January 28

Sidonie-Gabrielle Claudine Colette's Birthday
 
 
Colette was the pen name of Sidonie-Gabrielle Claudine Colette who was France's most popular novelist, the only women elected to the Academie Goncourt, and the only women in France to be given a formal state funeral. When the Archbishop of Paris refused to allow her a Catholic burial, there was an international protest and she was buried in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

In 1893 she married Henri Gauthier-Villars, a famous wit known as 'Willy', who was 15 years her senior. She was forced to write her first books, the Claudine series, under the pen name of her husband who took the credit himself. Claudine a l'ecole (Claudine at School) was immensely popular because of the tantalizing descriptions of lesbian crushes of the schoolgirls on their teachers. Paris went Claudine crazy after the book's publication and there were hundreds of articles of clothing, cosmetics, and foods named after Claudine including the Chapeau Claudine, Perfume Claudine, and Glacé Claudine (Claudine's Licorice Ice Cream).

In 1906 Colette left her unfaithful plagiarist husband and became a music-hall performer. Her manager was Mathilde de Morny, the Marquise de Belbeuf, known as Missy, with whom she became romantically involved. In 1912 Colette married Henri de Jouvenel, the editor of the newspaper Le Matin. The couple had one daughter whom she left in the care of an English nanny, only rarely coming to visit her.

In 1914, during World War I, Colette was approached to write a ballet for the Opéra de Paris which she outlined under the title Divertissements pour ma fille. She chose Maurice Ravel to write the music which he reconstructed as an opera, L'Enfant et les sortilèges, first performed March 21, 1925. During the war she converted her husband's St. Malo estate into a hospital for the wounded, and was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour (1920). She divorced Henri in 1924 after a notorious affair with her stepson.

Colette wrote over 50 novels and scores of short stories. Many of her novels had characters whose attitudes on life, sex, and personal relationships, were often controversial, and many of her novels were banned by the Catholic Church as immoral. However, nearly all of her characters were Colette's own family, her husbands her male and female lovers, her friends and others that she know. It was her last novel, Gigi, that brought her the most international success after its transition into the Lerner and Lowe musical film.

To celebrate Colette's birthday, there is only one choice - Glacé Claudine which we recommend enjoying while watching  a DVD of Colette (1951), a delicious documentary by Yannick Bellon that captures Colette in her Paris apartment, commenting. “I’m no longer photogenic,” and reflecting on her extraordinary life. 
 

Glacé Claudine
 (Claudine's Licorice Ice Cream)
 
Special Equipment

 Ice cream maker

Ingredients

6 large egg yolks
1&1/2 cups milk
1&1/4 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar		 10 one-inch soft black licorice candies
2 TB Pernod
1 tsp vanilla extract
 
Instructions
 
  1. Lightly whisk egg yolks in a large bowl.
  2. Combine remaining ingredients, except vanilla, in a heavy saucepan over medium high heat. Stir frequently until mixture just comes to a boil.
  3. In a steady stream, slowly whisk mixture into beaten egg yolks.
  4. Return mixture to pan over medium low heat and cook, stirring constantly, until it registers 170°F on a candy thermometer (do not boil).
  5. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla and strain mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl. Discard licorice pieces.
  6. Cover and chill in refrigerator.
  7. Freeze in an ice cream maker 20-30 minutes until frozen.
  

© 2010 Gordon Nary