Of the long list of things to accomplish before we can move to France, getting approved for  a Long-Stay Visa is one of the most important.  We took the first step in that process earlier this month when we made an appointment with the French Visa office in San Francisco. We had already filled out the preliminary forms on-line but the next step is an in-person meeting at the nearest office.  Here we go!

The process of getting my Student Visa in 1990 taught me a couple things about dealing with French bureaucracy.  First, be patient, don’t get upset and keep an upbeat attitude. Second, remember 1) when your application goes way off track and you feel like going over the counter at some annoying clerk.

I remember arriving in Paris in August 1990 with my temporary visa in hand and excited to start cooking classes at Ferrandi.  As instructed by the French Consulate in Seattle, during my first week in Paris, I headed to an address out past the last metro stop at La Chapelle where I was to request and receive my Carte de Sejour, the official document that gives students the right to live in France.   The interior of the building was what I imagine a first view of Ellis Island must have been like in the 1880’s, a vast hall with row after row of benches filled with visa seekers from every part the the world. There must have been 500 people in front of me in line!  Fortunately, after waiting for 20 minutes in line, I discovered that there was a special window for student visas, where only about 20 people were waiting.  Long story short, when I got to the front, the list of documents demanded by the woman working was completely different than the list I have been given to bring.  I trooped off to seek the new list of documents, only to return a week later and be told by a different clerk that I needed still different documents.  I finally asked the name of this person so when I came back with the list they had requested, I could speak to them directly and not risk someone else’s list.  Whew!  Then I still had to travel across town for a medical exam, but that is a whole other story!

With high hopes of a Much Simpler process this time, full of optimism but also prudence, we headed to San Francisco.

We arrived 15 minutes early for our Visa Application Appointment, which was in a lovely neo-Gothic building located at 110 Sutter Street.  The staff was friendly, but no nonsense;  it was clear that, if you didn’t have all the documents requested, things would turn much less friendly quickly.  I have to say, as a technology skeptic, I love the old school way that French bureaucracy works…there is an obsession with having hard copies of everything and one could believe that the process hasn’t changed that much in the last 200 years.   The clerk filled out longhand a number of forms that described why we were requesting a visa then gathered all our accompanying documents.  She then pulled out a brand new dossier folder (you know the kind with the fold-over flap that is secured with an elastic band) to it all.  The final file, which would be sent to the French Consulate in Washington DC, must have weighed four pounds. She finished by putting a sticky label on the front and filling it out by hand with a felt tip marker.  I can only imagine that there must be a French government warehouse somewhere filled with row after row of shelves holding the millions of such dossiers representing every person who has ever applied for a French visa.

The final step is fingerprinting and having photos taken.  Our dossiers were complete.  Now we wait and see if we get our Visas.  The official line is that we should have our visas in 15 business days, but the person who filed our application warned us that not much gets done during the holidays, so we should be prepared to wait longer. Very French.

It has now been over 3 months since I stopped being the owner of Le Pichet, more that 8 months since we sold Café Presse.  I have to admit, as much as I loved opening and operating these two restaurants, as much as I enjoyed collaborating with the the great teams we had in the kitchen and dining room, as much as I loved greeting and serving our friends everyday, I am as thrilled to be starting a new adventure.  While I still have energy in my legs and arms and my back still functions.

My job now is getting everything ready for our departure for France. That’s right, if you havent heard me say it before – which I find hard to believe;  I have basically told everyone who would listen in the last 10 years that my wife and I are planning to live in France “someday” – we are pulling up stakes and moving to our house in France, more specifically in Orthez, in the deep southwest of France.  We have picked a departure date in mid February 2022, and are working through the immense pile of stuff that you can imagine accompanies an international move.  Next week, for example, we fly to San Francisco for an interview that is required to obtain a long-stay visa in France, a Visa Longue Durée.

Now that I am a former restaurant owner, a former chef, I wondered whether I should continue this blog (in truth, whether I should RESTART it…the constraints of COVID meant that I often haven’t had time to post much of anything in the last almost 3 years). Would anyone be interested in the thoughts of a retired chef who has hoofed it for France?  If I did continue, what would I write about?

I finally decided that I WOULD continue.  I thought, why not write about the process of moving to France and starting a new life?  Why not write about the interesting restaurants, ingredients, food artisans, markets and culinary experiences from the point of view of an American trying to find a place for himself in a small town in the countryside of France?

And so this blog is a work in progress.  I hope that you will find something to enjoy in what I find and write about, and, if so, you will let me know.  My only regret in moving to France is the people we leave behind, whom I will miss greatly.