SAINT-TROPEZ IN L.A.

I was waiting at an empty early-evening bar of a restaurant on Third Street for my husband and ordered a Martini. Martinis make me tipsy very quickly, after all those years my body is still not used to American-sized cocktails that provide me with at least five times the alcohol I would get back in the old world. Bored, I chatted up the handsome young bartender. He would tend bars only occasionally, he explained, his day job was that of a window dresser. His eyes gleaming, he told me about this 'St-Tropez'-themed window he had decorated for a fashion boutique. It dawned on my very quickly: my good looking bartender/window dresser had never been in St-Tropez in his life. 'Hey', I said triumphantly, 'I bet you've never been to the French Riviera!' He nodded with a big fat happy smile. My brain, operating under the influence (at this point my Martini glass was almost empty), surprised me with an epiphany: the St-Tropez theme, the non-traveler, it all made sense! In L.A. people are intrigued by the idea of an ideal. Whereas my European soul is tortured by the standards of living up to an ideal, the Angeleno has freed himself from such unnecessary burdens. With an enviable nonchalance he creates something new and different. Does it matter if a St-Tropez theme actually looks like real St-Tropez style? Of course not! How naive of me to think otherwise. It is all about what you think it is, and not what it actually is. Take a lot of fantasy, do a little twisting here, a little twitching there, add some finishing touches - et voilà! I now finally understand why I am often disappointed when eating out at an 'authentic' Italian or French restaurant, simply because they are, in most cases, not Italian or French, but rather the idea of Italian or French. Or has anyone ever had anything like Pizza Ruspante (as in grilled chicken) in Italy?