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....