Catch-up…Again, Part II: « You Can’t Stop the Beat » (The Cooking Momentum Really Picks Up)

(N.B. In a similar style as my previous post...)

Thursday (26): After a late night with my paper, I was totally ready for the weekend and the excitement vis-à-vis cooking that we had in store for our dinner guests. Thursday evening, Gerald, Jill and Sam came over for dinner. Ménu: apératifs, pâte de penne avec une sauce de tomates et des boulettes de poulet et en plus du brocoli, la salade, des fromages et pour le dessert, les poires au four avec une sauce de vin blanc (sucré), de la canelle, et du citron. Of course, we also ended with pains au chocolat et chocolat chaud. (If you couldn't pick up what any of that was, make a note and I'll translate it into English, though I think you should be able to understand all of that.) We also played 1 000 Bourne.

Friday (27): I went to a cooking class taught by Elisabeth, at the Fondation. We made tartlettes, a salad with warmed chèvre, endives wrapped in ham and topped with a béchamel sauce that I made, and mousse au chocolat (there was an extra one that Camille and I shared, at Elisabeth's encouragement to finish it). Our end of the table (including Elisabeth) talked about travelling and food for much of the time, eventually leading me to the kind of cooking I've been doing since I've been in Paris. (Keep that bit in mind...) It was Jane's turn to come over for dinner, and so she and another one of her classmates, Elise, did just that. (Whoa, weird English sentence going on right there...) For dinner, we had: apératifs, salmon (me) with wild rice and asparagus (Trevor), salad, cheese, and had a duo-dessert (halved mango with brown sugar and cooked in rum and lemon juice, and strawberries that had been soaked in a mixture of orange juice, lemon and sugar; the mangoes were served with a reduced sauce of the leftover liquids from both desserts). As always, pains au chocolat and chocolat chaud ended the meal. After Jane and Elise left, Trevor and I continued talking and we got onto the subject of our favourites about our experience so far. Eventually, we got to thinking about who some of our favourite professors are and after recounting my cooking story from earlier in the day, we began thinking about the possibility of us cooking for them before we leave Paris. To make the night even more perfect, we figured out how to open the windows to the balcony. Paris is such a beautiful city.

Saturday (28): Trevor and I met up with Gerald and Jill at the Jardin de Luxembourg; quite exciting was the fact that the day was absolutely perfect (especially in terms of weather). Afterwards, we stopped by St. Sulpice and Tuileries (another garden in Paris). Our final destination for the afternoon was the Arc de Triomphe, which we found out students get in for free! About 50+ pictures and 500 steps later, we made our way back down and decided to do an impromptu dinner (as we were still up in the air as to whether or not we wanted to go to a jazz club). We ended up just staying inside and having dinner: apératifs, baked pasta, cheese and for dessert, dark mousse au chocolat accompanied by strawberries in various forms (including a nutella-filled strawberry with chantilly crème). As we finished up our pains au chocolat and chocolat chaud, we heard a key and were surprised to find our host family having returned from their vacation. Before and throughout their departure, Trevor and I had thought they would be back on Sunday. We (including Gerald and Jill; thanks for all of your help!) cleaned up the kitchen and dining room in the fastest time I had ever seen those two rooms cleaned after one of our dinners. Our host family was extremely nice about the confusion and told us that we could have just carried on, as if they had never arrived. In any event, the day still remained as perfect as it could be in Paris.

Sunday (1 March... when did that happen?!): After the adventure of finding hostels and what-not for my upcoming trip to Italy, I heard a small knock on my door. It was Elisabeth, our host sister, coming to get me for lunch. Our host parents made a wonderful lunch for us, incorporating ingredients from the mountain region where they had vacationed. (Un)fortunately, the food was definitely regional (including the names of each thing) and was not committed to my memory at the time. I wrapped up my hostel searches, booking everything that could be booked, took a bit of a nap, and then went to Sacré-Coeur to meet Patrick for Mass (finally after my fourth or fifth time being in Montmartre, I was able to get to Mass there). Afterwards, we stopped by a crêperie and ate some crêpes en route to the Comédie Française, where the BU crowd watched Cyrano de Bergerac. I'm sure I'd think it'd be as great a play as everyone else thinks it is, if I had been able to understand what was going on. In any event, it was quite the fortunate experience to be at the Comédie Française. For the first time in quite some time, Trevor and I went back to my room to have our first meal outside of our host family's kitchen.

Clicking in Paris (Written on Wednesday, Posted on Friday)

In isiXhosa, ndiqala means « I start ». And with that, I shall start writing this blog entry by saying that I’m really looking forward to tomorrow evening. In the meantime, let me begin by recounting my cycle of life in Paris.

On Monday, I woke and went to my econ class, hoping to receive my mid-term grade. However, I would not be so lucky and would have to wait a bit before receiving it. On the other hand, I went on a mini quest for « Euro shoes », the term I [and I’m pretty sure others] use to describe the shoes worn by many of the Parisians here. On very basic terms, the shoes have a bit of a point to them. Thankfully Trevor had previously dissuaded me from purchasing them near our area; for less than the price of one pair there, I was able to find two pairs in St Dennis. I’m wondering how I’ll be able to bring all of my stuff home… in any event, that purchase officially ends my list of have-to-buy purchases. As we were unable to interview anyone for our third dossier assignment over the weekend, Trevor and I decided to be brave and try interviewing the women at our favourite boulangerie. In anticipation for the prospects of interviewing them and needing the extra energy to do so, I made a chicken, ham and gouda on baguette sandwich for the two of us. Unfortunately, they were busy (as usual) and we weren’t able to interview them. So, we went over to Franprix to do a bit of grocery shopping, as Trevor would be cooking dinner that night. Shopping completed, we went back upstairs and ate dinner in Trevor’s apartment (now that we know how to use the stove). He cooked rice and beans, with eggs over-easy. It sounds simple, but he cooked our meal successfully, despite the obstacles standing in his way, such as the lack of black beans and the lack of Mexican spices. It was wicked good (that would be the Boston lexicon fusing with my own) and very filling. Despite that fact, we still went through dessert (cherry sorbet with chocolate crêpe biscuits) and chocolat chaud. I then began to write my econ paper (no worries, I had done the research beforehand) and eventually quit as I was beginning to fall asleep writing it. (N.B. I didn’t work on my econ paper earlier, as I was aiming to finish my FURSCA proposal on time. Even though I finished writing it, I was unable to turn it in in the end. *Sigh.*)

I woke up early on Tuesday to finish writing my econ paper and did so sans problème. We then went back to our boulangerie to try and interview the women there, but they were once again busy. As a result we reverted to having to call our host dad. Without a response, I soon went to my Travaux Pratiques class and the five of us who are also in the immigration class together headed over to our class trip to the Cité Nationale de l’Histoire de l’Immigration (I’m going to assume you know what that translates to). I particularly enjoyed the modern, yet not-to-modern, and rather interactive-feel of the museum. However, the journey over to the museum was a bit of a challenge. We had all gotten onto the Métro together and I suddenly realised that it may be possible to take the RER (the one faster than the Métro), but it would mean having to deal with a few line changes. Convinced that I could beat the others to the museum with my alternate route, I separated from them at Opéra and made the trek. However, I hadn’t taken into account the change-over time (walking to each line spot, as well as the time to actually wait for the car to arrive). As a result, I got there a bit late, but everyone waited for me anyway (thanks y’all!).

Cue 18h30-ish. Trevor and I meet up in his apartment and we call Antoine (our host dad) for our interview project. We talked about his job, the economic crisis in Europe, and the like. I’m quite ready to write this paper and turn it in.

Following our interview, I got a move on dinner (baked pasta shells with cheese, with extra cheesy pasta sauce, as well as carrots julienne and cubed zucchini). We ate the meal while watching part I of Aladdin (quite different watching it after a few years). At the pause, I went back upstairs as Trevor worked on some of his homework. Instead of napping, as I had planned to do, I looked up stuff for Le Roi Lion, which apparently is only 10 € for a student ticket on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. As part of the 10th anniversary celebrations, the French version opened in Paris in the fall and should be playing until the end of spring. Trevor and I are planning on going tomorrow and I’m wicked excited to see it. Through my Internet surfing, I found out/realised that the movie was inspired by South Africa and that the clicks in the stage version come from Xhosa! Did I mention I’m excited to see it? A few hours later, I went back downstairs and finished watching Aladdin while enjoying a round of chocolat chaud.

Today, I got to my econ class and received my econ grade at the end of it. I don’t understand the French grading system, but I’m not complaining. Let’s just say I did better than I thought I would-ish. I then went to the outdoor Dupleix market and bought stuff for dinner and then finally made my way to McDonalds (for lunch). Christine’s brother had suggested we try it at least once while we’re here because it’s apparently better here than in the States or anywhere else in the world for that matter). In all actuality, I am a fan of McDonald here than back home.

The plan for the evening was to go see a newly-released film, Le Code A Changé, so after dropping off the groceries in my apartment, I went back out to the school to meet up with my classmates and one of our professors. We then made our way to Passy and the second-biggest movie theatre that I’ve come across so far in Paris. We were watching a French comedy and the hilarity began to start when a big box of popcorn kept passing back and forth along the aisle; Hanadi, the professor who was with us, bought us this giant box of popcorn that somehow sufficiently satisfied the American cinematic experience for about 20 students. Before the movie even began (and while we were passing the box of popcorn), music started to play and it felt like there was going to be a live, opening tango number, on the floor in front of the screen. Alas, that wasn’t the case, but the movie did start with a tango scene. The movie was quite funny and I somehow understood most of it, despite the lack of subtitles. It also seemed to follow a traditional Franco-European feel, including a very open-ended ending. When we got back to the apartment, we had dinner (beef Bourgogne with white rice and broccoli), followed by giant strawberries with Nutella, and finally chocolat chaud. I should also mentioned that we watched a couple episodes of FRIENDS during dinner, before a long night of paper writing for the both of us.

I'm Eating Fruit Cocktail

Okay, so the title would've worked better if I wrote this a few hours ago and was, well, still eating fruit cocktail. In any case, I like the title, so just humour me and let me run with it.

After studying for my partiels (mid-terms) into the wee hours of the morning, I found myself surprisingly awake a few hours later and ready to take my exams. They went well; I think I overstudied for one and understudied for the other (which usually tends to be the case). After the exams (around 12h00), Trevor and I went back home and had lunch (unsurprisingly, more eggs and croque-monsieurs), and watched my (and apparent only one of his) favourite French movie(s), Les Choristes. Following the movie, Trevor went back downstairs to take a nap and I found myself somewhat inspired to work on my FURSCA proposal, depite the uncertainties surrounding it. I worked on the paper a little too long and eventually missed watching Slumdog Millionaire, but was at least able to meet up with Trevor and Camille at Odéon. Together, we walked to a crêperie (which happened to be the one right across from the theatre where we saw "La Cantatrice Chauve", and ended up buying paninis for dinner. Following our meal, we went to the Caveau de la Huchette, where we were eventually met up by Jill, Sam, and two of their friends from BU and who are currently studying in Grenoble. We had originally gone there for the jazz, but were soon surprised to see an open dance floor. However, there was only room for us in a little alcove in the back, so we ended up "dancing" (theoretically) back there.


After the Caveau de la Huchette, we trekked our way across the river to Duc des Lombards. Once again, after midnight, there's a great jam session (that's also free to watch), where people just randomly (or not) come up on stage to join whomever else is there. Somehow (and to my amazement) they always sound very good. One of my favourite bits was a solo by a guy playing one of those duo-djimbe-type-drums. I have no clue what that's called, but perhaps you know what I'm talking about anyway? Oh, of note, we all sat in the balcony looking down on the musicians. It was so great; I've confirmed Duc des Lombards to be my favourite jazz club so far in Paris.


Following our jazz evening, Trevor and I went back to my room and made some chocolat chaud (which is pretty much a common occurrence every night, if you haven't caught on to that one yet). I also figured out that each box of milk is 1L, and each serving is 0,25L. With this said, we finished a litre of milk in one day (we had some with lunch, as well). I must say I'm quite a fan of this hot chocolate. To end the night, I attempted to catch up on all of my blogging but obviously didn't finish as I'm wrapping up just now.

I would also like to note that yesterday marked our one-month anniversary here in Paris. I can't believe how quickly time has flown by here!

Hungry much? I mean, I'm not mean, but...

This past weekend has been one of my favourites so far. On Saturday, I got up early to continue my search for a single pair of jeans. I had no success in this endeavour, and realised that an annoying paradox currently exists here in Paris. I'm not the only short guy in this city; indeed, there are many who are shorter than me, and that also happen to be wearing jeans. If they're wearing shorter jeans, that must mean that said jeans should be available for purchase, right? Aïe ! In any case, outside of this, the weekend was really fun.

I completed my early weekend purchasing with the purchase of my Euro bag (some would call it a "murse"). Entouk, it does the job. It was also beginning to snow (which I love over here), and I remember being rather surprised with the increasing number of shoppers in spite of the weather. I got back home around 2pm, and around which time Trevor and I had lunch (even more eggs; I must also say that I think Trevor has perfected his egg cooking). We then decided to go to the Musée du Quai Branly; cultural museum? (Of course!). The museum, architecturally, was quite huge and modern. The artifacts and such were not quite as modern (though we did see a yellow pointalist painting from '96 (i.e., 1996). I did see many interesting things, as all museums have their fair share, though I, of course, was interested in a few areas in particular:

OCEANIA: Australian, aboriginal artifacts
Philippines: It looks like they didn't put the Philippines in Asia or necessarily in Oceania. In any event, I kind of got the chills taking a look at potentially one of my ancestors' belongings.
AFRICA: Cameroon, South Africa (there was nothing from the Xhosa ethnic group, ps).
AMERICAS: Great Lakes regional artifacts (coolest thing was a grizzly bear claw necklace)

After receiving a text from Erin confirming dinner plans, Trevor and I left the museum and completed some much needed grocery shopping. Erin, Liz, and Meredith (though, the professors seem to be convinced her name's Meredyth), arrived and we presented them with our usual five-course hooplah (though I think they were originally supposed to come over for just the hot chocolate in the end. Nevertheless, we started out with apératifs (including pistachios and peanuts), moved on to a main course of baked pasta and cheesy bread, followed through with salad, included cheese and more baguette, and finishing up with mousse au chocolat noir with raspberries arranged differently for each person. Finally, we moved on to the ultimate test and the reason why they came over in the first place (chocolat chaud). I must say I was rather impressed because, after finishing all of that food, pretty much all of the hot chocolate was finished. We couldn't find any regular sized pains au chocolat, but Trevor did manage to find some mini ones for Erin, Liz, and Meredith to try. (ps, the title of this blog entry comes from the regular use of the phrase "I mean, I'm not mean, but..." during dinner)

As we were heading into early morning territory, we had to call an end to the night and we all walked to the respective Métro stations. However, Erin's Métro line was closed, so Trevor and I walked her to the Noctillien, the bus line that's in operation while the Métro is closed. However, as we would have had to wait (weird construction there) about an hour just for the bus to arrive, we thought (at the time) that it'd be a smart idea to just walk home. Eventually, we got to Erin's house and then realised we had to walk all the way back (I think it was about an hour/hour and a half-ish walk across Paris). Suffice it to say, Trevor and I got back to our apartment without much difficulty, and we have this story to tell.

The next day, i.e., Sunday, everyone woke up pretty late, but we eventually met up at Montmartre (second time in the past few weeks for me) and walked around the area for a few hours, making sure to stop at the Sacré-Coeur and the look-out point at the base of the basilica. After our afternoon journey (with beautiful weather, I must add) we stopped at a crêperie for a quick crêpe nearby, and then headed our separate ways. I aimed for St. Clotilde parish for an evening Mass service and got to the church with little difficulty. Although we were in [what I would call] a chapel, it was beautiful inside and felt as though I was in the main parish church. Upon my arrival back home, Trevor and I became stereotypical French (eating baguette and cheese alongside some wine). We worked on some homework and eventually the hours quickly strolled by; of note, Trevor and I also attempted to make post-mid-term travel plans, but luck was not on our side.

N.B. At the time of me writing this, I'm enjoying my weekend so far, even though we aren't doing much travelling.

My Ears Are a Bit Colder Now

Chocolate. Cheese. Wine. Chocolate. The French know what they're doing, and also outside of the culinary realm it seems. Today (well, really I suppose yesterday at this point), I decided to check out the coiffure (hairstyling place) once more. If there was no one there, I confirmed to myself that I would not be getting my hair cut at all (at least during this semester). However, as everyone else in the world seemed to know, it turns out that hairstyling places are typically closed on Mondays (apparently in France, as well as in the States). In any case, I set out the conditions beforehand and had little alternative but to have my hair cut, except for the possibility that they couldn't cut my hair at that time (at which point I also would have decided not to have my hair cut). As it turned out, I was able to indeed have a haircut. Somehow, the haircutter understood my hair situation, through a combination of my French and her ability to actually understand my hand motions, and gave me a pretty good haircut. I told her (more or less) that I wanted it relatively shorter than the long hair I possessed, that she needed to pay particular attention to the top of my head, and that my hair gets curly when my hair is dry. Towards the end of my explanation, she asked me if I wanted my hair somewhat like the guy's in the window display poster. I nodded and threw in a oui, and with professional precision, cut my hair within about half an hour's time. Glasses off, I felt the pangs of the past couple of years and a few months of work to keep my hair long and saw the rather dramatic difference in terms of my hair length getting shorter as she worked. In the end, my haircut ended up being 25 €; I'm thinking it's because she cut a substantial amount of hair off and re-styled my look.

After a quick stop at the pharmacie to attempt to try and find some hair gel, I headed off to school. My Travaux Pratiques class was focused primarily on grammar corrections, followed by a reminder of the quiz we have to study for, as well as the multiple dossier projects we have to work on, by Thursday. My immigration class was great, as usual. We're beginning to get into immigration and citizenship theory within the French context. Fun stuff. I know, right? :)

I got my first set of grades back from both classes. I need to learn more French grammar quickly and concretely. Trevor and I have decided to take it upon ourselves to speak even more French and will soon try to proofread each other's papers.

After my five hours of class, we had our weekly conférence. This time around, the subject was the French media. Somehow, the hour-long meeting felt like only 20 minutes. There were two speakers, at least one (if not both) from RFI (Radio France International).

Following the conférence, I joined Gerald, Jill, and Sam, on the métro to tram ride to the Fondation for dinner, where we met up with Claire, Nicole, and Trevor. Trevor and I then went back to my room to work on some homework. In between my corrections and such, I happened to make some three-cheese bread as a snack, even though we both agreed that we didn't need to eat anymore. Comme toujours, we ended the night with my hot chocolate and some pains aux chocolat.

Getting Our Hot Chocolate On

MDR (Mort de rire, i.e., "dying of laughter", a.k.a., LOL). That's the only possible way to start this blog entry.

Today, I woke up to some wonderful Parisian snow, which would eventually turn into wet mush by the end of the day. In any case, the Métro was pretty packed today, especially in the morning, as people were recharging their Métro cards and heading off to work. I eventually got to class, and met with half the class, as everyone else was held back quite a bit because of the snowy conditions. I had my only class (economics) and then had the rest of the day to myself until the early evening when I had to return back to school to watch a movie for my immigration and citizenship class.

To pass the time, I walked along the Champs-Elysées, doing some window shopping for part of the time and taking part in the final markdowns for the winter season for the rest of the time. I then made my way over to the haircutting place I came across yesterday and, after going back and forth on whether or not I should get a haircut, found the place to be closed for the day, even though I was very much there before their posted closing time. I could technically call whomever at the place to set an appointment, but I didn't even see a contact number on the store front. So, I headed over to Franprix, only a few more stores down, and completed my grocery shopping for (hopefully) the next week. Following the end to my shopping excursion, I made my way back to school. On the way over, I found a really great crêperie/bar place just outside of the Dupleix stop; I had my cheapest and honestly best-tasting crêpe there. Were it not for the rain, I probably would've finished all of it by the time I got back. In any event, I eventually got there and met up with a few of my classmates from my immigration and citizenship class. Together, we watched Caché, which for some reason or another, has been added to my list of could-be-kinda-good-if-only-I-understood-what-just-happened kind of movies. After a quick stop at a pharmacy after the movie, I returned back to my room.

Yesterday, Trevor and I had planned to eat the rest of our salmon and green beans leftovers (which we did), but somehow ended up having yet another five-course meal in the process. I'm beginning to think that "leftovers" is an actual course title. In any case, we had:

*Leftover salmon with green beans (plus the choice of including leftover rice)
*Three-cheese (comté, emmental, and gouda) two-pasta casserole
*Salad
*Cheese (five cheeses this time around; the above, plus chèvre and rocquefort)
*Galette de la marmotte (to celebrate Groundhog's Day, we added a chocolate-covered marshmallow bear and a broken up mini macaroon (for the "ground") to our galette de bonne année), as well as liégeois au chocolat

Gotta go and finish up the rest of my homework... To end the night, Trevor and I plan on finishing up with our traditional hot chocolate (i.e., chocolat chaud) course.

The Rest of My Weekend and Les Restes

Well, so much for the touristy bit of my planned weekend with Lauren. Instead, we decided to just go ahead and go with the flow. We didn't actually get moving around Paris until about noon; before that, we took our time eating breakfast and getting ready for the day. Eventually, we made our way to Montmartre--reminiscent of my brief visit there freshman year of college--and somehow seemed to stumble upon the Sacred Heart of Montmartre (i.e., Sacré-Coeur). We made our way through the pilgrim's path within the basilica. About a quarter of the way in, I stopped in the bookshop area and purchased a text which included the order of the Mass, in French. Before even getting to Sacré-Coeur, I was able to purchase a new beret (I still think it was taken out of my suitcase during the baggage check, but I'm not quite sure...), and we tried vin chaud in a little courtyard outside of an adjoining parish. Following our visit to the basilica, we headed further down, just before t he tourist trap area, and after doing a bit of window shopping/shop exploration, had a mid-afternoon lunch at a pizzeria. Since it was cold and I wasn't thinking about the evening weather in terms of dress, we headed back to my room to warm up and fetch a proper jacket. I introduced Lauren to the chocolat chaud that Trevor and I usually end our day with (not the best idea when the day isn't yet over); afterwards, we didn't quite want to move. Even still, though, we found the energy to go back out and walked (and re-walked) the Champs-Elysées. At one point, we stopped in at Sephora. I had been to one in Michigan, and the one there had nothing on this one in Paris; there were so many choices of everything, and that along with the mélange of smells was quite a bit overpowering. After a quick stop at the Disney store (they played the French version of "He Lives in You"; SO great!), we decided to get some dinner which, had been decided a long time ago, ended up being sushi, to celebrate Lauren's 21st birthday. We quickly found the Japanese restaurant that's only a few blocks away from the apartment building. I had salmon sashimi with rice (I think that's what it's called), and a variety of dumplings that reminded me of Filipino cooking. I must admit I rather like Japanese food here. To wrap up the night, we stopped in at the brasserie that's right next door to the apartment building, and toasted one last time to Lauren's b-day.

Today (Sunday), Lauren and I went to Notre Dame for a Gregorian Mass service. I have a bit of trouble following Mass in French; it was quite a bit difficult to follow it in Latin, especially without the guide sheet. After Mass, we came back to the apartment building and after Lauren finished packing, we went downstairs to join Trevor, Christine and Antoine, and eventually the kids, for our weekly lunch. It was relatively shorter, in comparison to our past meals, in large part because Lauren's train would be leaving soon. Comme toujours, Christine made a wonderful lunch. We began with an apératif, this time including quite a bit of Spanish influence. Following that, for our first course, we had salad, along with a flaky crust dish with somewhat of a salmon filling. I don't quite understand what's going on with my fish consumption, but I don't seem to be complaing much about it. For our second course, we had wonderfully-cooked chicken alongside rice. Our third course consisted of some cheese, and homemade bread. We then tackled the dessert which (at first, I got extremely worried at the mere possibility that it was made of mango) Chiristine quickly checked and confirmed it was made of passion fruit.

After lunch, Lauren and I lounged a bit to gather more energy, and then headed for Gare de Lyon, where I dropped her off a few minutes before she had to leave. After our good-bye exchanges, I rushed off to the grocery store to soon find out (again) that they were closed, but not as late as other stores are on a given Sunday. Failed by my attempt to purchase the items on my grocery list, I went back to my room to clean up a bit and began to continue my studying. Thankfully, I have only one class tomorrow and was able to get through the article (i.e., my only assignment for Monday).

Now, I could get ahead in my work... at least, that was the thought that Trevor and I had. We soon realised, however, that our study habits needed to relax for the time being, and thus began eating dinner. If you look it up in the translating dictionary, les restes is the French term for "leftovers," which Trevor and I had this evening. As we went through the night, we eventually (and accidentally) formed a five-course meal, and finished quite a bit of food in the refrigerator. I definitely need more room after tomorrow's shopping extravaganza. Tonight, we had:

*Boiled potatoes with raclette (a cheese which is melted for this dish) and prosciutto
*Leftover cream of mushroom chicken (Trevor had some of the leftover rice, as well)
*Salad with tomatoes
*A hodepodge array of desserts, including a berry-mousse dessert I artistically concocted and focused my attention on for quite some time. Eventually, I'll get photos uploaded so you can see my creations.
*Chocolat chaud with pain au chocolat

Tomorrow, Trevor and I have also decided to finish the rest of our leftovers, that time around including the salmon I cooked last Friday.

The Tour de Food

Hyuu! If you've been following my blog at all, you may have noted that we eat quite a bit here in Paris, and tonight was no exception. But first... I began my day by getting to my last class for the week: economics. The class definitely has the potential for some great discussion but, in the meantime, we're still trapped in learning about economic theory and the history of the European Union (mind you, all in French). At the end of class, I found out that not only do I have a different presentation partner, but I also have a different topic to work on. This'll be an interesting couple of weeks. Outside of that class, I had nothing else to do really, except think about the exciting meal that would soon ensue. (Really, I work on more than just food on any given day. :-P) On a repetitive note, tomorrow is grève day, but I found out that line 1, which is the main line that Trevor and I take since it's the closest one to us, will be operational. We're quite excited to see what Paris will be like.

So, in any case, I left the classroom building with grandious optimism and perhaps cautious enthusiasm with the meal plan Trevor and I had cooked up last night. We had divided up the grocery list, had gone through them at least 10 times to confirm what we needed to purchase, and I somehow still ended up buying salad and dressing (at least we bought different kinds of each). A few important notes about the shopping adventure:

1) I found another supermarché chain called Ed's, which seemed like it was cheaper than Franprix. Also, they had mangoes for 0,99 € each! So excited
2) Ever since French I (freshman year of high school), I have been looking for the French card game 1 000 Borne (pronounced "meel born"). I had lowering hopes as the day went by and I happened to come across a toy store by one of my stops and asked one of the workers if they happened to have the game. She looked and me and said Oui ! My eyes opened wide and I must've been too überly excited to realise that I would be paying 28 € for this game. Oh well, in my opinion, it was worth it.
3) I love the boulangerie patisserie that's like a half-minute walk from the entrance to our apartment building. Have I ever mentioned that?

So, with everything purchased and ready to go, I was about to start making dinner and then realised that Trevor and our dinner guest, Camille, wouldn't be back for another 5-6 hours, as they still had class and a movie to see for their film class. After waiting a bit, I commenced dinner preparations and got everything finished right on time. I think I've got this dinner serving thing down to a science. Voilà :

1st course: apératif + hors d'oeuvres (grilled/crisped pain de campagne rounds with tomato sauce topped off with chèvre)
2nd course: rice with cream of mushroom chicken, with a side of brocolli
3rd course: salad, with a choice of (we ended up trying both) salad dressing
4th course: cheese plate of rocquefort, chèvre, emmental, and comté, with a serving of sweet mango and a serving of sour mango, and a fresh baguette from our favourite bakery
5th course: three-part dessert -- mousse au chocolat noir with fresh berries (raspberries and blackberries... apparently really expensive here!) and a slice of galette de rois, followed by my improved chocolat chaud, along with pain au chocolat from our favourite bakery, a marshmallow bear, and a small piece of candied orange dipped in dark chocolate

Geeze, I'm getting hungry just typing the menu out. We've finally decided to slow down on the grandiose dinners, and are slowly bringing the eating to some level of cuisinary decency. However, Lauren is coming to Paris this weekend to celebrate her birthday (Joyeux anniversaire !) and the end of our "Tour de Food" will end Friday evening. Until then, bon appetit !

ps / Congratulations goes out to Camille for getting the fève, which definitely was called "Psycho Duck."

We Officially Have a Sixth Course

Today was, more or less, perfect. I’m kind of tired, though, and want to jump ahead to the dinner portion of the day, so I’m really going to make every effort to make this a short post.

After deciding to go to the laundry place some other day (because we were still tired after working on our homework for about 5,5 hours last night), I got ready for my day and got to school on time. I had the best class with Elisabeth (Travaux Pratique) to date, as well as a great class with Odile (the immigration and citizenship in Francophone cinéma course). Throughout Odile’s class, she was able to help us all make sense of the movie we viewed last Friday, Touki-Bouki. I’m really enjoying the classes so far. Then, we had to stay for a group conférénce, this time focusing on French politics. Olivier, the political science professor gave the talk and was quite entertaining and informative, and the fact that I could understand everything he said was surely a positive sign. During the day, I was able to find a nice boulangerie near the school, and we were also told that we would be experiencing our first grève in Paris. A grève is, generally speaking, a strike; in Paris, this means an almost complete halt of all transport systems in Paris. The situation is anticipated to be bad enough that they’ve cancelled our classes for Thursday. It should be quite interesting to see how the city operates without such means of transport as the Métro not being in service.

Straight from class, Trevor and I walked to the Dupleix Métro stop, only to find it wasn’t working. So, we headed for the La Motte Picquet Grenelle stop and, en route to the stop, did some supermarché shopping. Finally back at home, I began preparing our dinner, which was yet another five-course meal. I’ve titled this entry as us having a sixth course, but we did only have five courses, with one of those courses being a possible sixth one in the future (hope that makes sense). EntouK (texting shortcut for En tout cas, i.e., In any case), our first course (i.e., the new one) was an apératif, followed by our first plat being a rather unconventional round for us: eggs. Trevor had a bunch of them, some scrambled, a few sunny-side; while I had cooked whites with sugared ham. We then finished off the leftover baked pasta, to which I melted Leerdammer and Gouda into an additional portion of pasta sauce, for round 3. Round 4 came in two parts: our cheese plate, alongside fresh mango slices. Finally, we had our dessert round, which included a special (and may I say, favoured) form of chocolat chaud: the 86% cocoa form. :)

In the Real World, People Speak ‘French’ French

I know this may be perhaps rather cliché to say, but ‘real’ French can’t be taught in the classroom. Rather, it must be learned by talking and interacting with people; certainly, picking up mannerisms of a particular culture will soon self-translate themselves into understanding the language and sociolinguistic cues of the community one is trying to be a part of. Alright, enough of such talk.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I still have a lot to learn, particularly in terms of language and cultural nuances. Ever since I left for my entretien yesterday, I have been constantly being witness to ‘that which is French.’ My ride to Fontenay-sous-Bois was quite easy from Etoile, only taking half an hour. Julie, our internship placement advisor, was nice enough to come along with me to the internship site, as this is the first time that my internship site has worked with BU. After a quick stop at a vrai café (Julie told me that, in France, we’re not supposed to show up too early; one should arrive just on time, and a little after works just as well), we walked to the internship site, which is probably only about a two minute max walk from the RER station. We approached what looked like a house and were soon greeted by staff members of AFS Vivre sans Frontières.

Julie left me to (as I would soon find out) speak with the director of the programme, while I had my interview with Elsa and Simon. They were really nice and personable, and talked to me about the different responsibilities, the application process, and so forth. By application process, I mean that I’d potentially be on the administrative side of a study abroad programme, helping to match students with host countries and families, etc., as well as to orient students leaving France for one of AFS’s 50 destinations. In essence, I get to put my study abroad experience to good use! I’d say that’s quite up my alley, yebo?

After what I thought was my actual interview, Elsa showed me around the Vivre sans Frontières building and introduced me to the staff members; there are currently 14 people working with 400 incoming and 400 outgoing students. Hyuu! Following the tour, she showed me into the same room I had spoken to her in earlier and left to continue some work. After about five minutes, Julie came down with another staff member who told me I would now be going for my interview. I didn’t quite understand, as I thought I had just spent about 30-45 minutes talking to two people. In any case, Julie said she would wait for me, and so I followed this staff member upstairs and went into a small office in the corner of the top floor. It was about 17h00 by this time, and only one lamp atop the Director’s desk. I sat down and within about a four-minute interview session in French, the Director welcomed me (in English) to the group. So long story short, I’m 99 per cent sure I have the internship. I’m just not entirely sure, as I haven’t yet signed the formal contract. But, oh well, we’ll see what happens soon enough. In any event, the experience was rather interesting, and definitely opened my eyes to the fact that in the real French world (as opposed to the one in the BU building where people are more than happy to correct our French, slow down for us, etc.), people speak ‘French,’ not American French, or collegiate French, but actual French.

I suppose to continue the French experience, I unexpectedly cooked a five-course dinner for Trevor and I. Round 1 was a simple toasted baguette with Leerdammer and Gouda, as well as ham, followed by tomato sauce to which I added Gouda on slices of pain de campagne with baked pasta crusted with Emmental. For round 3, we visited South Africa for a bit and had carrot salad (2:1:1 ratio of carrots, apples and orange juice) paired with the white wine produced from Stellenbosch. After working on some homework in order to take a breather from the food we had just eaten (plus-que-parfait anyone?), we then had our cheese plate of chèvre, emmental and comté. We finished off our meal with a two-part dessert of mousse au chocolat noir and my favourite, chocolat chaud.

I Will Now Forever Think « Sceaux What ? »

I must first excuse myself for writing what feels like extremely long blog entries, even though I sort of vowed to write shorter ones more frequently. Unfortunately?, Saturday was yet another full day in France for Trevor and I. I’ll try and keep this one short.

As I mentioned in my pre-departure to Sceaux a post ago, Trevor and I chose to go to Sceaux (pronounced « so »… get ready for the jokes). We basically chose a random city and found out that a reggae concert was scheduled to take place in the evening. Of course, I was über-excited for the concert, not necessarily because it was reggae, but because I finally had a reason to wear the Bob Marley shirt I bought before arriving in France.

Before our departure to Sceaux, which ended up being rather « Sceaux-Sceaux » (get it?)—but I’ll get to that bit later—I prepared breakfast (which was why I couldn’t write more in the pre-departure post) [wow, I love strange sentence constructions] Noisy-le-Roi style, M.A. form. Recipe: heat up the milk until it starts to volumise (don’t let it burn or spill over) and pour into a drinking bowl; add an ounce of dark chocolate and as much chocolate milk powder comme tu veux (as you want). It’s great for dipping your daily bread (Wow. Didn’t even try there; let me know if you get it.), and that’s exactly what we did. Despite our natural desire to not move after consuming that much food at one time, we headed for the Métro.

The ride to Sceaux took us about half an hour by RER, and when we got out, I immediately saw it as Noisy-le-Roi, only a bit bigger. The city’s quite charmante but because we’re still in the winter season, it was rather cold and dreary. En route to who-knows-where-we-were-going-or-what-we-were-looking-for, we found the pétanque court (I was really hoping some people would be playing that day), a church (the Church of St. Jean the Baptist), and the Sceaux château. Apparently, we entered the château grounds from the back (ps/ this backyard is amazing!); however, the château was quite small and was actually converted into a museum in the 1930’s-ish era. We walked through the château in perhaps half an hour and particularly after having visited in the Louvre the day prior, we weren’t exactly impressed. We did find perhaps the coolest thing in the whole museum: a toy tree house encased in a glass box. What’s more, Trevor was extremely fascinated by a hanging model lamp hung by a piece of string. It really could have been a rod for all we knew. But seriously, a piece of string that potentially hasn’t moved in perhaps more than half a century? Kinda cool, nê?

Right outside of the museum was an exhibit titled Images et Magies d’Architecture (pretty sure you can figure that one out on your own). This was perhaps my favourite part of Sceaux and it wasn’t even a permanent exhibit. In any case, it killed the most time for us so that was great as well. There were quite a few interesting photos, and I’ll have to upload them to facebook soon so that I can link them to this blog. Here’s an interesting one, though, taken by Trevor: http://trevorkt.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/whatevs/img_0378/. I asked him what the first thing he thought of was when he saw this. He immediately replied to volume meters (music playing); I immediately responded with genetics (DNA results and such). On our way off the château grounds, we came across a cat that Trevor wrote as follows in his blog: « Also, there was a cat at the chateau. Just chillin. A bof cat. »

We were getting hungry at this point and settled for a café called Félibres. I’m pretty sure we only wanted something warm to drink, but as soon as we entered, the waiter spoke in a quick, almost guttural form French that blended all of the words together. Within less than a minute, he showed us to our seats and somehow ordered lunch for us. I was rather surprised with the quality of the meal (for only 10 €), followed by another great, voluminous (is that the word?) chocolate mousse.

So, while we were at the château, I thought that in Paris we usually say « Dude, we’re in Paris ! » or « Pourquoi pas ?! ». Well, we thought we had some wonderful revelation when we came up with saying « Sceaux what ? » in Sceaux, to be said when something doesn’t make sense or seems to go awry. However, it seems that Sceaux got to that long before we ever did and when we visited the Animathèque (a sort of headquarters) for the MJC (Maison des Jeunes Culturelles... or something like that), found a poster that listed Sceaux What as the site for the evening’s reggae concert.

At about 17h10, we thought of seeing a movie in the only movie theatre in Sceaux (Le Trianon), but they only had one screening room and were playing American films for the rest of the night. It seems like there are at least 250 seats in the theatre, so perhaps all of Sceaux shows up for these showings. With that option crossed off, we went back into the centre of the city and did quite a bit of window shopping. Throughout the day, we bought quite a bit of food from the boulangerie-patisserie, and I finally found mangoes (3 for 5 €… YES!). We went into a toy store and would have finally bought 1 000 Borne, but they were out of stock. Thankfully, I was able to buy my French notebooks, as well as some pocket guide French books at a bookstore, and found more chocolate stores than I could have imagined would ever been in Sceaux. The pièce de la résistance of the chocolate excursion was definitely a giant bear made completely of chocolate.

Due to us still needing to wait for about 1,5-hours for the reggae concert, the fact that it was getting quite cold and we were running out of places to visit at night, and the thought that perhaps the entrance fee wouldn’t quite fulfil our expectations of a reggae concert, we decided to head back to Paris. We went home and cooked croque-monsieurs for dinner which definitely got better each round we cooked them, enjoyed our first cheese plate (4 out of the recommended 5, but beuf!), and ended with even more chocolat chaud (i.e., the NLR-MA form hot chocolate).

So much for keeping this one short, too!

Mercredi et Jeudi, 2/5 a Bag of Pasta Goes a Long Way!

The next two days were (more or less) repeats of the first two days. I can't believe it, but I was doing the math one day and with 15 hours of class every week, we really will be completing a whole semester's worth of work in half a semester. A mon avis, that is both exciting and very scary.

My follow-up econ class on Wednesday was great, though it seems like we've dug deeper into basic economics for now, but entirely in French. We also completed a similar activity to Monday's, but had more time to go through it. My follow-up Travaux Pratique course brought both level-2 French students together and I eventually was surprised by having to go up in front of the class and do a practice entretien (interview). I can't remember if I mentioned this already, but my internship interview is this upcoming Monday. Things are beginning to get rather hectic here quite fast! For Odile's course, we had to read an article and a short story. I got through the article just fine (though, it was in English), but the short story was a bit of a challenge. However, we ended up watching the movie (which was based on the short story), so things fell into place quite nicely. The film was in French, but had English subtitles in white which, as Odile mentioned, was probably not the best idea. In any case, I think I knew enough French to understand what was going on. I quite liked it and if you get the chance, you should look it up. In English, it's called Black Girl. As a bit of a preface, following up Wednesday's courses was a meeting with Julie about our internships.

Wednesday was our planned dinner night and I aimed to go rather all out for this one. After my econ class, I went to an open air market, where I bought two much-needed scarves (only 10 €!!!) and some not-so-great cherries (I was a bit baffled as I had aimed to buy mangoes that apparently were imported from Peru). I had wanted to go to the Eiffel Tower to check and see if these old guys Trevor and I had seen the week before were playing pétanque. However, I decided I needed to get a move on prepping for dinner, if I had any chance of finishing on time to get to our meeting with Julie. I still didn't quite get around to explain what bread crumbs are to someone at the supermarché and so I decided to make the bread crumbs myself. I checked the method again on-line and realised what I had done wrong when I tried grating the bread with a grater... it was both stale and not dry enough to be broken up into pieces. So, I decided to toast the bread in the toaster oven, as I began to cook some pasta. Then, I butterflied the chicken breasts and folded ham and Leerdammer cheese into it, coating the folded chicken with the freshly toasted and crumbed breadcrumbs. I didn't quite know at the time whether the toaster oven was in Centigrade or Farenheit, so I chose to set it to 260 degrees. As it was cooking, I realised the toaster oven was in Centigrade (donc, I cooked the chicken at about 500 degrees Farenheit!). It was all good, as I had cooked it in a heavy, ceramic dish. In the end, I cooked the chicken for about 40 minutes, and the pasta for about 30 minutes, if not more. Surprisingly, it wasn't completely non-aldente, but it was definitely melt-in-your-mouth pasta. With the chicken and pasta all done, I had to rush off to the internship meeting. However, when I was on the second Métro stop, I wasn't too confident that I had shut off the stove and so had to therefore rush back upstairs to check up on it. Luckily, it hadn't been left on, but I was definitely going to run late to the meeting. Thankfully, I didn't miss much nor was I quite late; I was honestly quite relieved that others, including one of the professors, got in after I did. The meeting was yet another orientation session to the internship, particularly in preparation for our interviews. At one point, Julie kind of announced to everyone that my internship company will be paying for my lunch. (How cool is that deal?!) Speaking of food, I was getting rather hungry, so Trevor and I split from the group and made our way back home.

I had to complete some finishing touches to the dinner. After heating up the sauce and mixing it with the pasta, I poured the lot over the chicken, sprinkled quite a bit of mozarella on top and melted it all together, baking it until the cheese melted. While that was going, I had sweetened carrots boiling away. I was able to time everything together and eventually got the courses out on time. Now, I think I'm ready for my turn on "Hell's Kitchen" or something. In any case, I also made a first course of toasted bread, slices with a different cheese on it, and following that, we dug into the pasta and chicken... twice. Following that course, we had our cheese and cherries, and then somehow made room for cookies and dark chocolate covered marshmallows for dessert. OMG, was it délicieux! Perhaps unsurprisingly, we had quite a bit of pasta left over, and decided to save it for our next meal.

Thursday evening after classes, Trevor and Camille were off on take two of their movie theatre hunting adventure. They invited me to come along and we eventually found the theatre they were looking for. We briefly stopped in at a boulangerie patisserie that was nearby the theatre and then made our way back for the film. We thought it was going to be only in French, but it turned out to be in both Ukranian and German, with French subtitles. That aspect in it of itself was an academic and mindblowing challenge to get through. After the movie (which Camille had to leave early in order to make it to her host family dinner in time), Trevor and I made our way back to the house and realised that everything was pretty much closed. As we had gotten there straight from school, we hadn't eaten any dinner and thus took the opportunity to go on a food hunt. We chose to check out the Champs-Elysées, figuring it'd probably be the area that was still up around 22h00. Thankfully, we figured correctly and happened upon a great boulangerie shop place, and which was quite cheap (given the otherwise expensive nature of the CE). I bought a Caesar baguette with Orangina and a pain au chocolat for less than 7€. We then hopped back on the Métro and got back to Argentine. When we got back, I got a rather brilliant idea of eating the leftovers from Wednesday night and (I think) outdid myself again. I took the leftover pasta, and topped it off with the rest of the mozarella (that's most likely what made it taste great) and baked the lot while we ate our meal from the boulangerie shop place. When the pasta came out, the cheese had melted perfectly and had a bit of a baked crust to it. We surprised ourselves and finished the pasta; can you believe it...? The pasta, in total, was only 2/5 of the bag of pasta I bought. I have the feeling pasta in various forms will be quite the staple for us. To end off the meal, we had our usual cheese course and then got to our dessert (the pain au chocolat). Fortunately, Trevor hadn't yet tried chocolat chaud the way I had it in Noisy-le-Roi (which perhaps one reason why he responded with Pourquoi pas? to trying it), so I heated up some milk, added an ounce of dark chocolate and mixed the lot together with chocolate milk powder. Combined with the pain au chocolat, it was a great way to end yet another four-course meal.