The Frenchest Fry

NOTE: The following story is entirely fictional and bears only loose connections to reality. Enjoy.

Once upon a time, the quaint town of Aix-en-Provence sat quietly and peacefully in the south of France, filled with old ochre buildings and plane trees smiling over its residents. The sun shined on the town's numerous fountains, and most of the excitement in the area came from the Mistral's winds ripping through the streets.

One January day, a wide-eyed and severely jet-lagged me arrived in the city, not yet knowing what the semester was to bring. I spent the next few months wandering around the city, occasionally branching out to other nearby countries, getting to know the cultures and languages as well as I could. I tried local the local cuisine, attempted to function in a foreign university, and spent a lot of time looking words up in my French-English dictionary, until one spring day when I was faced with a dilemma.

With my days in the country winding to a close, I needed to try to fit in as many missed french experiences as possible, and I realized that I had yet to eat some truly french French Fries.

"This is a disaster," I lamented to Nathan in the kitchen as he mixed the batter for some banana pancakes. "How can I hold my head up if I go back to the States without eating the Frenchest Fry? And where am I even going to find it?"

"Well," he replied, "French fries were actually invented by the Belgians. It's only the style of frying them that's French, so the most authentic fries would actually be in Belgium."

With this nugget of information, I knew who could help me best: RyanAir. Their cheap and jenky flights could get me there pretty easily, so I headed straight to their website to look up flights. The only thing that could tear my eyes from the artificial glow of my laptop screen was the presence of an additional voice in the kitchen.

"Ooh, you should throw some of this in there," Hannah commented to Nathan while rooting through the fridge and spice rack. "And is there any Sriracha around?"

"Wait, when did you get in here?" I inquired.

"Oh, you know," she replied, immediately returning her attention to the food. I really didn't know, though. As I looked through my planner for a decent remaining weekend to head to Belgium, Hannah turned her attention to me once more. "What are you up to?" My answer merited no other response than her swift grimace and review of RyanAir landing quality. "Every time they're about to land, everything is going great, then it's like the pilot just gives up and drops the controls a second before touching ground. I feel like I'm gonna die every time."

My mind was suddenly plagued with flashbacks to every RyanAir landing that I've ever experienced, which invariably aligned with her description. This reminder, along with the fact that I didn't have enough free weekends left in Aix, brought me to the more practical decision to simply find french fries in France while I was still there. For the moment, though, my attentions were better devoted to the pancakes in front of me.

After breakfast, the next stop was the Parc Jourdain, a prime people watching spot and a favorite locale for studying and enjoying the sun. Upon reaching my destination, I greeted Savannah and Victoria, and we pulled out our Langage, Culture, et Société notes in preparation for our sun-soaked study session. After a good half hour of productive studying, we digressed by catching up on what each of us had been up to, and I brought up my culinary conundrum of the day.

"Study abroad problems, amiright?" Victoria began. "Okay, but really... ummm have you tried that one place on the Cours Mirabeau, Les Deux Frères? Is that what it's called? Is that a thing?"

"I'm pretty sure that's a thing," Savannah chimed in.

"Thanks, pal!" Victoria chimed right back.

"Any time, bud!" Savannah continued. "Anyhow, what kind of fries are you looking for? I mean different places have good fries, but just different types."

"French ones," I specified. "The frenchest ones I can get."

Savannah rolled her eyes and moved on to more productive topics, and we continued much in the same fashion until the conversation fell into a lull and we took back to studying, breaking up bouts of productivity with lighthearted conversation each time that our collective attention span waned too much. After a few hours of this, we had taken in more sun than actual studying, so we parted ways and headed in the directions of our respective apartments.

On my way back, I took a stroll along the Cours Mirabeau, considering each overpriced restaurant that I passed for its fry potential, but remained dissatisfied with the cost-benefit analysis as I ran it through my head. Feeling a bit let down by the picturesque street, I adjourned to my apartment.

Moments after I entered the building, my phone began to ring. I looked at the screen before picking up, and it read "Unknown Caller," so of course I knew who it was before I hit the green "accept call" button.

"Hey Maddie" It was none other than the man of three names, Brandon/Victor/Paolo, otherwise known as BVP. "Do you guys have any dinner plans?" We did not. "Then could I come over tonight and make something for dinner?" Indeed he could.

He arrived within minutes with a baguette in hand. It was still a while before the time to start cooking, so we made a quick Monoprix run to spend altogether too much money on the cheapest ingredients available (comme d'hab), and I once more took the opportunity to seek advice about how and where to find fries of the proper level of frenchness. He couldn't think of a solution to the perplexity, but he did sing me a pretty song while charmingly throwing my name into the lyrics, which at least made me feel a bit better for the moment.

Once we returned to the apartment, he took to playing Battle Tetris on Alyssa's laptop while I tried doing some internet research on where to find the best fries in Aix. As we we sitting, we suddenly heard the door opening and felt a cool zephyr blow through the apartment, and we knew. The bros were coming.

Sure enough, our neighbors Sam and Sean, along with Other Sam (a.k.a. Joe) and a marigold clad Toler, appeared in search of Cody.

"Dude, is Cody around?" Sean asked.

"Not that I know of," I said, only to be proven wrong as my aforementioned roommate suddenly emerged from his room that I had previously presumed to be vacant.

"Hey, we're about to head over to Pascal's for dinner," Sam said to Cody. "Come on."

"Hold on, I'm gonna grab some shoes," Cody responded. "What have you guys been up to?"

"Gossip Girl, bro."

They soon filed out the door, and after a moment Cody dashed back in for a moment to grab his lighter, and was gone once more. I returned to furiously looking for really french-sounding restaurants in the area, and heard the door open again. I thought it odd that Cody should forget something twice rather than his standard single return before making it out the door, but then I looked up and saw that instead it was Alyssa returning from the APA office with the remnants of a crepe in hand and the entirety of a Mickey coming in behind her.

"What's up?" my blondest roommate inquired.

"I need to find some really French fries before I go, and there's almost no time left! What do I do?"

"Maddie, breathe. You've had moules frites before. You've also had the fries from Nabab and the falafel place. Point is, you've already got french fries covered."

I paused for a second. "...Oh." I thought it through, and as usual, she was right. I guess that as long as I'm having french fries in France, they're significantly frencher than anywhere else in the world, so I'd already had the frenchest fries on earth. As I took this unnecessarily long moment of reflection, Alyssa and Mickey took to an even more drawn out game of sloth tag. It was a glorious moment in the apartment, made even better once BVP got to work on dinner and the place was filled with the scent of delicious things.

With my renewed peace of mind, I was able to enjoy a delicious meal of BVP's carbonara, because italian food definitely made the most sense to complete my french experiences, and at the end of the night, I was able to go to sleep and peacefully dream of the Frenchest Fry.