The Johnspiel, en francais

La Première Championnat du Monde
Pétanque - (Division Ultra-Amateur, Intersexe**)

France vs Canada*

(*Pour simplification, toutes les pays qui ne sont pas le France vont etre classifié comme le Canada.
**Et, le gagnant du championnat pourra etre déterminé par des talents autres que le pétanque.)

Sur l'occasion de mon 31ième anniversaire, venez participer au première championnat du monde entre le France et le Canada. Toutes niveaux de competence sont bienvenue, particulièrement si vous savez les règles du jeu, car je ne les connais pas.
Aussi, si vous avez des boules, apportez-les SVP, on aura probablement qu'un ou deux groupes.

Endroit: Arènes de Lutèce , Rue de Navarre et 49, rue Monge
Métro : Place Monge, Jussieu, Cardinal Lemoine
Heure: Samedi, le 31 Mars, 16h00 (4 pm pour les anglo-saxons)

Note: En cas de temps désobligéant, un championnat alternatif sera tenu au bar Quebecois:
L'envol, Rue de Lacepede, 5ième
Concours alternatif: Bière quebecois et poutine

Happy Birthday Alex!

On Saturday night we went out to celebrate Alex's birthday.


We had dinner at a new Thai place in our favorite neighbourhood in the 11th.


Then set off for mojitos (they were out of cilantro! Boo!)


Then we finished off the night at the scary bathroom bar (sorry, no photo). A good time was had by all, especially the birthday girl.

Two Hits and a Miss

Last week I mixed things up with a couple of recipes from the Regal, a French cooking magazine that I occasionally pick up. They don't appear to have a website, but the cover does list a price for Canada, so you might be able to find it if you're really interested.

Anyway, it's always fun to try new recipes, and French recipes in particular are always a surprise. I find them to be consistently quite vague, and often the flavour combinations are not something I would ever have considered. Plus, it's good French practise.

So, I've typed up the two recipes that we enjoyed, so that you too, can cook a bit of France in your home (how cheesy is that?).

Keep in mind that measurements in particular are quite vague, and as I don't have measuring cups or a scale, my measuring consisted of either eyeballing or measuring vaguely using an empty Nutella cup. No problem.

Both recipes took less than 30 minutes to throw together.

Red cabbage braised with cranberries and spiced meatballs

400 g ground beef
1 tsp five spice powder
1 egg
2 tbsp breadcrumbs
6 sprigs of flat parsley
Salt
3 tbsp flour
1 small red cabbage
125 gr cranberries or 3 tbsp dried cranberries
Oil
3 tsp crème fraiche
1 lemon

1. Wash the parsley and chop it. Mix the meat, breadcrumbs, egg, spices and parsley with a fork. Add salt. With your hands, form the meat into balls the size of a ping-pong ball.
2. put some flour onto a plate. Roll the meatballs in the flour quickly and shake of the excess.
3. Heat the oil over high heat in a large pot, and brown the meatballs on all sides for five minutes (they’ll finish cooking with the cabbage). Set aside.
4. Wash the cabbage, and cut it into slices. Wipe out the pot, heat some oil over medium heat. Add the cabbage to the pot and stir for a couple of minutes. Add salt. Add the cranberries and a half cup of water. Mix.
5. Add the meatballs to the cabbage, cover the pot and let cook for 20 minutes over low heat, until the cabbage is very tender. At the end of cooking, if you like, add the lemon crème fraiche and mix delicately (we served it as a condiment). Serve with boiled potatoes or tortillas.

Up next is the Blesotto. It's made with Ebly, which is grains of wheat, that I think look like barley. I have no idea if this stuff is available in Canada, it's quite common here, and is sold in the rice aisle (or, due to the sorry state of our grocery store right now, the 'everything that gets boiled in water' aisle). I imagine you could easily substitute rice.

Blesotto aux champignons

150g d’Ebly
10 button mushrooms
½ square of veggie bouillon
3 shallots
50 g of Parmesan
1 slice of prosciutto (jambon cru)
100 g butter
2 tbsp olive oil
6 sprigs of Italian parsley
Salt and pepper

1. chop the shallots finely. Clean the mushrooms and slice them thickly. Grate the cheese. Cut the ham into strips. Rinse the parsley and chop.
   

2. heat the oil in a non-stick pan and brown the ham and mushrooms (separately) for 5 minutes. Set aside.
   

3. melt 50 g of butter in a saucepan. Add the shallots and cook for about five minutes until translucent. Add the Ebly, mix for two minutes over low heat.
   

4. increase the heat. Add 2 dL of water into the saucepan, add the bouillon tablet. Mix, and let it cook until the water is absorbed. Add 1 dL of water, half the mushrooms and the chopped parsley. Mix and let cook until all the water is absorbed. Taste, and continue cooking with additional water if the Ebly is still too firm.
   

5. off the heat, add the Parmesan and the rest of the butter in pieces. Add pepper and mix well. Add the rest of the mushrooms and serve immediately.

Those are the two hits, the miss was a leek and mushroom tart on a polenta crust. Sounded intresting, but it went wrong in all areas. The polenta crust was super chewy, the sauce was an unappetizing shade of pink (creme fraiche and tomatoes), that leaked over the edge of the crust when it cooked. The leeks and mushrooms were fine, but they didn't stand a chance on top of the other two failures.

Tonight Erik is making blanquette de veau, and it looks like it's almost time to eat.

Hope everyone had a nice weekend, and bon apetit!

The moment you've all been waiting for....

I've finally uploaded all our pictures from Lisbon.

Click on the photo to see the album.

Enjoy!

The Gourmand

On Thursday, Erik had andouillette for lunch, and steak tartare for dinner. How French is he?

He's wondering what he will do when we go back to Canada. Somehow, I don't think a Whopper is going to cut it any more.

Sadly, this post is making me hungry...

We couldn't have been happier to find out that our good friends Fred and Jing got married on March 3. It was a surprise wedding, hence us finding out after the fact, but we wish we could have been there to help them celebrate their special day.

Congratulations!

Shame on us!

I know, it's been awhile since I last posted.

Things have been busy since Karina left, so hopefully this album of photos will appease you until I have time to organise all of the ones we took. Click here and you can see the pictures that Karina took (it is supposed to include the ones that I took as well, but I can't seem to find them on my computer, and will have to upload them again).

I went back to work last Tuesday, and it was good to see all the kids again. They're just so cute! I was exhausted by Friday though, and luckily the week seems to have flown by. We saw the movie Blood Diamond with Alex and Anja on Thursday, and loved it, although it probably wasn't the best movie to see right before going to bed, we couldn't stop thinking about it. Last night we headed out to Anja's neighbourhood in the 20th for free couscous. Unfortunately, by the time Erik got off the phone with the tax people (his comments: "Canadians are so good at their jobs! And so friendly!" Seriously, when are you ever happy to talk to someone about taxes?) and we got all the way out there, the free couscous was all gone, and we had to settle for some 'international' fare at a restaurant/club in a converted train station. Very interesting building, and we were sitting overlooking the old tracks that used to circle the city. The food was good (I love that hamburgers and french fries are considered reasonably fine dining here) but we were pretty wiped, and luckily called it a night in time to catch the last metro home. Today we hit the gym, and Erik is now busy watching rugby, and I should be busy working on transcribing an interview for one of the parents at the Nursery School. But updating the blog seemed like a more important task, so there you go. Another exciting week in review.

Our French continues to hover around the 'upper mediocre' level, and I learned a new word last night when I incorrectly told someone at the gym that I 'bossed' at the Tour Montparnasse. The funny look I got as the fitness class started told me that I hadn't understood the question, and I now know that 'bosser' means 'work', and no, I don't in fact work at our lovely neighbourhood tower. I've also started reading the Devil Wears Prada in French, and it's going well, but it's really amazing how many words you can not understand and still follow the story. Probably helps that I've seen the movie. :)

Hope everyone is doing well. We're having lovely spring weather, and it was really too warm for winter coats on the way to the gym today. I know that we'll be paying for this mild winter come July, but I have conveniently forgotten how ridiculously hot it was last summer. Plus, at least we have a fan now.

Once rugby is over (is it ever over? We've got an afternoon of it scheduled for tomorrow too. It's the big France-England game of the Six Nations Tournament. France is supposed to win, and I'm sure Erik will be wearing his jersey to bar) we're off to get the makings for risotto. It's time to start using up some of the things that we brought back from Italy at Christmas, and it's been a while since Erik made his specialty.

Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend!

Portugal, unedited