a product covered by a Protected Designation Origin (PDO) by the European Union. The word "Dijon" therefore refers to the style of mustard sauce, though today verjus has been largely replaced with white wine. As a result, while there are major mustard plants surrounding Dijon most "Dijon" mustard is manufactured elsewhere, most prominently in the United States under the Grey Poupon brand. Furthermore, the mustard sold in Dijon itself is made not from French mustard seeds as one might guess, but from seeds imported from Canada. Over the past 40 years, mustard cultivation has slowly replaced with colza, or rapeseed, grown for vegetable oil. This is largely due to the fact that mustard is no longer subsidized by the French government, while colza still is. The two plants come from the same family and their yellow flowers look very similar. The bright yellow colza fields surrounding Dijon are often mistaken for mustard.
Ask any French person about Grey Poupon and they will give you a puzzled look. This is because it is not a brand that is now sold in France. The company Grey Poupon started in Dijon in 1777 when Maurice Grey met his associate, Auguste Poupon, a partner in what had theretofore been the Maison de Grey. In 1946 the Heublein Company bought the American rights from the original company. In 1970, the directors of Grey Poupon and of another Dijon mustard firm, André Ricard, having earlier bought the popular Maille-label, formed a conglomerate called S.E.G.M.A. Maille. Soon afterwards, the new company decided to phase out the Grey Poupon label in France and today Maïlle is the only well-known brand of dijon mustard.
Enough about mustard. Dijon has much more to offer. It's a beautiful city, having always been well-to-do thanks to a rich trade business and the Dukes of Bourgogne. We took our students to the Brasserie de l'Hôtel de Ville where they got to participate in a cooking demonstration of the making of gougères, puffy cheese balls made using the same "pâte à choux" pastry as for éclairs, profitéroles, réligieuses, and other cream-filled pastries. Gougères are a specialty of Dijon, which is also a region of numerous cheeses, so this was appropriate.
While tasting the gougères they helped make, our students were served kir, or white wine with black-current liqueur, another specialty of the region.
One lovely Sunday a few weeks ago the sun came out and all of Paris rejoiced. We knew it was coming; after weeks of rain and cold, television and newspapers happily informed everyone that Sunday would be warm. Since I rarely pay attention to the "metéo", I usually get my weather updates from the cleaning ladies at work, who helpfully warn me when to bring my umbrella or an extra sweater. I therefore knew that Sunday would be nice, but I don't think anyone was quite prepared for how nice it would turn out to be.
My friend Béatrice happened to be visiting from Brittany that weekend, and as you can see from her photos of our walk in the Sacré Coeur area Saturday was cool and overcast. By the next morning, however, the air was so warm that I donned my summer sleeveless dress and we walked, squinting and sweating, to a park in a southern Paris suburb to picnic and play music with friends. The park was so full that it took some time to find an empty plot of grass but once settled in we ate and played for hours while Béatrice convinced innocent bystanders to dance with her. Parents brought their little kids to listen. They were so interested that we let them try our instruments. Pretty soon, Guillaume had given out his four penny whistles and Leo and I each had future violinists scratching away in our laps. At one point, the 4-year-old boy I was working with suddenly took the bow from me and told me to go dance!
In the evening we took a break to take Béatrice to the train station. I then noticed that I my head hurt and realized that I'd been playing in the same position for so long that I had a sunburn all down one side. Not bad for mid-April!
Since then, the trees have bloomed and leafed-out and although the rain has returned, average temperatures are over-all much higher. Every now and then the sun comes out again and we get another hint at summer. Here is a picture from last Sunday, spent playing by the Seine in central Paris. We met and played with some interesting people, including an student studying to become an Opera singer, a Belgian fiddler, and a musical saw-player (who also plays the violin).
