Just a Regular Sunday Afternoon

Today we headed out to the Parc Floral to check out another wine show, this time it was Vins deTerroir. I was feeling pretty special because we received free tickets in the mail from a winemaker that we visited at the last show, until we realized that the tickets were available free on the internet. No problem, it didn't affect our enjoyment this afternoon, which began with a walk through the beautiful Parc Floral to get to the salon that was housing all the wine.

I hear it's snowing in Canada? We have the beginnings of spring flowers here. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, and the daffodils were sprouting.




We had a picnic in this exact spot last summer, now it's planted with geranium bulbs.


A lonely peacock


Where's the wine?


Ready to start tasting!

Highlights of the show (aside from the free wine) included the winemaker who told us that you can't learn to appreciate wine, it's part of your (French) culture. All us Kiwis and Canadians are just faking it, apparently. He also complained extensively at the difficulties and costs associated with trying to get into the Canadian wine market, something that we heard frequently at the last show we attended.


Inside the hall


Anja checks out the cheese


Two happy tasters


The haul.


Our impromptu picnic


Impromptu picnics call for make-shift utensils, such as a credit card cheese cutter....


And keys to push the cork into a bottle of freshly purchase wine.


It was a lovely afternoon.

Update on the Crepes:

Alison claimed that mine were better than the one that she had on the street! Hah! Maybe I'm just a little bit French after all!

Alison's Visit

My good friend Alison (you may remember her from her role as 'maid of honor' at Erik and Torie's wedding) was here visiting for four very short days this week.

It was great to see her, and catch up with her, as I don't think we'd actually seen each other since the wedding. She arrived on Sunday, and her stop here was a four day layover en route to Bangladesh where she is now doing some internship for med school. Anyway, she was a good sport, and we made the most of Sunday by heading up to Montmartre. It was a beautiful sunny day, and although it kept raining in spurts, it didn't detract from any of our favorite sights. We went up to Sacre Coeur and enjoyed the views, both inside and out. We wandered through Place du Tertre, and along rue des Abesses before stopping for a drink. We waited in line for bread at my all time favorite bakery, and bought wine and an apricot tart from other favorites stores (such a great neighbourhood!) before heading home for a much needed nap.

That evening we opened another bottle of Champagne, and Erik cooked up his amazing gigot d'agneau (recipe from the Barefoot Contessa), and we had the tart for dessert. Then Alison and I headed out for another walk down the the Eiffel tower, and having stupidly forgotten our umbrellas, got soaking wet. Alison did get some great pictures though, and I think she took great pride in trying to embarrass me by taking as many pictures as possible. Unfortunately, being the fabulous host that I am, excessive picture taking no longer bothers me at all. :)

On Monday, Alison and I got up relatively early and headed out to the Hotel de Ville to see the Doisneau photography exhibit. Erik and I have been meaning to see this exhibit for months, but there is always a ridiculously long line up by the time we get there. Luckily the line wasn't too bad, and the exhibit was certainly worth the wait. The exhibit was comprised of photos that Doisneau had taken in Paris over the years, all in black and white. The photographs were wonderful, and it was a nice insight into Parisian life, from the 30s through to the 90s.

Any trip to the Hotel de Ville, or anything else in that neighbourhood warrants a trip to L'As de Falafel for lunch, and we headed straight there, for some of the 'best' falafel in the city. While we ate, we wandered around the Marais, did some window shopping, and impulse purchasing, before stopping for dessert at Amorino's. It's always fun to have a visitor who enjoys eating as much as I do!

Then we made our way to the Champs Elysee, to do some shopping. We walked all the way there, and shopped all the way there, visiting every single Minelli store on the way (I believe there were five), in search of a particular pair of shoes (which we didn't find). By the time we got the the Champs Elysee, we were exhausted. Not too tired to check out Sephora, though, and I was surprised to hear that Ottawa doesn't have one yet (or a Zara, or H and M. So sad). We sniffed almost all the perfumes, in search of a wedding scent for Alison, who also got her make up done. We strolled the rest of the way up to see the Arc de Triomphe before heading home. It was a great day. We polished it off with dinner at the Raspail Vert before calling it a night.

After that it was back to work for me, and although we did manage to check out the GrandeEpicerie on Wednesday night, the rest of the visit was pretty quiet. I was sad to see her go, but maybe she and James will consider Paris for their honeymoon. Apparently it's tres romantique!

This is your husband on Lumirelax

Other than the excitement of crepes, our weekend has been pretty quiet, and for Erik, pretty painful.

He has hurt his back.

No, he didn't do it playing rugby, and it wasn't from the gym.

He is claiming it is a result of both cleaning the shower, and lifting a box at work.

He finally decided it was bad on Friday morning (the box lifting happened Thursday morning) when it took him 20 minutes to put on his socks. And when regular strength Advil, and ibuprofen gel-rub didn't work, he went to the doctor (yay for being able to make same day appointments, boo for my incompetent doctor that Erik went to see). And the doctor prescribed a whole cocktail of drugs for Erik to enjoy for the next eight or so days. When he's supposed to go back. Which he won't, because the doctor is incompetent, and it costs between 20-35 euros every time you set foot in the office. Hmm...that might be some of my frustration with her coming out. Seriously, finding a new doctor is high on my 'to do' list.

He's also supposed to finish the entire regime. We were both confused by this instruction, as we always thought that recommendation was just for antibiotics, and I guess with painkillers, wouldn't you just stop when the pain goes away? So you don't get addicted? Cause Erik is pretty doped up right now (for him, falling asleep during a rugby game qualifies as 'dopey').

Anyway, as you can see from the picture, Erik is now on three different kinds of muscle relaxants and pain killers, some that must be taken with food, some without, and all of which are not to be taken with alcohol. And I'm not sure if Erik is bothered more by the pain, or the fact that he has to watch rugby tomorrow without beer.

Crepes, please!

Why haven't I made these sooner? SO EASY!

I was inspired by Alex's apparent ease with this recipe, and the 3 euro crepe pan that I impulse bought a month ago. Knowing my own extreme lack of willpower, I needed a reason greater than just Erik and I to whip up a batch of these delicious, fantastic, super yummy snacks, otherwise, I probably wouldn't have any trouble polishing off all of them. And lucky for us, Alison arrives tomorrow morning, and I thought they would be a nice treat when we get back from the airport. So whip them up I did, tonight after our dinner of take-out sushi. The non-stick pan actually worked better without extra butter in the bottom, and the trick was to pour off the excess batter and cook them until the edges pull away from the sides of the pan (I was a bit impatient with the first couple, and they are all ragged). And of course, our filling of choice was Nutella, and I thought I share a couple of pictures to show the progress we're making on our 1.5 kg bottle of the stuff. Not too shabby for two people!

Back in the Good Books

Well, we got some good news today, in the form of a letter from EasyJet.

In case you've forgotten, we got stranded at the Milan Malpensa airport after our EasyJet flight was cancelled. The only thing they offered us at the time was a flight four days later. No hotel, or food. Needless to say, we were pretty peeved, and Erik wrote up a great 'unhappy customer' letter asking to be reimbursed for the flights that we had to take with Air France the following day.

Well, today they responded, and apparently they will be refunding the total cost of the tickets we bought from Air France. What a relief! I feel like we've won the lottery or something.

So, I will now consider flying EasyJet again, and it's always nice to know that companies care about their customers. 'Cause I'm one happy customer right now!

Stomach Pains

Last night we had Alex, Anja and one of Alex's friends over for dinner. On the menu was lasagne, using up the last of the noodles we had bought in Italy. Erik and I had made this lasagne recipe a couple of weeks ago, and thought it was fantastic, even without all the mozzarella cheese that we had forgotten to buy. This time we had the cheese, and we also made a vegetarian version using white beans in place of the beef and sausage. It was to die for!

Best Ever Lasagne

SAUCE:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
3/4 cup finely chopped peeled carrots
2 tablespoons minced garlic
8 ounces (225 grams) lean ground beef
6 ounces (170 grams) spicy Italian sausages, casings removed
1 28-ounce (793 gram) can crushed tomatoes with added puree
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon golden brown sugar
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper

LASAGNE
15 lasagna noodles (about 12 ounces)--we used fresh egg noodles, each lasagne used about 7 large noodles

2 15-ounce (425 gram) containers part-skim ricotta cheese
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese (about 3 ounces)
1 10-ounce (285 gram) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed, drained, squeezed dry
2 large eggs

4 3/4 cups grated mozzarella cheese (about 1 1/4 pounds)

FOR SAUCE:

Heat oil in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, carrots and garlic; sauté until softened, about 5 minutes. Add beef and sausages to pan; sauté until cooked through, breaking up meat with back of spoon, about 5 minutes. Add remaining ingredients. Cover and simmer until flavors blend and sauce measures about 5 cups, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes. Discard bay leaf. Cool.

FOR LASAGNE:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Cook noodles in large pot of boiling salted water until almost tender, about 7 minutes. Drain; cover with cold water. **if using egg noodles, skip this step. Use the noodles directly out of the package.

Combine ricotta and 3/4 cup Parmesan cheese in medium bowl. Mix in spinach. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Mix in eggs.

Drain pasta and pat dry. Spread 1/2 cup sauce over bottom of 13x9-inch glass baking dish. Place 5 noodles over sauce, overlapping to fit. Spread half of ricotta-spinach mixture evenly over noodles. Sprinkle 2 cups mozzarella cheese evenly over ricotta-spinach mixture. Spoon 1 1/2 cups sauce over cheese, spreading with spatula to cover (sauce will be thick). Repeat layering with 5 noodles, remaining ricotta-spinach mixture, 2 cups mozzarella and 1 1/2 cups sauce. Arrange remaining 5 noodles over sauce. Spread remaining sauce over noodles. Sprinkle remaining 3/4 cup mozzarella cheese and 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese evenly over lasagne. (Can be prepared up to 1 day ahead. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate.) Cover baking dish with aluminum foil. Bake lasagna 40 minutes; uncover and bake until hot and bubbly, about 40 minutes. Let lasagne stand 15 minutes before serving. **our cooking times were significantly different, only taking about 30 minutes covered, and another 10-15 uncovered. This is probably partly due to our teeny tiny oven, but the noodles also cook much faster than regular pasta.

Serves 8.

Because I'm crazy, and also because we have recenly acquired a hand held mixer (impulse buy at the Inno--it was onlyl 14 euros!), I also made dessert.

Banana Caramel Cake

For the cake:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp. cloves
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 3 large eggs
• 1-1/4 cups vegetable oil
• 1-3/4 cups sugar
• 1 tbsp. vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup coarsely chopped pecans
• 3 oz. chocolate (use the good stuff, no bakers chocolate please), broken into small pieces (size of chips)
• 3 ripe bananas, diced

For the caramel:

• 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 2 tbsp. whole milk
• 4 tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1. Butter and flour a tube pan or a bundt pan that can hold 12 cups.
2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
3. Sift together the dry ingredients (flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, salt and baking soda).
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the eggs, oil and sugar. With the paddle attachment, mix on medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes.
5. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure that the sugar has been incorporated.
6. Add the vanilla extract and mix for another 30 seconds.
7. With the mixer on low speed, add the dry ingredients a bit at a time. Scrape down the sides of the bowl every now and then to ensure everything is incorporated.
8. Once the dry ingredients have been added, remove the bowl from the stand mixer and add the pecans, chocolate and bananas. Gently fold them in with a spatula or a wooden spoon. Don't over mix.
9. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 50 minutes and then test the cake to see if it's done by poking a toothpick or cake tester into the centre of the cake. If it comes out clean, it's done. If not, bake the cake for another 5 to 10 minutes. In my oven, this cake took 55 minutes.
10. About 5 to 10 minutes before the cake is done, make the caramel by combining all the ingredients in a small pan. Bring to the boil and stir occasionally to ensure that it doesn't burn. Let it boil for about 5 minutes and then turn off the heat.
11. Once the cake is out of the oven, poke holes all over the cake with a skewer. Immediately pour the caramel over the cake, stopping every now and then to let the caramel sink in. If the caramel pools in spots, poke more holes to allow it to sink in.
12. Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack. Once it's cool, loosen the cake from the sides of the pan and then unmold it onto a plate.
13. Enjoy!

I ran out of time, so the caramel sauce never got made. That's not a problem though when you have a huge jar of Nutella and a resourceful friend who suggests using it as icing. The cake was fabulous, and was a nice, not too sweet end to a delicious meal.

Unfortunately, between the pasta, the cheese course and dessert, we all managed to overindulge a bit and Erik and I complained of full stomachs of the Italian variety all evening. It was completely worth it though!

Bon apetito!

Erik's email was just read on the BBC's World Have Your Say radio program.

Here's the email, in response the the five minute demonstration of solidarity in recognizing the human cause of climate change. Obviously, we didn't turn out lights off, and yes, the Eiffel Tower was dark.

Subject: Shutting off the lights
Although I think the gesture of shutting of the lights for five minutes is touching, I worry about the grid when all these well-meaning people suddenly turn their lights on at 7. We may all get an extended taste of darkness.
If you are really concerned about climate change, don't fly.

He's not just an NHL hockey player, he's a nerd too.

Erik Does Dinner

I know, I'm a pretty lucky girl. I have a fantastic husband, who not only does the dishes without being reminded, but also volunteers to make dinner during the week.

Which is why I have time to write this blog entry, while Erik whips up some Aroy-D green curry, one of our purchases from Freres Tang.

Anyway, it's been another slow week. On Monday, we went to see the Departed with Alex, at the movie theatre around the corner from our house. Enjoyed the movie, and also appreciated the subtitles, as I'm embarrassed to say that I found it hard to understand some of the Boston English. It's also always interesting to see how things are translated, especially all the swearing. I just don't equate the French merde with the way the f-word was thrown around in that movie.

And, Steve has informed us that we are no longer allowed to complain about the cold because (his words): once you are wearing a tuque indoors, a hooded sweatshirt to bed (hood up!) and must strategically plan ahead and dress for (yellow bath robe over hooded sweat shirt, both hood up) any adventure outside of the warm safety of the tatami room, then maybe...MAYBE you will have a blog entry more popular than mine. Yeah, we know, we're babies.

So, not much else to share...we're looking forward to Karina's visit, and have bought our tickets to Portugal! We're off to Lisbon for four days at the end of February, and are looking forward to sun, custard tarts, port and well, more sun. We also have a visit from my friend Alison coming up in a week, and two other friends in April, so looks like hotel Johnson will be hopping for awhile. Hope everyone likes air mattresses!

That's it for now.

A Matter of Perception

It's getting cold in Paris.

The temperature today was aroud 2 degrees.

Erik put long johns on to go to the gym. We've had to turn the heat on overnight.

Then we realized that 2 degrees in Toronto would feel like a spring day. We might go to the gym in sweatshirts. We'd think that summer was on its way.

We're getting wimpy.

And if one more person tells me I should be used to it, I'm going to snap. Just cause I'm Canadian doesn't mean I like the cold.

Don't worry, we don't expect any sympathy. But if anyone is looking to escape the cold, may we suggest Paris? :)

Sneaky Snackers

At Christmas I received as gifts a few small boxes of chocolate, one of which was in a pretty dish that I put by the television.

While Steve was visiting, he and Erik would often stay up watching sumo and drinking sake late into the night. Wasn't I surprised one morning to wake up to a kitchen table covered in chocolate wrappers and an empty candy dish. All I could say was: "you ate ALL my chocolates?" I guess I need to start watching more sumo, and I had obviously forgotten about the hold that chocolate has over Erik and his family :).

This morning I got a nice email from Joan, thanking us for the Christmas package that they finally received. She went on to mention that the box of chocolates that we had sent were delicious, and that Howard had really enjoyed them as well. So much so, apparently, that when Joan returned from work, all that was left was an empty box.

I always thought it was women who have a hard time controlling themselves around chocolate!

Maybe we should get Howard his own box next year?

(and this is still not nearly as sneaky as the squirrels that ate an entire box of chocolates that I sent to my mom a while back. Apparently, Ottawa squirrels have good taste :) )

Tang Frères

As I mentioned earlier, this afternoon we ventured into Chinatown, in the 13th arrondissement, just south of Place d'Italie.

We met Alex at the Tolbiac metro and headed to her favorite pho restaurant. After three delicious and satisfying bowls of soup, which Erik claimed might even be better than the pho at Pho Hung in Toronto, we continued on to do some shopping.

While Erik got sidetracked by a Vietnamese sandwich shop (apparently he was still hungry...), Alex and I poked around in the Asian version of Picard, a French store specializing in frozen prepared dishes. If only we had a freezer, I wouldn't have left empty handed. Next stop was a Chinese bakery, and Alex and I chose two treats, a coconut cake, and a sesame encrusted ball filled with yellow bean paste. Both were very yummy.

By the time we were finished our snacks, we had arrived. When we managed to make our way into the store, I was overwhelmed by the amount of people, and packaged noodles. Once we made our way out of the Mr Noodle section, and found baskets, the fun began. Every kind of Asian ingredient you could ever need was packed into this huge supermarket, which was absolutely teeming with people. Erik was quickly delegated the 'basket holder' as Alex and I threw in bottles of soy sauce, curry paste, lime leaves and bags of rice. Erik found his favorite curry paste, the Aroy-d green curry sauce that he used to pick up on Spadina, and was also pleasantly surprised by the beer selection, especially the Japanese beers that were 1.15 euros each (compared to the 5 euros that they cost at the Inno). The produce section contained whole aisles of greens that I have never heard of, and all sorts of exotic and scary looking fruits. There was a whole aisle of frozen Chinese dumplings (again, why don't we have a decent freezer???). I think the best deals were the boxes of coconut milk for 45 cents, the tubs of curry paste for 1.50euros and the kilogram bags of rice for 1.20 euros.

I've got a lot of Asian cooking to do now, and I'm inspired to find some new recipes to take advantage of all the yummy things we saw. Any ideas for persimmons? Or Asian greens?

Time Flies

It's been a busy couple of weeks, and I have to apologize for not posting recently. Our lives have gotten back into our regular routine, which I have to admit I quite enjoy. Work, gym, eat, tends to be the daily plan, although we do mix it up occasionally with the odd evening out.

Last weekend we went for drinks with Alex and Anja at the Quebec bar, l'Envol, that we had tried to visit while Steve was here. Erik and I enjoyed their hamburgers for dinner, and Erik was so hungry that he ordered the bucheron (lumberjack) sized burger, which was a whole 250g (cooked, we thought) of premium ground beef. Just the kind of sustenance that you need to fuel a good game of Scrabble en francais, and a rousing game of pick up sticks before running out to catch the last metro.

On Saturday, Alex and I hit the soldes. They started last Wednesday, so there was quite a large selection of goods still on hand. I picked up two new sweaters, a pair of shorts (tres francais) and a cute dress. We rounded out the day with hot chocolate, and a trip to the books department at the FNAC to pick up some French reading material (which of course I haven't cracked yet because I'm still working on French or Foe, then I have two weeks of Economists' to catch up on).

Erik and I both feel like our French is plateau-ing, and we really need to start making more of an effort to speak French regularly. I've almost completely stopped speaking French at the nursery school, which is good for the kids, but bad for my French. Erik at least has the benefit of the French post-docs in his lab to keep him up to speed on French slang. Perhaps more French movies are in order? We're also getting to the stage where we find ourselves speaking French English. There are lots of words that the French use, that don't really translate exactly to English, but tend to get used anyway by non-native speakers. Or sometimes there are just words that we think are funny. Like 'charging' the bar at the gym (to put weights on a bar). I guess the most common irritatingly overused word is to 'propose'. The French love to use this word in French, and although its English translation has the same meaning, it's not really used ever in the sense that it is used in French. We've now gotten into the habit of 'proposing' to go somewhere, instead of making a 'suggestion'.

This weekend took us back to the 11th arrondissement, to two favorite bars that we've been to before. One is a Martinique rum bar, Le Carbet, that serves delicious drinks, my favorite being the cilantro mojito. The other bar is one that we call the 'scary bathroom' bar, because, well, it has a scary bathroom. The bar is kind of like the owner's living room. A couple of tables squeezed into a tiny room. So tiny, that there isn't actually a bathroom in the place. You have to ask for the key, which used to include a flashlight, because the light used to be broken (we were impressed to discover that it has since been fixed). The bathroom is in the garbage room of the building next door, and the owner accompanies you to enter the door code. Now that I've written this all out, I'm not sure exactly why we find this so funny, but the drinks are cheap, and the atmosphere is warm and friendly. It will be weird to go back to North America where all public bathrooms are clean, have multiple stalls and sinks. What a novelty!

The only downside to trekking out to the 11th on a Friday night, is that if you miss the last metro around 12:30, you know the evening is only going to go downhill. It is almost impossible to get a cab in this city, taxi stands usually have queues at least 10 deep of people looking for a ride. We ended up walking for about 45 minutes all the way to Chatelet to catch the night bus. Luckily it isn't really cold right now, and Paris is so beautiful especially at night, that it's never too painful.

And today we are headed to Chinatown to check out their markets and enjoy a Vietnamese lunch with Alex. Paris has been enjoying some unseasonably warm temperatures lately, and apparently the mercury will drop 15 degrees in the next couple of days. Which I guess doesn't mean too much to all you Canadians since that will only take us to a chilly 0 degrees. I keep wondering why I'm so hot all the time, and it's because I'm dressing for the cold that hasn't arrived yet. And I love it. I'm encouraging Erik to apply for jobs in cities that have warm winters. We both admit that it's hard to remember exactly how cold the cold feels when it's 30 below, and to be honest, I'm not too keen to be reminded. Unfortunately for us, limiting his search to cities that don't get cold in Canada pretty much eliminates the entire country, short of the west coast. So, we're keeping our options (and our minds) open, and hopefully something will come up. I have to say that this city is growing on us though, and we wouldn't be disappointed at all to have to stay another year or two....

An Italian Family Christmas

Well, the moment you've all been waiting for has finally arrived. Here are our pictures from our Italian Christmas. I have to admit that due to the amount of pictures that we have, and the fact that Imagestation makes them ridiculously tedious to organize, they are unfortunately out of order. That doesn't make them any less fun though. I can't believe it's been almost a month since we went. It was such a great trip, and everyone that we met was so wonderful. We can't wait to go back!

Also, you may find that some pictures load more slowly than others. We've combined the shots taken on three different cameras, and the pictures from one of the cameras are pretty large, and load much more slowly than the rest. Be patient, its worth the wait (and mom and dad, this might be a good time to upgrade to a non-dial up internet connection :) )

New Years, Steve's Birthday and other Parisian good times

(click on the picture)

Teasers

The Italian Family Christmas pictures are on their way. Until I have a chance to sort through them all, here are some highlights.


So good!


Eating, again! Gorgonzola, my favorite!


Margherita and Sara get things organized for Christmas Eve dinner


Family dinner in the kitchen.


And because we didn't eat enough during our stay, we stocked up on Italian goodies at the grocery store before we left.

We had such a great time in Novara, but I have to say, looking at some of these pictures makes my stomach hurt.

Steve leaves demain, and it's hard to believe that it's time to go back to work already.

And back to the gym.

Hope everyone had as good of a holiday as we did.

Carte de Sejour

Nothing gets your day started like a healthy dose of French bureaucracy.

Today was the day that I got to go and do my medical (probably the third one that I've have for various non-medical reasons since we arrived. You'd think there'd be some centralized system to tell everyone that I've been vaccinated, have good teeth and can see). My appointment was scheduled for 9:30 am. When I showed up fifteen minutes early, there were probably about 75 people also waiting for medical exams.

Chairs were a hot commodity in that waiting room.

I waited in the first room for fifteen minutes before being herded into the next level of waiting. Where I waited for another thirty minutes.

Once things got started, I realized what the hold up was. The doctors (about four of them) were more interested in talking to each other than actually seeing people. The first screening was in a room with other people, and I literally stood in the middle of the room for five minutes twiddling my thumbs while the woman dealing with me had a loud conversation across the room with another doctor. Things ran a bit more smoothly after that, I got a chest x-ray, then a quick chat with a real doctor (who suggested homeopathy and qui gonn for my blood pressure, which was a lovely 170/110 this morning. I was certainly not relaxed).

When I finally got the letter saying I was ok, they inform me that I need to go and buy 220 euros worth of 'stamps' before I can get my card. They had a sent me a letter telling me this, but because they refuse to use my new last name, it got sent back to them. So, off I went on the next stage of this scavenger hunt. The stamps had to be purchased at a tabac across the street (seriously, I thought they were joking). Then I had to wait in another line to actually pick up the card. When I got the card, I asked the woman why they keep using my maiden name.

"Its according to your passport" she told me rudely.

Which I would hope it would be, but my maiden name isn't mentioned anywhere in my passport. Which I told them. She proceeds to flip through my file, and points out snarkely (is that a word?) "see, here you wrote your nom de jeune fille."

"Well, of course I did. It says to write your nom de jeune fille. " I replied.

At this point she got all huffy, and asked why I was so mad about it, which I wasn't. I was more curious as to why I would have a visa in a name that isn't on my passport. When she was tired of talking to me, she said "c'est termine. Bonne journee," and moved onto the next person.

So. I can work. I'm 220 euros poorer. And I have been reminded yet again about how poorly organized, unhelpful and downright unfriendly people here can be.

I do get to keep the chest x-ray though. Pretty cool, isn't it?

On a more positive note, today is Steve's 29th birthday. We're making Italian pizza (well, the boys are).

And here are some pictures of the boys in the new socks that they bought yesterday. Guess they didn't realize they would all be knee socks.

Happy New Year!

After arriving back in Paris on Sunday morning with only a few minutes of sleep under our belts, we (I) got set figuring out what we were going to do for New Years. The original plan had been for the boys to do their seafood extravaganza, a tradition that they started last year. However, both Erik and Steve promptly fell asleep once they made sure the champagne was in the fridge, and I, always being focused on food, decided to take it upon myself to tackle the Inno right away in case it was closing early (it was special that it was open yesterday, being a Sunday and all).

Moules frites were on the menu, and whatever else could be scrounged up for a seafood platter. And Alex and I were making crepes. I picked up the necessities, which included two kilos of Spanish mussels, and a kilo of scary looking cooked shrimp, complete with heads and feelers. Luckily the boys were ready to help by the time I got home, and they nicely took care of cleaning up the mussels, which were pretty gross initially. But apparently only wild mussels have beards, and they were packed with a load of seaweed, so I guess it's a good sign that they were so messy? Aside from a bit of chopping, all the food came together easily. We used the Barefoot Contessa again, and her recipe for moules was easy and delicious. The frites were the frozen kind, and maybe I would have tried making the real deal if I hadn't slept on an airport floor the night before. The shrimp were ready to serve after a quick rinse, and I made a sauce out of mayonnaise and mustard to dip them in. Steve had also brought some mochi from Japan, which is a traditional Japanese rice cake eaten on New Years, so we toasted some of them and enjoyed them with nori and soy sauce.

And because all that wasn't enough, and our stomachs have been stretched to a ridiculous size in Italy, we had a cheese course, and cautiously sampled some of the Gorgonzola that we brought back from Novara. I say cautiously because the cheese ended up going unrefrigerated for much longer than intended on our trip home. But nobody seems to be sick, so we might enjoy some more today.

Dessert was crepes that Alex whipped up using the recipe from the Williams Sonoma Paris book, and we served them with a choice of fillings: Nutella (of course), honey, or sugar. Alex had also made chocolate mousse, that was to die for. At midnight we opened our last bottle of Champagne, and watched the Eiffel tower from our window. We were hoping to see some fireworks, but they weren't going high enough for us to catch a glimpse.



All in all, it was a lovely evening, complete with good friends, good Champagne, and good food. What more can a girl ask for?

Well, maybe sleep, and was our bed ever comfortable last night!

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.