Daily life

It's been a slow month for posting, and I've just realized that I've only posted three times in all of May! Yikes! I guess it has been a fairly quiet month, one with a total of four long weekends (today is the last one), and one where Erik was pretty stressed for most of it, and therefore, not a whole lot of fun. Not that I can't entertain myself, but in an effort to save up for our trip to Canada, I've discovered that many days off + no money makes some things a lot less interesting.

Anyway, here's a recap of what we've been up to for the last couple of weeks:

• Erik went to Montreal for an interview with Concordia, which he thought went very well.
  
• Erik did his presentation for the permanent French position at his lab.
  
• I was offered a full time job at one of my schools, but then they changed their minds. Because I'm not French. That was a fun week.
  
• We got dressed up ('casual chic'--what does that tell you?) and went to a cocktail party at the swanky Hotel Crillon. It was a fundraiser for one of my schools, complete with a live auction where a signed guitar was sold for 3000 euros. Very fun. Plus, there was champagne.
  
• We went for apperos on one of the many bridges over the Seine. It's an event that gathers Parisians in one location every Thursday night in the summer for BYOsnacks and drinks. It was fun to see the tourists pushing through the crowds of us on the bridge, amidst bottles of wine and party mix, with looks of confusion on their faces.
  
• We went for dinner with Erik's aunt, uncle and cousin who were passing through Paris on a recent European trip that they took.
• Our good friend Alex has decided to accept a job transfer to Switzerland for next year. :(
• all the clocks on our blog are an hour behind, but I can't be bothered to fix them. We have a real clock in our bathroom with the same problem.
  
• I've been quite bad about bringing the camera with me, as I have absolutely no pictures of any of these things that we've done.
  

That's about it. I can't believe that it's almost June already, and that we leave for Canada SO SOON! We're a bit excited.

Welcome Mom and Dad

My parents arrived in Paris on Saturday after spending a week in the south of France. It's great to have them here, and we celebrated their first day with a lot of eating (dinner at the Midi Vins. Yum!). They have rented a cute apartment in the 12th, and it will be fun to get to know that area of the city a bit better. We went over for dinner last night for a meal my parents prepared with their purchases from the local market. Lovely.

Last night we were lucky enough to be able to experience a true European television viewing experience. Eurovision. Neither Erik or I had ever hear of it, but Alex had us and some other French friends over for dinner last night so that we could join in the fun.

Eurovision is a Europe-wide (and the term Europe is used quite loosely, with performances by Russia and Turkey, to name a few) singing contest. Each country submits a musical act that is performed in the country of the previous years winner. This year the twenty four finalists sang their hearts out in Helsinki. After watching all the super cheesy performances, there is a fifteen minute voting period where you can vote for your favorite. But not the contestant from your own country. My favorites were Spain, whose boy-band D'NASH performed a super cheesy rendition of their hit I Love You Mi Vida. Also at the top of my list was Ukraine, whose group Verka Serduchka performed a number clad completely in gold and silver lame, and the lead singer wore a large silver star on his (her?) head and ran around tapping the backup singers on the butt. Very funny. France's entry was also hilarious. Their song 'L'Amour a la Francaise' was sung with bad accents and ridiculous costumes. The highlight that kept getting replayed was one of the lead singers wearing a fuchsia blazer running around the stage singing to the stuffed black cat on his shoulder. Fantastique!

Unfortunately, the humour seemed to be lost on the voters, and France came in 22nd out of 24.

We learned that countries tend to vote mainly for their neighbours and allies, and so most of the Eastern European countries did quite well, with Serbia taking home the first place honours. Their performance was quite good, but nothing too special, or memorable, we decided. We were also surprised at the number of votes that both Greece and Turkey received for their almost identical, and equally bad numbers, involving scantily clad back-up dancers and unattractive lead singers. Erik was voting for the UK to get zero votes, but they unfortunately picked up their only votes from Ireland near the end. Too bad. It was interesting to hear the kind of music that was popular in each country, and the countries that did quite well were all similar in terms of (what we would call) cheesiness.

I guess we just don't get it. For a contest that has been going on since 1956, there is obviously a lot of tradition involved in the show. Alex is a real veteran, and kept pointing out how the wind machine was very 'Eurovision' as well as the over the top costumes and cheesy 'I love Europe' lyrics that we often heard. We also thought it was funny that although the official languages of the show are English and French, only two of the forty+ that voted spoke French. I'll leave it to you to figure out who they were.

On My Own

Erik left yesterday morning for Montreal, leaving me on my own to stay out of trouble.

Easier said than done, as we're into the second of three consecutive long weekends this month. I met up with Alex yesterday afternoon to do some shopping, I need to get a dress for the various weddings we're going to this summer, and after trying on a zillion different things, I managed to find something at Kookai. After picking through the accessories at H&M we cruised through the Grande Epicerie in search of snacks before heading off to our cooking class.

We met up with Marie, and made our way to one of the newer locations of Ateliers des Chefs. I have to say this location was a thousand times nicer than the Galleries Lafayette and Nation locations, which are glassed in kitchens in the middle of the housewares section of each department store. The rue Peclet location, where we were yesterday is it's own storefront, with a large kitchen in the back and a cooking supply store in the front. Much cosier, more private, and the staff were very friendly. On the menu last night was supreme de volaille avec persillade and blanc manger avec fraise au balsamic (chicken supreme with parsley crust; blanc mange (I have no idea what it is in English, but it's tasty!) with strawberries and balsamic vinegar). The whole menu was easy and delicious as usual, and we were even able to enjoy a glass of wine with our meal. The three of us are all gung-ho now to take the macaron class, and the cocktail class that they offer. If only I had a professional kitchen to go along with all my newfound culinary knowledge....

After our 'dinner' Alex and I headed up to rue St Maur to meet Anja at the scary bathroom bar (whose real name is Boui Boui). I'm happy to report that the bathroom is getting progressively less scary, and the owner is just as friendly. He remembered us, and gave us another carafe of wine instead of the bill when we asked. Which we happily accepted. The best part of the Boui Boui is that it is one of the few places we've found where you can have three carafes of wine for less than ten euros each.

Today I went on a 'gym date' with one of my gym friends. It's nice to know that I'm not alone in my mild obsession with these fitness classes, so we made our way to her other gym, which was offering an Attack class this afternoon. It's always fun to check out different gyms here in Paris, because I often have the impression that people don't really work out here. But apparently they do, as there were easily 70 people in the class that we took today.

And now I'm taking my sweet time getting through my planning for tomorrow. Three day work weeks are always a treat.

A+ :)

Champagne, encore

This weekend marks the first of three long weekends that the month of May brings to the people of France. The holidays all fall on Tuesdays or Thursdays, and so the French have created a way to make the most of these statutory holidays. Faire le pont. It means that they generally will off the day of work that falls in between the weekend and the holiday, to make the most of a long weekend. So, Alex, Katharina, Erik and I decided to be like the French and take a trip to Champagne.

We went to Champagne last June with our lovely friends Nancy and Daryl, and had a great time. Since we are now experts, Erik and I decided that one day in Reims and one day in Epernay and Hautevillers would probably give us enough time to fully enjoy the region without breaking the bank, so off we went on Saturday morning in our (brand new!) rental car (mental note: don't rent a car next time. No one wants to drive).

The one advantage of having a car is that we were able to stop at some lovely little towns along the way, and were able to visit more of the small, independent champagne makers that sell only directly to customers.

We spent the first evening in Reims, and had a nice dinner at the Brasserie Flo on the main street. On Sunday, after visiting Reims' famous cathedral (you know, the one where all the kings used to be knighted) we set off for Hautevillers, the tiny town that houses the abbey when Dom Perignon first invented champagne. The town is also home to lots of small vintners that we had enjoyed the last time, so we paid them all a visit again after a nice picnic lunch in the vineyards.

We spent that evening in Epernay, and had some fantastic couscous for dinner, before calling it a night. Monday morning was spent on the avenue du Champagne, at the houses of Mercier (third most popular brand in France and not sold outside of Europe--or in our Monoprix, for that matter) and Moet et Chandon (best caves, and best tour).

The weather was fantastic, if a bit too hot, but luckily all the caves in the region are at a constant temperature of about 10 degrees. Plus, what's more refreshing on a hot day than a nice cold glass of champagne?

You can take a look at the pictures here.

2:00 Saturday afternoon

Torie: "You're drinking wine?"

Erik: "What? I'm eating lunch!"

And you wonder why we don't want to leave!

(honestly, I think I'm more offended that he didn't offer me a glass. Perhaps it's because I've been correcting his English. 'Boughten' isn't actually a word, is it? And would anyone care to share some correct uses of the word 'propose'? We throw it around here all the time, mostly as a joke, because it's one of those words that I don't think is used the same way in both languages. The French like to think it is, though)

Picture time!

I've uploaded some pictures from my recent trip with Katie and Jen. You can check them out here.

On other travel related news, we've finally booked our tickets to come home in June. We're arriving in Toronto on June 15th, and I'm heading directly to Ottawa where I'll be until the 18th. We'll be in Toronto until June 26th, and we can't wait to see everyone (and eat fajitas, and have good sushi...). If there's anything you need from Paris, get your orders in now!

Birthday on the Orient Express

Yesterday was my birthday, and also the day that I had to say goodbye to Katie and Jen and head back to the (other) good life in Paris.

We had quite the train adventure getting from Cesky Krumlov, although most of the excitement was contained on the first train which not only had a broken horn, that blew for the entire two hour trip, but stopped for no apparent reason in the middle of nowhere, and we couldn't get the doors open. Luckily the Czechs are good at fixing broken trains, and about holding trains for you when you're late making your connections, and we arrived in Linz with enough time for Katie and Jen to catch their last train on to Salzburg, and for me to be thoroughly bored for six hours before hopping on my overnight Orient Express train home. No real excitement on the overnight train, aside from its name and the fact that I got free breakfast.

I rolled safely into Gare de l'Est at 10:30 this morning, and Erik was waiting for me, and as always, I was happy to be home. We spent the morning doing some of my favorite Parisian things like shopping at the organic market (which we should do more often), eating crepes and gelato and having lunch at the Marquise. Now Erik's making gigot d'agneau, and we're trying to decide how to best take advantage of the fantastic weather that we have.

That's all I've got for today. There's so much to say about my trip, and lots of photos to organize, so stay tuned...

A-Hoy from Prague

Just a quick note to let everyone know that I'm in Prague, and doing well. I flew into Berlin on Saturday morning, and had no problem getting into the city to meet up with Katie and Jen. Berlin was a beautiful city, and we did all the touristy things, including an amazing walking tour. So much history, I feel like we only scratched the surface, and am already itching to go back. Surprisingly, compared to my last trip to Germany where I ate more sausages than I can handle, the only German food I ate this time was pretzels. There just didn't seem to be any around!

Yesterday we caught the train to Prague, and lucked out finding a compartment all to ourselves. The scenery was amazing, and the city itself is breathtaking. We had a nice dinner in the old town square last night, and got up early this morning to see the sun rise on the Charles Street Bridge. Today is Jen's birthday, so there is lots more celebrating and touristing to be done, but leave me a comment, or send me an email when you get the chance.

Hope everyone is doing well,
Torie :)

Surprise!

Birthday Boules Bonanza

On Saturday we celebrated Erik's birthday. On the agenda was a rousing game of petanque followed by some beer and poutine at the Quebec bar.

Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate, and turned our boules court into a muddy mess. Plan B of heading directly to the Quebec bar was foiled by the fact that the Quebec bar wasn't open yet. Luckily we there was an Irish bar willing to take us in, where we warmed up before moving on to the home favorite. It did eventually stop raining, but by the time it had the parks were all closed. So we set up shop in a square and threw the balls into a fenced off treed area. A good time was had by all, and I'm sad to say that I think the French team won. But who's really keeping score?


At the Irish bar



Some action shots


Collecting the boules




Alex (2) prepares some drinks


Erik enjoys some Pastis, a traditional southern French drink




The 'French' team


The 'Canadian' team

April Fools!

We saw this woman walking around Montmartre yesterday. April Fools day in France is called 'Poisson d'avril' and is celebrated by sticking paper fish to the backs of the people that have been fooled (the 'poisson' d'avril).

Interestingly, Wikipedia claims that the French were the likely creators of this day. You can read the whole entry here, and is related to the change from the Gregorian calendar to the Julian one. Who knew!

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