We're home.

And what an adventure we've had.

I'm not going to get into it right now, as I haven't showered in three days, but lets just say that we got to know the Milan Malpensa airport REALLY well, and we aren't too impressed with EasyJet right now. And we ended up spending a ridiculous amount of money to get a flight home with AirFrance (all the shoes I could have bought in Milan....sigh).

I've never been so happy to be back in Paris.

Happy New Year everyone!

(edited to add something about food: I don't think I have ever eaten as much as I have in the past week. Steve took pictures. It was ridiculous. They pretty much had to roll us off the plane).


On the way to the airport on Saturday morning, hoping to get some tickets home.


Feeling much better about things with our tickets to Paris for the next morning.


Steve making friends with the information lady at the airport.

Duck

So, Steve's here.

It's been a long week of catching up and not sleeping enough, but as of right now, I'm finally officially on vacation. My students have all been so sweet, and I was surprised to be given a few gifts this week. Our house is overflowing with chocolate, and I am consistantly snacking on all of it all of the time. I'm sure things will get better in Italy...

Last night we had our own 'Christmas' here in Paris. And of course, I made duck. Or magret de canard, to be official, which is actually the breast from ducks that have been force fed to make foie gras. Doesn't that make you hungry? I've always known that duck was fatty, but I had never really realized how much fat until I started cooking these things, and they basically deep fried themselves. And there was still about a 1/4 inch of fat on them in the end. I'm not going to write out the recipe, but the duck was marinated in port and basil, then served with a port-wine reduction of figs and pears. The boys thought it was fantastic, and I did enjoy it although I couldn't eat the fat. It also could have been cooked a bit more, but it was so hard to tell under all the fat. For dessert I had picked up an assortment of pastries from Lenotre, which were all to die for. Sorry, no pictures.

We leave bright and early tomorrow for Italia, and I have to say that I have done the least amount of work preparing for this trip. We have plane tickets and a rental car, and the rest of the details are being left up to the boys (or more accurately Steve, who is talking, I mean shouting, to Antonio right now trying to figure out how to get from the airport to his house. Wish us luck).

Did I mention that when Steve first arrived on Tuesday morning at 5:30am, he was wearing a suit and speaking only in French and Japanese? He's still wearing suits, but luckily has switched to English for the time being..... I have a feeling it will be Italian soon.

Must get packing. On the menu tonight is either Indian food at the restaurant next door, or meat at Les Rendevous des Amis. Did I mention that our plane leaves at 8:00 am tomorrow? So much for sleeping in.

Ciao!

On the Menu

So, there's a theme to blogging this month. Any ideas? :)

Another week has flown by, and I can't believe we're seven days closer to Christmas. Seriously, I feel like I need at least another week or two before we head off for the Italian Christmas Fiesta. We finally put up some decorations, (love the gingerbread people, Karina) and bought some lights to hang around our window, so it's beginning to look a bit festive around here.

It was another pretty quiet Saturday for us. We've made the mistake of starting the third season of 24 last weekend, and have thus been glued to the computer all week, trying to get through the season before our houseguest arrives. The oven saga continued with Erik taking a trip out to some electronics store near Nation to pick up the fancy fuses we need to make the darn thing work. And work it does. After our afternoon gym session, we made the oven make up for the two weeks its had off.

On the menu tonight (recipes from the Williams Sonoma Paris cookbook):

Oeufs en cocotte--another stupidly easy French recipe. Take out ramekins (or cute little yogurt pots). Put a bit of butter in the bottom. Crack one or two eggs into the ramekin. Sprinkle chives on the egg. Drizzle cream. Cover with Parmesan and Gruyere. Put into dish filled with boiling water, and cook in the oven until the whites are set. Enjoy.

Roast Pork--the recipe had some name about the 'flavours of the sun' or something cheesy like that. It got off to a bad start at the grocery store, that has been under renovation for the past couple of months. Which usually isn't a problem, but now that it's Christmas there are tons are seasonal products to display, and they're changing things around daily, it's almost impossible to find things. So, I wasn't able to get ANY fresh herbs and had to use pre-chopped parsley, dried sage, and dried rosemary. The other problem is that when I use English recipes I have no idea what the French name is for the cut of meat, so I just bought what looked like a pork roast in the meat section (which had been moved and minimized since I was there last night). In the end I don't think the roast I chose had enough fat, plus it didn't really unroll, so we had to slice it in half a bit to smear the herbs, garlic and oil, before rolling it back up and roasting it. Easy enough, except that we realized once it was done that there was no salt in it, and we cooked it for too long, even though we halved the cooking time. Must get a meat thermometer. Hopefully the leftovers will make good sandwiches.

Flageolets--these are some kind of French bean (the legume, not the green been). Anyway, could only find the canned kind, tossed them with butter, garlic and parsley, and they were delicious.

Dessert--am waiting for Erik to get off the phone with Steve, who arrives at 5:30am Tuesday morning, so that we can go and get crepes.

*Erik has discovered that there are ten flights coming in from Asia between 5:30-5:45 that morning. Thats a lot of tired people looking for a way into the city. Not sure why we found that interesting.

Life is just one big meal.

Sometimes I feel like I'm just killing time until the next meal. Seriously, work just gets in the way of all the food we could be eating.

Anyway, after a fruitless trip to BHV in search of an oven fuse, where Erik and I got separated, we met up at the gym and had a fantastic workout. I love going to the gym. We're in the process of learning all the new classes right now, and so far they are all amazing. And Erik is revelling in his strength that has all the French gym rats checking out the charges on his bar.

As I mentioned yesterday, last night we were cooking from Ina Gartens Barefooot in Paris cookbook. I received this book as a birthday gift before we left Toronto, and although we've made a couple of dishes from it, for some reason we've never really gotten into it. Until last weekend when Erik made boeuf bourguigion, and we started drooling over all the fantastic recipes that are in there. So last night it was pear, endive and roquefort salad, and steak with bernaise sauce.

The salad was so ridiculously easy, I can't believe we've never made it before. The hardest part was finding the walnuts at the grocery store, without the shell. All you do is arrange the endive leaves on each plate, toss slices of pear in the dressing, arrange the pears on the endive, crumble on the cheese, add the toasted walnuts, and drizzle the whole thing with more dressing. And the dressing was the exact same vinaigrette that we always make, mustard, vinegar and oil, with the addition of an egg yolk, which I added because we're in France, and we're into 'extreme' eating here. I think the egg yolk just thickened up the dressing, and made it bright yellow.

The steak was pretty basic, although next time I think we should head to the butcher to get really good ones. I somehow managed to leave two ingredients for the sauce off the grocery list, so instead of the tarragon, I used parsley, and I only had about half the amount of butter that was required (I'm really getting irritated by the imperial quantities used in American recipes. How am I supposed to know how much two sticks of butter is? What the heck is a quart?). As a result (I think) the sauce was really runny, and very vinegar-y. But Erik liked it, and it still tasted good. We served it with boiled potatoes.

The meal was so good that I'm having a hard time remembering what we had for dessert.

This morning I woke up craving pancakes, and decided to give them a try without butter. I have never made pancakes without butter, because butter makes everything better. I have to say, not only was it way easier to just use oil, I think they came out crispier in the end too. I may be converted. I added cinnamon and banana slices, and we slathered them with, what else, Nutella. To die for.

I wonder what we'll have for lunch....

A New Challenge

I think we can do it! A whole 1500 grams of goodness!


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And on an unrelated note, here is the bounty that we brought home from the wine show we attended a couple of weeks ago. We've polished off two of the bottles so far, and I'd post the names, but we stupidly recycled the bottles. Too bad, because they were delicious. Unfortunately, none of them are available at stores in Paris :(


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An on another unrelated note, Erik has been losing some weight around his midsection. He thought it would be funny to show everyone how he has managed to lose this weight. Well, that and a steady diet of bread and cheese, among other things. I'm only kind of kidding.

(plus, if you look carefully, you can kind of see the amazing watercolour that my mom did of the Time Machine, propped up against our tv.)

More Good Eats

It's been another busy week, and again, I was surprised (and relieved!) when Friday rolled around yesterday.

Last weekend we headed out to Pavel and Tatiana's for a Russian meal. None of us really knew what to expect, except a lot of vodka. When we arrived, the table was set with three large salads (and I mean large, each salad could have served at least 10 people. There were eight of us). One was Pavel's famous layered herring salad which we'd had before, there was a pickled vegetable salad, and a potato-type salad. All were delicious, and were of course accompanied by vodka. Which actually wasn't that bad. And apparently the Russians drink their vodka with pickles, and Tatiana had made her own dill pickles witch were also delicious, and a surprisingly tasty partner to the drink. There were also little homemade buns stuffed with cabbage, hard boiled eggs and cheese, that are called pirogi. Last time we were there we had talked about pirogi, and how they were such an easy thing to cook when we were in university. Tatiana was very confused, and we learned why when she whipped these things out. Apparently the pirogi that we eat in Canada are actually called something else in Ukraine. The main course was meat baked with onions and cheese on top, and was also very good. For dessert we had a red berry semifreddo-type dessert, that was very refreshing. What an experience! There was so much food left over that Erik got to have it again for lunch the next day when Pavel invited everyone back to help finish the leftovers.

Here are some bad photos of the meal:

Tatiana, and the multi-layer herring salad. Pirogi in the basket on the right.


Bicher and Alex behind the two other salads. Note how much was left. This was after everyone had been served.


The aftermath. Pavel has a habit of carting out the digestifs after dinner, and last weekend was no exception. The Suze wasn't too popular though.

On Tuesday we saw the movie Babel. What a great movie. So interesting, neither of us could sleep that night because we kept thinking about it. Highly recommend it, and not just because Brad Pitt is in it. Parts of it also take place in Japan, and I spent much of the movie nudging Erik every time I heard a 'des-ka' or 'konichiwa'. We want to go back.

On Thursday we were woken up at 5:30am by the Braveheart soundtrack, and other surprisingly good tunes blaring from the apartment above. We waited it out for about thirty minutes before Erik decided to be an 'adult' and tell them to turn it down.

And last night, we had dinner at the other restaurant I had made reservations at. This place was right around the corner, but we seriously have to start making our reservations for a later time. I always say 8:00, because it seems kind of late for some reason. But realistically, neither of us get home until 7:00 on Fridays, and we usually eat dinner at 9:00 or 10:00 during the week, so I don't know. Anyway, of course we were the first people there, and it was so uncomfortably quiet until the place started filling up.

I have to say that this place was a bit of a disappointment. We were both seated on the same side of our table, which was odd, and it was right in the entry, which was kind of interesting because we could watch the bar, but we really felt like we were on display once we started eating. The food was nothing spectacular, and certainly not worth the amount we paid for it. We think it was our most expensive meal yet, by a couple of euros. We've come a long way from the 9 euro menus that we were eating in Montmartre when we first arrived, but we haven't come too far.

So, the food. I had warm artichoke salad for an entree and confit de canard for my plat. The salad was fine, and the duck was good, but it was served with sauteed potatoes that were burnt. Erik had foie gras to start, and it's hard to go wrong with that, and andouillettes as his main, but his potatoes were burnt too, and he ranked his cafeteria andouillette higher than this one*. For dessert I had the Grand Marnier souffle, which I actually didn't like that much, and Erik had a yummy chocolate mousse. The bread was good, and I regret not eating more of it.

Anyway the place was called Chez Dumonet and it is at 112 rue Cherche Midi. The food that was being served around us looked good, so eat at your own risk.

This weekend we have a date with Ina and her Paris cookbook. Steak with bernaise sauce; pear, endive and roquefort salad, and some dessert that doesn't involve the use of the oven. It broke again. We're off to the basement at BHV to look for another fuse. Plus, if we do get the oven fixed, I intend to buy some beaters (only 25 euros at Darty!) and do some baking. Wish me luck.

*For anyone who's interested, the first place goes to the Encrier; the cafeteria andouillette is number two and third place goes to the Raspail Vert.

Good Eats.

It's report card time again, which means that I have lots of time to update you on the goings on of our life.

We had a fantastic dinner last night at a restaurant recommended by one of the many Parisian blogs that I read.

The restaurant was Les Fils de la Ferme, and was surprisingly close to our house. We found the service to be a bit snooty, especially towards the end, but it certainly didn't affect our enjoyment. The amuse bouche was a foam of crushed peas and mint, which was a nice refreshing way to start the meal. For our entrees, we had risotto with carrots and caraway, and oeufs en cocotte with foie gras, both were delicious. Our main course consisted of lamb and daurade, which were both satisfying, and not too filling, which left us just enough room for the most important course of the meal. Erik had the chocolate dessert, which was a chocolate ganache with lychee sorbet. I had creme brulee with some kind of honey, which gave it a very earthy flavour. Very interesting, and very yummy.

We've got another selection lined up for next Friday, Chez Dumonet, which I'm sure we've walked past a zillion times on the way to our old standby Midi Vins, so it will be fun to try it out.

Plus, Erik is making beef bourguigon, which smells fantastic. He also thinks it would be fun to do an Erik/Ina challenge, a la Julie/Julia project. I can't complain, but I think I like cooking too much to sit on the sidelines too often.

Plus, we're being treated to an authentic Russian dinner tomorrow night at Pavel and Tatiana's. Erik has been preparing me with stories of vodka being served in large quantities. Hopefully we'll be able to make it home...

Erik just offered to write some report card comments for me (I declined, of course). Then wondered how Azizullah was doing...ahh memories of a life teaching in a system that didn't have holidays every six weeks. What torture.

What's the deal with French eggs?

How come they don't have salmonella?

Raw eggs are everywhere here: cracked on top of hot pizzas, floating on the top of your steak tartare, incorporated into all sorts of mousses and foams and mixed into cake and cookie doughs that kids are encouraged to lick off of their fingers (we baked at school today).

Why is it that eggs in North America are so taboo? Is it just that North Americans are more paranoid about what they eat? Or is it that the food here in France is just generally of a higher quality, and therefore can be eaten raw?

France vs Argentina and Torie vs Crowds

So it's time for that rare treat, a blog entry from Erik. We had a pretty amazing saturday yesterday, spent watching the France - Argentina test rugby match. Argentina had collected a couple of scalps on their trip through europe the last few weeks, so both they and Torie were bristling with optimism about the day's prospects.

So here's a shot of Torie enjoying a little elbow room, the last time she would experience that little luxury for the next few hours.

We voyaged out to the stadium on the RER, just like every single other person in Paris apparently. The crowd on the train was quite impressive, as was the crowd getting off the train, the crown going towards the stadium, the crowd for beer, etc, etc.

That building in the far background getting outshone by Torie's dazzling smile is the Stade de France. It's a short but thirsty walk from the RER to the stadium, so some refreshments were in order. A surprisingly affordable beer and some interesting characters, always nice surprises. The crowds, although well-lubricated, are always very calm and convivial at rugby games, unlike soccer games, but we won't get into that.... We had just eaten lunch, so we didn't have room for that classic rugby snack, foie gras (!!!) but it was quite a popular booth.

It was a pretty good game, with France not showing any type of the dominance they should have, given that they are ranked number 2 in the world right now. France went up by a few tries in the first half, but Argentina came back within a point in the last 5 minutes. A last minute 50/50 kick would have put them in for the win, but France got lucky, received the kick a little too sloppily, but cleared away for a safe win.



But the adventure never ends there.... Naturally the crowd getting back to Paris was equally huge. A short delay to let the largest masses rush for the first trains (that shot on the left is what a crowd looks like from below) didn't really do much. However, everyone was nice enough to stand still for the picture below. Very polite of them really. You can see the gap on the left where the police had formed a human wall to prevent everyone from rushing the gates. Really, when you consider the number of people leaving the event all at the same time, it was a surprisingly quick journey back to Paris.




But of course no rugby day is finished without a meal of chipolata-leek risotto and champagne. An outstanding combination, the champagne really cleanses the palate and makes each bite of risotto as rich as the first. Not exactly a polish sausage beside the parking lot at Eglinton Flats, but not too shabby in a pinch.

So that was a great day. Again!

It seems that Japan will be in Canada's pool in the rugby world cup next summer, so they will play each other somewhere here in France. I think we will be there.

A trip down memory lane

After brunch on Saturday, Erik and I walked up to Montmartre to spend the afternoon and go out for dinner.

I don't think we've been back to that neighbourhood just the two of us since we left. We've enjoyed taking people up to Sacre Coeur, and taking them to the Zebre and Bar, but it's been a long time since we just wandered around and remembered how different our life was when we lived there.

We started off with a walk up rue Dancourt, past all the same touristy shops and restaurants. We continued straight up the stairs to Sacre Coeur to enjoy the view.

I have to say, it's still my favorite view of the city, and we were lucky, as it was a clear day, so we had an excellent view of the tour Montparnasse and all the other more beautiful landmarks.

We made our way through Place du Tertre and checked out the art work before heading back down towards rue des Abesses to peruse the shops. Our favorite bakery was packed, and unfortunately we were way too full to contemplate a baguette. All the shops looked the same, and being a Saturday, the neighbourhood was bustling. I miss doing my shopping in those stores. So much more fun than the Inno.

Anyway, we eventually stopped for a drink, and considered our next move. We were both exhausted from walking, but it was only 3:30, and we were planning on eating dinner at the Cercle. Which left us with about four hours to kill. We eventually decided to head home and come back for dinner, which of course didn't happen. We ended up at the Time Machine, and ate at the Midi Vins, and decided it was a fitting end to our day. Montmartre is a fantastic area, but we feel quite at home next to the big tower in Montparnasse.

Best of Brunch

On Saturday morning, Alex invited us over for brunch.

And what a brunch it was!

We started with bacon (that Erik had to cook, because he was the man) and eggs with goat cheese. Then Katharina had made little toasts with magret de canard that she served with fig jam. Yum! We then had a charcuterie plate with fresh bread. We finished off the meal with crepes that Alex had made, which she served with maple syrup and Nutella. And she served coffee with foamed milk. Alex has this cool little electric whip thing that made a small container of skim milk into foam for cafe au lait. Amazing!


Alex and Erik in the kitchen


Bon apetit!


The cafe au lait


Sooo satisfied!

Remeber this post?

November 15, 2005

Well, we're here!

Exhausted, and a little disoriented, but we made it to our place with our 200+ lbs of luggage.

First of all, let me recommend that you don't fly American Airlines. It really was a fine flight, but for some reason, flying through Chicago really didn't make any sense (we were going the wrong way...plus a long layover). And the food was quite possibly the worst I've ever had. It will just make the Parisian kind taste that much better!

Well, our apartment is pretty awesome. We have literally just walked in the door (after making 4 trips up in the ancient elevator--its just big enough for one person and a suitcase. We had four), and wanted to share the views that we have from our windows. They might not be the nicest views in Paris, but they're really the only ones we've seen yet, and we think they're pretty awesome (by the way, flying into the city was so dissapointing! We were hoping to see some of Paris, but the plane somehow managed to completly avoid it, and we got to see farmers fields instead).

So, here you go. Enjoy, know that we're here safe, and we'll write more as soon as we've eaten (or maybe tomorrow).

Take care,
E+T

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November 15, 2006
Hard to believe it's only been one year!

I feel like we've been here for so much longer, and I have to admit that I've fallen in love with this city.

Part of my excitement at reaching the one year mark is that it brings us that much closer to moving back to Canada and all the people and places that we miss, but I'm beginning to realize how much I'm going to miss Paris when we're gone.

I love seeing the Eiffel Tower sparkle every hour, I how every inch of this city is so beautiful, I love how good the food is, and I love how polite people *usually* are. I love that we live in a building that throws parties in the courtyard, and I love having school holidays every six weeks. I love that we have a cafe called the Time Machine on the corner of our street where we know everyone who works there, and they know us. I love that we have a long list of restaurants that we need to try. I love that we managed to find good restaurants, after the terrrible, terrible 10euro tourist menus that we were eating when we first got here. I love that people get dressed up for everything. I love that they're setting up a skating rink in front of the Tour Montparnasse, and I love that we can easily rely on public transit for almost all of our transportation needs. I love that you can order champagne with your meal and people don't think you're crazy. I love that we think that it's reasonable to drink Champagne on special (and not so special) occasions. I love that Erik is turning into a wine snob.

I could go on, but it doesn't change the fact that I think we're pretty happy here. It's been a long year, and it's probably been one of the hardest years of my life, but it makes me pretty proud to look back on everything that we've been through this year and realize that we're doing alright. Actually better than alright. We've spent more time together than we ever would have if we'd stayed in Toronto, and we still enjoy each others company. There's no one that I'd rather be in Paris with, and that makes it a dream come true.

(Please attribute any sappiness in this post to the Champagne that was ordered with dinner. My usual sarcastic self will be back in full force, probably tomorrow, after the field trip that I'm going on. Stay tuned...)

Drama and Perturbance

This morning at the nursery school there was an extensive drama that developed after the 'closing' of the school gates.

A parent rang the school bell at 9:17 to drop her two boys off.

The day at the nursery school starts at 9:00. The director greets students until 9:15 as 'a favour' (her words) to the parents. Anyone arriving after that time is a huge inconvenience to director, the teachers, and the other students, and shouldn't be let in. And apparently at regular French schools, the gates are literally locked (like ours was) and no one will let you in after the designated time. This is normal procedure.

Initially, I really didn't understand what the fuss was about. Any public school in Canada (I'm assuming..) would allow any student into class at any time, although a late slip might be required after the bell. But I can't imagine a school locking it's doors an not allowing any one in after a certain time (although the whole locked gate thing would likely eliminate all of the strangers that seem to make it into schools these days...).

On the other hand, I kind of understand where they are coming from. Many of the kids arrive before 9:oo and are ready to go. It's not fair to them if kids are arriving at any time, and it disrupts lessons, which is going to happen with any child under the age of 5 who can barely remove his coat by himself. Plus, a parent is never going to learn if they are allowed to drop their kids off whenever they want. But I'm not a parent, so what do I know.

Any thoughts? The situation was only resolved because the lunch lady arrived, and the mother was still there, and the director had to let the lunch lady in, and thus the kids as well.

On an unrelated note, this has been a week of perturbance for me on the trains.

On Wednesday there was a strike by the SNCF workers, which made my usual 45minute commute to St Cloud into a 1.5 hour commute from hell.

Then tonight, on my way to tutoring, also in St Cloud, I discover that there has been a fire at some power station, and so my train is basically taking a huge roundabout that added an extra 45 minutes onto my regular 20 minute ride. I should be happy that the trains were running at all, but it's still frustrating.

And we still don't know what the strike was about.

What's the point of a strike if no one knows what you're striking about?

We're clearly not French enough yet!

And on that note, I got my note today for my carte de sejour medical, which is scheduled on a bad day for me. I called a couple of times today to try and reschedule, and no one answered the phone. No message or anything. Erik later told me that when he went for his, one of the two receptionists had just returned from grocery shopping, and the other was on a personal phone call.

Sigh.

It's almost hard to imagine things being any other way...

The Joys of 38square metres*

I don't know what we're going to do when (if) we ever live in a regular (by regular, I mean North American sized) apartment again.

I had to laugh when Erik just got up to get something out of the fridge, and the opening of the (bar sized) fridge door caused his computer power supply to fall to the floor.

Or how the last time Joan and Howard called, I had to call them back so I could move the drying rack to reach to phone.

Or how using the toaster oven sized oven is a more effective heat source than our electric heater.

It certainly is cozy, but aside from baking, there really isn't too much that we miss.

We're starting to think that everyone should just move to Paris instead of us moving back....










(just kidding!) (but do visit!)

*My handy online conversion tool tells me that 38 square metres is approximately 409 square feet for all you imperial people!

Récépissé

Almost one year later, and we're (well I'm) getting closer to being able to continue working here in France. I went this morning to pick up our récépissés (only between 9-12:00 please), which as far as I can understand are just another 'clue' on the 'scavenger hunt' through French beaurocracy that we get to enjoy.

Because Erik is 'simply' renewing his carte de sejour this year, he just has to wait until December when he can exchange the blue paper for a new card. I think. Not sure why he needs the blue paper, but the helpful people at the prefecture of police don't get paid to answer silly Canadian questions (I actually don't intend as much sarcasm as you might think in that paragraph. They were surprisingly un-condescending.)

Because this is my first time applying for one of these cards, I have to do a medical first. So, now that I have my blue paper, I have to wait for them to send me something in the mail, which will then allow me to get the medical done (chest xray here I come! I think xray films are going to become the hottest Parisian souvenir!). Once the medical is completed, I proceed directly the the building next door to collect my prize (or, carte de sejour).

Other than all this fun, I had a nice day yesterday at the musee des art decoratifs et la mode. Alex and I wandered through the exhibits detailing interior decoration from the middle ages to the present before meeting Anja to enjoy an exhibit on the French designer Balenciaga. The Balenciaga exhibit made Alex and I decide that we need more reasons to dress up. I certainly don't get to wear a ball gown often enough. I think Anja got a bit more ouf of the exhibit than we did though, she being the fashion student and all.

And we had a dinner party on Friday with Alex, Pavel and Tatiana. We enjoyed some fine food and fine wine in our lovely apartment. It was delicious, and I think everyone had a great time.

And tomorrow I get to go back to work. I do love vacations, but they certainly don't make it easier to get back into a routine. And I don't think there are any more days off until Christmas!! How will I survive??? If Erik were reading this as I type, he'd probably roll his eyes at me. Rightly so, I suppose.

Do we really need another reason to love red wine?

Red wine extract and obese mice

The Chocolate Salon

On Sunday Erik and I went to the chocolate festival extrodinare, the Salon du Chocolate.

And what a chocolate extravaganza it was! Never had we seen so much chocolate in one room. There's not really much I can say about the day other than the fact we both left on a huge sugar high, and Erik was impressed at the amount of booze they managed to mix in to the fun. We figured free samples of liquor are probably good for sales...


A sea of chocolate covered marshmallows.


Chocolate and champagne. My new favourite combination.


The home team.


Erik sampling a sursprisingly un-tasty chocolate rum treat.

In the end, we didn't actually buy very much. Most of the French chocolatiers that were there (well, I'm pretty sure they were all there!) all have boutiques in Paris, so it seemed a bit silly to go all out at the show. I did get a box of beautiful Japanese truffles, and some salted butter caramels from Normandy, which were fantastic, and Erik was pleased to purchase a bottle of Grand Marnier that isn't available in stores.

All in all, it was a delicious day.

Time to cook!

On Saturday morning, Erik and I met Alex at the Caroussel du Louvre to go the the salon Cuisinez! It was advertised as a cooking fair, with cooking classes included in the ticket price, as well as displays by many food producers and food related things.

We quickly realized that the cooking classes weren't all they were adverstised to be. There were only four cooking class venues, and sign up for the classes only opened 20 minutes before the class began. And the classes were only for about 15 people at a time. So, people were basically lining up at noon to sign up for a class at 4:00. Not having paid to stand in line, we moved on...

Luckily there were other things to see and do, many of the food vendors were offering free samples, and we tried some fantastic bread, a cointreau martini (yum!), some cookies, wine, and other things.

All in all it was an interesting experience, but the venue was way too small, and the whole event just seemed poorly organized.

We salvaged the rest of the day with an awesome Vietnamese lunch in Chinatown, and then Alex made us some awesome curry for dinner that we ate in her way-too-cute apartment.

Our food themed weekend continued today with chocolate.....

You know what's great about the holidays?

You get to catch up on all the things you don't have time for when you're working.

Like watching the season finale of Desperate Housewives (season 2--does Mike really die???).

And taking all those middle of the day fitness classes.

And going to the doctor.

And spending time with long lost friends.

Like my good old friend the 24hr blood pressure cuff.

Except that it's not a long lost friend, it's a friend I hoped I'd never see again. Sigh. I'm feeling sorry for myself, but hopefully doing this thing for the THIRD time will finally clear up the question of whether or not I have white coat syndrome. Cause I'm getting tired of going to the doctor and getting blood pressure readings that are through the roof.

Plus I have to pay for this one. The so called 'free' system here hasn't seemed to be very free yet, as I've had to pay for absolutely everything. This all day blood pressure fun (called MAPA here) is running me a cool 90euros.

I bet I could buy a nice pair of shoes with all that.

sigh. I'll have to rent a video instead. Limiting my activity to short 15 minute bursts is virtually impossible. And nothing looks stupider than the person who has to stop walking in the middle of the street amidst whirring and clicking sounds for 60sec.

Sweet Treats

My sweet tooth has reared it's ugly head again lately, and as a result, I've been perusing the grocery store in search of new remedies for this continuing problem.


I usually reach for a vanilla yogurt after lunch, but I have been getting tired of them lately, and we've developed quite a collection of those terra cotta pots, so I've moved onto something else. Flanby. I first discovered this treat as the dessert/cheese course of the nursery school lunch. It's a tasty, slightly sweet vanilla flan with a burnt caramel sauce. And when you dump it into a bowl, it jiggles like jello. Very fun.


The other recent purchase was a box of Petit Ecolier cookies. A nice butter cookie with a piece of chocolate on top. Add a glass of milk, and you've got a complete snack, as recommended on the back of the box. I often see kids eating entire boxes of these on their way home from school with their nounous (nannys). But they're tasty, and if you get the dark chocolate kind, not too sweet. I have yet to eat an entire box in one sitting though.

That's about it for now. We went to the Quebec bar on Friday night, and enjoyed a game of scrabble in French. It's harder than it sounds. I also took a picture of one of the signs with Canada crossed off of it, but unfortunately it's on my phone, and I can only get pictures off my phone with Erik's computer, and the computer is, unfortunately, dead. So, either the new computer with have an infra red port, or next time we go I'll bring the camera.

Howard Wins

Canadian Thanksgiving

Proud Canadians....

....eat cheeseburgers and french fries with their fingers.

Erik and I went out for dinner last night to one of the Canadian bars he and Roman discovered on their 'Canadian Bar Pub Crawl' (we're great hosts, aren't we? I don't think any of our guests have left without a trip to the Canadian Bar). We decided to save the poutine being offered for another time and both ordered burgers, which seemed to be a popular choice, judging by the plates on other tables. As we were waiting for our food, I noticed that every single person with a plate of burger and fries was eating the burger with a knife and fork!! I couldn't believe it! The only explanation we could figure for such un-Canadian behaviour was the fact that the bar was playing a French football game, so I'm hoping that it's not a regular occurence.

Because the burgers were really good, and Erik and I made sure to get right into it. We even licked our fingers, for everyone's enjoyment, when we were finished.

Anyway, we've now decided that this place, the Moosehead, is much better than the other one we'd been to, the Great Canadian. Not only is it closer (we can walk there), the atmosphere was kind of like a cross between Sneaky Dee's and a Firkin pub in Toronto. Plus, they serve pitchers, a rare sighting in this city.

(And would you believe that there are actually four Canadian bars in Paris? One of them is a cool little Quebec bar, that doesn't havea single maple leaf displayed among the plethora of fleur de lys. Canada was even crossed off of one of the Tourism Quebec posters in the bathroom. But with tourtiere on the menu, and games like pick up sticks to play, we can't wait to go back...)

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On a completely unrelated note, all the American teachers at the American school were shocked to find out that Canadian thanksgiving isn't at the same time as theirs. Unfortunately I didn't have a good explanation as to why that is, as I generally understand that we're all giving thanks for the same reasons?

Ok, I know it's been awhile, we've just been so busy with our boring everyday lives that I haven't had time to post.

Here's a quick update of what's been going on:

• We're going to Italy!! Finally bought our tickets last night, we're not sure when Steve gets here, but we're leaving for Milan on December 23 and will be gone for about a week. I've been preparing for this trip by making gnocchi. Using a recipe written in French. Not only did I learn what a torchon and a lechefrite were (dishtowel, cookie sheet), I also learned how vague French recipes can be. It didn't list a quantity for the flour. Just said add until it's not sticky. Almost an entire bag later, I decided I had added enough, but it was still a sticky mess! Anyway, Erik and I have decided that anything served with a garlic butter sauce is a good thing, so I may just try to make it again. Or ask for lessons in Italy.

• The stores were open on Sunday!!!! One of the things that continues to drive me bananas about Paris is the fact that NOTHING is open on Sundays. This means that Saturdays are a crazy stressful day because all errands and shopping need to be done on this day (plus a trip to the gym and about six loads of laundry without a dryer). Which means that they usually don't all get done, and we either starve on Sundays, or go without whatever thing we needed to buy (like the back up hard drive we've been meaning to buy since the last time Erik's computer gave him the blue screen of death. But then the computer revived itself, and we forgot about it. Except now that it's officially dead, we really wish we'd gotten one...) Anyway, to get back to my main point, for some reason, all the department stores were open on Sunday this weekend. We have no idea why, and there seem to be some pretty good sales going on aswell, so we took advantage of this to buy Erik some very fancy shoes. You should see him all dressed up now. He looks so French! He even changed out of his sweatpants last night to return the video (we're now finished season two of 24. Thank goodness there are two more to watch!)

• Because this past month and a half have been so incredibly stressful, I am happy to report that it is vacances scolaires season again! As of next Wednesday, I'm off for two weeks all because of Toussaint (or All Saints Day). Seriously, I'm beginning to think that Canada hasn't gotten the memo that these religious holidays should involve as much time off work as possible. I'd also like to mention that Armistice Day (Remembrance Day here) is also a holiday. Unfortunately it's a Saturday this year, and I'm not sure if there will be any pont taking so soon after Toussaint.

• Our apartment has been overtaken by some type of moth like insect. Every time we open the cupboards they fly out. We have no idea where they came from, or how to get rid of them, so we're working on peaceful co-habitation. At least they're not mice.

• And I think that's about it. It looks like Air Canada is having a seat sale in our direction, so if you're looking for a holiday, our place has a super comfortable air mattress to offer up (seriously, just ask Nancy and Daryl and Roman. They loved it!) We're seriously considering investing in a blanket for guests who choose to visit this lovely city in the colder months. We're still planning on coming home in June for various weddings. I'd like to visit sooner, but time flies, and let's be honest, I'm not a huge fan of snow. And I hear you've had some of that stuff back there already, so I won't mention that I was wearing sunglasses and a tshirt on when I went shopping this afternoon....
  

To Strasbourg and back again....

(click to see the rest of the photos)

Our visit with Roman began with a trip to Strasbourg. We raced out there in our rental car in time for our 2:00 brewery tour at Kronenbourg. It was worth the rush, though, despite it being a huge group of mostly Scottish high schoolers, the tastings were unlimited at the end. Until closing.

Otherwise, we found Strasbourg to be a bit boring. Erik and Roman were happy about the selection of beers, but the tourist things we did were quite dissapointing. From a sleep inducing boat tour to yet another church, we were ready to get out of there, so on Monday we took a day trip to Colmar, where we planned to do some biking around to different wineries in the area. I claimed that I'd only bike in the rain, so of course it rained that morning. The trip continued to go downhill when the tourist office didn't seem to have any sort of map detailing where exactly in the town the wineries were, and the bike rental place was closed. And the one winery that we did find yelled at Erik for tasting the wines in the wrong order. Other that that, it was a charming town, with lots of half timbered buildings, and it reminded us a lot of the Romantic Road.

I guess all the towns can't be winners, and we managed to have a good time regardless. We sampled flamekeuche, an Alsatian pizza, we had a nice dinner on the river, sipped white wine on an outdoor patio, and enjoyed the performances of local 'entertainers'.

Goodbye and Hello!

Last Friday we said goodbye to our good friend Zoe (sniff, sniff!)

It's hard to believe it's already been a year since she (and we) got here, and Paris won't be the same without her!

We also said hello bright and early on Saturday morning to Roman. We picked him up from the airport and headed straight to Strasbourg for the weekend. More on that later....

Two Problems

We seriously can't get enough of this show.


Paris has gone wine crazy, and after a dissapointing trip to the "Foire de vins" at the Inno we discovered the cave at the Grande Epicerie. We're in big trouble....

Anyone interested in a wine tasting/evening of watching 24??