The Oui Hours

Jan isn’t enamored by my love for all things French. “If you put Edith on one more time, it is you who will have beaucoup regrette,” she says as I am about to play Piaf’s classic “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” on the car stereo. “Your little sparrow sounds like she is dying.”

“She was dying,” I tell her. “That’s why it’s such a sad song.”

It is Bastille Day and we are on our way to the restaurant, Pascal. I am using the French holiday to not-so-subtly lobby for a trip to Paris this fall, instead of the Amalfi Coast, Jan’s choice.

Hoping to soften Jan up, I tell her a story as Edith warbles on about all the things that went wrong for which she has learned to be strong. “Did you know that when I lived in Paris, I would go to the Pere-Lachaise cemetery where Edith Piaf is buried and place a tape recorder on her grave and play ‘No Regrets’ while crying my eyes out? That’s how much this woman meant to me.” I turn up the volume for effect.

Jan puffs a little air out of her perfectly lipsticked mouth in mock French disgust. “You’re such a liar,” she says. “You heard that story on the Discovery Channel. I was watching it with you before you fell asleep, remember?”

“Oh yeah,” I say, chagrined. I turn down the music just a tad and smile. “It’s still a good story.”

I am losing the battle between France and Italy. Jan has found a little house for rent near Positano, named Villa Amore, and contacted the owners about availability while ignoring the clippings on Paris I keep leaving on the kitchen table.

I have tried renting “Gigi” and singing “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” in my best Maurice Chevalier accent and buying Starbucks’ madeleines, those dry, shell-shaped cookies Proust was so crazy about, but Jan will have none of it. Her heart is set on Positano.

So Pascal is my last, best shot at Paris. It is a little hectic at the restaurant. Pascal Olhats, the French-born chef and owner, has been putting on a special Bastille Day dinner at his highly regarded restaurant for 10 years and tout le monde--or at least everyone who is a Francophile and lives in Orange County--wants to celebrate the beginning of the French Revolution with a little foie gras and a glass of Cotes du Rhone tonight.

When we pull up, diners waiting for their tables are milling around anxiously in front of the restaurant like Bizet fans waiting for tickets at the Paris Opera House. To accommodate the crowd, Pascal has two seatings. We have reservations for the late service and as our waitress, Tina, brings us a basket of crudites with a mustard vinaigrette and an anchovy sauce for dipping, busboys are hurriedly breaking down and setting up tables throughout the dining room and in the makeshift patio area between the restaurant and Pascal’s epicerie next door.

As we admire two small tomato tartlets before us, a little man in a bad suit and with a worse temper comes by our table and, before we’ve even had a chance to go over the set menu, asks us if we want cassoulet, chicken, salmon or rabbit. “Could you be a little more descriptive?” I ask him. He sighs.

“Come back on a night when we’re not trying to serve 200 dinners at one time and I’ll try to be descriptive,” he says peevishly, tapping his pen against his order pad as he looks impatiently at us. Sweat glistens on his forehead. “It’s all so authentic,” I tell Jan. “Just like the waiters in Paris.”

Fortunately for us, Tina is not nearly as surly. Though she is German, she explains each item en anglais et francais. Jan decides on the lapin a la Provencale, which Tina assures her is excellent, and I go for the cassoulet, a dish I am inordinately fond of.

“Did you know that down in Provence there is a little medieval town called Carcassonne, built on a hill, that is famous for their cassoulet?” I tell Jan, hoping to win some brownie points for my cause. “Just about every restaurant in town makes it, all trying to outdo each other.”

“I know,” she says. “I went there with you--remember?”

“Oh, yeah, huh,” I say, smiling.

After a long pause, I add, “So tell me again about Positano.”

Tina has just delivered our entrees when a tiny woman, who looks between 70 and 80, stops before our table, holding an ivory Excelsior accordion in front of her as if it were a crate of melons. She is wearing a red sequined blouse and a long black skirt. Her name is Elsie, she tells us, and she has played the accordion at Pascal’s every year since he started doing the Bastille Day dinners.

“Are you French?” Jan asks.

“Oh, no, hon, I’m from Glendale,” Elsie says.

Then she asks us what we’d like to hear.

“How about ‘La Vie En Rose’?, “ I say.

Jan groans.

“I’m afraid I don’t know that one,” Elsie says. Then she breaks into a spirited version of “Yesterday,” even singing the last chorus for us. “Oh I be-lieve in yes-ter-day.”

Jan claps.

“That’s one of the two most requested songs I get,” Elsie says, pleased with herself. “The other one is ‘White Christmas.’ ”

I give Elsie five bucks and she moves on to the table beside us where she plays “As Time Goes By” for a lovely middle-aged woman in pearls and a brown silk blouse who is swooning over her date, an older gentleman in a navy blue blazer with very wide lapels.

Jan has been referring to the pair all night as The Desperate Couple because of the way the woman leans so far forward to hang onto every word from the man, who acts nervous and slightly disoriented, as if he can’t quite figure out who this woman is sitting across from him, batting her eyes.

Just then, Pascal comes out from the kitchen, smiles at Elsie and the older couple, and asks if he may sit down for a moment at our table. We are delighted. Pascal leans forwards and whispers, “They have just gotten engaged tonight.”

Perhaps that explains the attentiveness of the blond in the brown silk blouse as well as the distress of her fiance. When Elsie finishes up the theme song from “Casablanca,” the man in the blazer says, “How did you know? That was just perfect.”

Elsie seems slightly flustered by such praise.

“Your cassoulet was excellent,” I tell Pascal.

He thanks me. We chat about Carcassonne and about Paris, where his wife, Mimi, is, at the moment, with his two kids.

“I leave on Sunday to join them, but I had to be here for Bastille Day.”

I see my opening and go for it. “We love Paris, don’t we, honey?” I say, smiling at Jan. She does that French thing I love, puffing a little air out of her mouth in disgust.

“Yes, we do,” she says, smiling at Pascal, “but this year, we’re going to Positano on the Amalfi Coast.”

“Ah,” says Pascal, ever the diplomat. “It is lovely there. You will have a wonderful time.”

Thanks a lot, Pascal.

Lunch Monday-Friday, 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; dinner Tuesday-Thursday and Sunday, 6-9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 6-10 p.m.

David Lansing’s column is published on Fridays in Orange County Calendar. His e-mail address is [email protected].