In a private room above Blackbird restaurant at noon on a recent weekday, the French Government Tourist Office regaled a group of American freelance writers, French diplomats, and travel professionals with lamb vol-au-vent, pinot blanc, and a TV ad that featured a string of celebrities squawking “J’aime la France!”–the office’s catchphrase for 2002. Between courses, while presenters from Rail Europe and Maison de la France gave their pitches, the only sounds from the attendees were the clinks of forks and the stage whispers of Shirley Higgins, an award-winning travel writer from Wilmette. “You notice,” she hissed, “the dessert is Alsatian!”
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During the meal, junketeers were encouraged to converse. Higgins, each of whose fingernails was painted a different color, listed the World War I artifacts she’s collected in Alsatian flea markets for the benefit of Jean-Pierre Tutin, Chicago’s genial French deputy consul general. “We bought the most thought-provoking thing,” she told him cheerily. “It was a helmet with great pieces of shrapnel right where it went through the brain. It really shows you the futility of war!”
“We always want to discover something in France that nobody goes to see,” Higgins went on, “things the average American will never hear about. When you write for a wealthy audience that’s explorers, you can just go wild.”
She told Tutin that if she could get a French passport on the black market she’d jump on it. “It must be wonderful to have a French diplomatic passport–it must open the world to you!”
