You can only ask if someone likes a pair of pants before they buy them. You should not ask someone how they like pants that they already own. They bought them, didn’t they? They must like them.
There is no word in French that has the exact meaning of the English word “confused.” My teacher told us this is because French people do not get confused.
You should not introduce yourself to someone you do not know. If you don’t know them, why would you do such a thing?
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Saturday, February 4, 2012
In the kitchen
When we decided to take this opportunity to come to Paris, it meant leaving my job and becoming a full-time housewife/part-time French student. Before we moved, I imagined myself making elaborate dinners, working my way through my favorite cookbooks, and doing all of it in a charming French kitchen. The reality is quite a bit different.
My kitchen here is much more limited than what I had at home. I posted a few pictures of the kitchen back in November; other than a few more spices on the spice rack and a new piece of cookware I received as a Christmas gift, it looks pretty much the same today. I’ve tried to keep the counter fairly clear so that I have a good-sized workspace, but it is less than a quarter of the counter space of our kitchen in the U.S. Our refrigerator and freezer are each the size of a typical dorm room refrigerator in the U.S. The sink is very small, which means washing our larger pots takes some creativity (thankfully this is J’s job, not mine). And our combination microwave/oven is just barely big enough to accommodate a 13 x 9 inch baking dish. Despite these challenges, I do manage to pull together dinner for the two of us five or six nights a week. It probably helps that I learned to cook in a studio apartment “kitchen” with miniature appliances and a single counter the size of a cutting board.
Here are a few of the things I made in our tiny kitchen last week...
We had fresh chevre from our favorite cheese shop a while ago and loved it, so I decided to use the cheese in a goat cheese salad. The base of the salad was the batavia lettuce that I usually get at the market. A single head is big enough to make side salads for most of the week in addition to a main course salad. I pressed chopped walnuts into the pieces of goat cheese, then put the cheese in the oven to warm it and toast the nuts. We also had roasted sweet potatoes.
I make some sort of Mexican food almost every week. This week’s effort was a tortilla soup from Mexican Everyday, by Rick Bayless. As an experiment I made some corn tortillas, sprayed them with olive oil, and baked them in the oven to make chips for garnishing the soup. They tasted kind of like corn-flavored pita chips (we had a few with some guacamole), but they worked in the soup.
We also had a lentil stew topped with a poached egg, parmesan cheese, and balsamic vinegar, inspired by this recipe. I used French green lentils instead of Umbrian lentils and omitted the proscuitto, using a little smoked paprika to give the stew a hint of smokiness instead.
J had asked for a butternut squash and goat cheese tart that I make once in a while. This is a recipe that I’ve made successfully many times before, but this time I managed to screw it up in many different ways. I decided to try substituting a slice of potiron (a pumpkin-like winter squash) for the butternut squash. I noticed giant slices of squash at the market a while ago and thought this was the perfect time to try it out. This was one experiment that didn’t work at all - the potiron I bought had a much higher water content than butternut squash and less flavor.
I usually peel, cut up and roast the squash before I put it in the tart. When I pulled it out of the oven I found mealy, limp-looking squash sitting in a pool of water instead of the gorgeously caramelized pieces I was expecting. I tried to drain off the water without dropping squash pieces in the sink (burning my arm in the process) and put it back in the oven to give them more time to cook. The potiron released so much liquid that the final volume was much lower than I was expecting, and I ended up not having enough to fill up the tart shell.
I also decided to try out a new recipe for the tart crust. I usually use a pâte brisée recipe from Martha Stewart, but decided that “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.” Or in this case, when in France, do as Julia Child would do, so I tried a recipe out of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I’m not sure if I did something wrong when making the crust or if the squash released even more water while the tart was baking, but the bottom of the crust ended up being soggy.
I ended the day having spent way more time than I thought possible making a dinner that I thought would be easy, with soggy tart leftovers I am not excited to have for lunch, and a painful burn on my arm. Not exactly the way I imagined our Paris life.
I usually peel, cut up and roast the squash before I put it in the tart. When I pulled it out of the oven I found mealy, limp-looking squash sitting in a pool of water instead of the gorgeously caramelized pieces I was expecting. I tried to drain off the water without dropping squash pieces in the sink (burning my arm in the process) and put it back in the oven to give them more time to cook. The potiron released so much liquid that the final volume was much lower than I was expecting, and I ended up not having enough to fill up the tart shell.
I also decided to try out a new recipe for the tart crust. I usually use a pâte brisée recipe from Martha Stewart, but decided that “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.” Or in this case, when in France, do as Julia Child would do, so I tried a recipe out of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I’m not sure if I did something wrong when making the crust or if the squash released even more water while the tart was baking, but the bottom of the crust ended up being soggy.
I ended the day having spent way more time than I thought possible making a dinner that I thought would be easy, with soggy tart leftovers I am not excited to have for lunch, and a painful burn on my arm. Not exactly the way I imagined our Paris life.
Luckily, Friday is always an easy day for cooking. We arrived in Paris on a Friday, and all we could manage to put together for dinner in our jet-lagged stupor was a plate of bread and cheese. We enjoyed it so much that we’ve kept up the tradition of having bread, cheese and wine for dinner on Fridays. This week we also roasted some cauliflower garnished with truffle salt, but it was still in the oven when I took this picture. This week’s cheese was brie with truffles, and it more than made up for whatever the rest of this week’s meals were lacking.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Four months
January has passed so quickly! We started out the year (or really, ended last year) with a late night walk around the city on New Year’s Eve.
J took a Friday off and we spent a great day having lunch out, exploring the Musée d’Orsay, and taking a leisurely walk back to the apartment along the left bank of the river.
We became members of the Musée du Louvre and have already started working our way through the museum's many rooms.
I took our visitor to Spain with me before sending him back to Illinois with a few souvenirs.
Tiny peppers stuffed with goat cheese and tortilla on pan con tomate with pink cava at El Xampanyet
Sushi at Rice and Fish
Lattes while studying for French class at Coutume (this was just me, but I brought home coffee beans for J)
Continuing the hunt for Mexican food in Paris at Bodega Bay
And enjoying the occasional guilty pleasure cheeseburger at Café Charlot or Pause Café (though those options may be abandoned in favor of Le Camion Qui Fume when the weather warms up)
And enjoying the occasional guilty pleasure cheeseburger at Café Charlot or Pause Café (though those options may be abandoned in favor of Le Camion Qui Fume when the weather warms up)
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Barcelona
I spent a long weekend in Spain earlier this month. Unfortunately for J, this was a girls’ weekend: I left him behind in Paris to meet an old friend in Barcelona.
Leading up to the trip, the weather forecasts for Barcelona were predicting highs in the 60s, but it was quite a bit cooler while I was there. I had left my winter coat at home and just my trench coat wasn’t warm enough, particularly during the cool evenings. This led to quick trip to buy gloves and a hat the second day of the trip. In both Spain and France, all of the stores have just two big sales a year: one in January and one in July. I have yet to dip into the soldes (“sales” in French) here, but for these purchases I was able to take advantage of the rebajas (“sales” in Spanish).
The trip was extremely relaxing. We spent a lot of time walking around the Barri Gotic and El Ribera, two cute neighborhoods near our hotel. We also walked through the L’Eixample neighborhood and enjoyed the spectacular Art Nouveau architecture while on our way to La Sagrada Familia and Parc Guell.
Leading up to the trip, the weather forecasts for Barcelona were predicting highs in the 60s, but it was quite a bit cooler while I was there. I had left my winter coat at home and just my trench coat wasn’t warm enough, particularly during the cool evenings. This led to quick trip to buy gloves and a hat the second day of the trip. In both Spain and France, all of the stores have just two big sales a year: one in January and one in July. I have yet to dip into the soldes (“sales” in French) here, but for these purchases I was able to take advantage of the rebajas (“sales” in Spanish).
The trip was extremely relaxing. We spent a lot of time walking around the Barri Gotic and El Ribera, two cute neighborhoods near our hotel. We also walked through the L’Eixample neighborhood and enjoyed the spectacular Art Nouveau architecture while on our way to La Sagrada Familia and Parc Guell.
A few of the buildings in L'Eixample:
Views of the city from Parc Guell:
Both Parc Guell and La Sagrada Familia (along with some of the other buildings we saw in L’Eixample) are the work of Antoni Gaudí, a Catalan architect. La Sagrada Familia is an amazing basilica that has been under construction since 1882, and one of my favorite things to do in Barcelona is to go and see what has changed since my last visit. I’ve been there in 1999, 2006, 2008, 2010 and now 2012. I really enjoyed an exhibit on display in one of the outer rooms of La Sagrada Familia showing how different elements of nature influenced Gaudí’s design.
La Sagrada Familia:
Parc Guell:
Two things that I had been looking forward to on the trip were speaking Spanish and the food. My Spanish is pretty rusty at this point, but what I’ve retained still feels much more natural to me than French. It was a relief to be able to understand people more easily and to be able to express more complex thoughts. And it felt good to effortlessly pronounce things and to know which nouns are masculine or feminine without having to think about it, both of which are things I still struggle with in French.
J and I enjoy many different cuisines and types of restaurants, but we are both very fond of Spanish food. In particular, there are a few Spanish dishes that will always be special to me. I studied in northern Spain for a summer in college and lived in a dorm while I was there. I was a much pickier eater at that point in time and the Spanish dorm food, like most dorm food, was not great. Tortilla de patatas and patatas bravas were two of my favorite dishes: they were inexpensive in restaurants and even the cooks in the dorm couldn’t ruin them. I usually get both when I go out for tapas or am in Spain (and sometimes make them at home).
On this trip I had tortilla and patatas bravas a few times. The best tortilla was at El Xampanyet, an adorable cava bar in the La Ribera neighborhood. J and I discovered this place on our honeymoon, and I dragged my friend there to sit in the blue-tiled room, nibbling tapas, sipping cava, and watching the bar fill up with tourists and Barcelona residents of all ages. Eventually people were spilling out into the street with their drinks and snacks. We also really enjoyed a wine/tapas bar in the L’Eixample neighborhood called La Bodegueta Provença.
It was a great trip, and I had a wonderful time visiting a country I’ve loved since 1999 with someone I’ve been friends with since 1989!
J and I enjoy many different cuisines and types of restaurants, but we are both very fond of Spanish food. In particular, there are a few Spanish dishes that will always be special to me. I studied in northern Spain for a summer in college and lived in a dorm while I was there. I was a much pickier eater at that point in time and the Spanish dorm food, like most dorm food, was not great. Tortilla de patatas and patatas bravas were two of my favorite dishes: they were inexpensive in restaurants and even the cooks in the dorm couldn’t ruin them. I usually get both when I go out for tapas or am in Spain (and sometimes make them at home).
On this trip I had tortilla and patatas bravas a few times. The best tortilla was at El Xampanyet, an adorable cava bar in the La Ribera neighborhood. J and I discovered this place on our honeymoon, and I dragged my friend there to sit in the blue-tiled room, nibbling tapas, sipping cava, and watching the bar fill up with tourists and Barcelona residents of all ages. Eventually people were spilling out into the street with their drinks and snacks. We also really enjoyed a wine/tapas bar in the L’Eixample neighborhood called La Bodegueta Provença.
It was a great trip, and I had a wonderful time visiting a country I’ve loved since 1999 with someone I’ve been friends with since 1989!
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Three months
Three months in Paris! This has been a quieter month with the holidays, but we’ve still found a few new things to enjoy here. Some December highlights:
La Grande Epicerie Paris, the giant and amazing grocery store associated with Le Bon Marche (one of the big department stores) where I was able to find some cocoa powder for baking Christmas treats and a nice bottle of port to give J for Christmas
Coutume Café, our new favorite source for coffee beans and breakfast burritos (really!)
l‘Epicerie de Bruno, where J was able to track down a tortilla press as a Christmas present for me (which I promptly used to make the "traditional" French Christmas breakfast of eggs and homemade refried beans on tortillas with blood orange juice mimosas)
Bistrot Paul Bert
Affären, a great source for Swedish grocery items in Paris
l’Ambassade d’Auvergne, where we had a delicious pre-Christmas dinner out. I first discovered this restaurant on a trip in 2008 and have returned twice to enjoy the aligot, a delicious cheesy mashed potato concoction
Paris-Hanoi, a great Vietnamese restaurant in our neighborhood
Repeat trips to Candelaria, Le Baron Rouge and La Briciola
Brownies so good that even my weird microwave/convention oven could not ruin them
And some adventures with a visitor that has been staying with us all month. . .
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