Alex and Antonio's Visit

We had two lovely Swiss house-guests this weekend.

Alex and Antonio arrived on Friday, and they brought snow with them. How kind! It snowed for about 20 minutes on Friday afternoon, and for about 10 minutes the scene outside my classroom window was a winter wonderland. Then, what little snow had stuck to the trees melted, and all that was left were freezing cold temperatures.

Their presence warmed things up, and we had a lovely dinner at Le Baratin on Friday, where Erik tasted 'les cervelles' for the first time.



On Saturday we wandered through the Christmas market at Nation, and admired the recently restored towers at the place du Trone.

After a yummy and spicy Chinese food lunch, Alex and I headed to the Petit Palais to see the Yves St Laurent exposition.



Unfortunately we were about three months too late. Luckily the permanent collection is free, so we wandered around that, and were happy to discover that there is a beautiful garden in the courtyard of the palais, and a cafe with a terrasse looking out, that we are already planning to visit when it warms up.



Then we walked through the crowded Christmas market on the Champs Elysees, and decided to warm up with hot chocolate at the famous Angelina. The line up to get in was literally out the door and around the corner, so we opted for the much quicker 'take out' version, which was really very good. (Karina, I think you should come visit so we can do a proper hot chocolate tasting....)



Back up to the Marais, we did some shopping before meeting up with Antonio for a drink at a cozy bar, and dinner at the Rendez-vous des Amis, a place we haven't been in a long time, and were happy to discover was still as good as we remembered.

This morning we marketed, then wandered along the canal St. Martin before escaping the cold in a cute little Irish pub. One that we were pretty sure was actually Irish! Then it was back to the Gare de l'est, so our guests could get their train back to Basel. As always it was great to see them, and I'm still trying to convince Alex that she should move back to Paris. The city is always more fun when she is here.

Smart Food

We went out for dinner on Friday night at our new favorite restaurant, and Erik decided to try one of the few things left on his 'disgusting things that the French actually eat' list.

Can you guess what it was?

Giving Thanks

We had a lovely American Thanksgiving dinner last night with some friends from the American School. Turkey (well, chicken) with all the trimmings. I made the pumpkin pie for dessert.



Didn't get a shot of the full plate, but there didn't seem to be a lot of scraps left for the dog.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Danke shun!

It will be a good thing when I go back to work on Thursday, because all this holiday time has become a lot of baking/eating time.

I've been wanting to try this recipe for a couple of weeks now, and just haven't gotten around to it. A chance discovery of gros sel at the grocery store prompted me to start making pretzels at 6:00pm, instead of going to the gym.

I think I made the right choice.



We ate them for dessert (after leftovers of the meat hand), but that didn't stop us from polishing off four. They were so good. Just like the ones that I always get Erik to bring back from Germany.

Guten appetit!