Recently in Food Category

For the first time since we had arrived in Paris, we woke up before the sunrise. At 6:30 am Saturday morning, we woke, gathered our stuff, and headed for the train to Strasbourg. We had purchased our tickets online in advance so we could pick them up at the station's automatic ticket machines. Of course, when we got there, the machines didn't work, which forced us into waiting in a not very long but unbelievably slow line. With a half hour to spare, I didn't start out concerned. But when the first person of six took 10 minutes, I calculated that making our train seemed highly unlikely.These were the moments that I wished later I would have just relaxed and been the type of person who thought, "this train, next train, ah who cares?" Unfortunately, I instead paced in my two by two square, tapped my foot and did a lot of sighing. After all that, we picked up our tickets at the counter, ran to the track and hopped aboard our train with about 30 seconds to spare. By then I was quite tense and now Geoff started frowning because our 'relaxing' trip was obviously anything but.Over the course...

I had decided to cook dinner, so I picked up a few things at the supermarket - turkey breasts (intentionally this time), brussel sprouts (Geoff's favorite), some bread, and other necessities. Geoff had cooked every meal at the apartment since we had arrived, so I thought after his hellish weekend with BuyIndies, it would be nice if I cooked. Some people had become intimidated to cook for Geoff since he went to cooking school, but not me. This was because I knew he loved almost anything homemade that he didn't have to make. At a restaurant, he's discriminating. At someone's home, he's the favorite guest.Of course, I did have to call Geoff and ask for his advice on what to do with the brussel sprouts. I just wasn't sure if I had to boil them before baking or if I could just bake. But he said boil first. So I filled up a pot of water and turned one of the knobs on the stove. It clicked a few times but didn't light. So I tried another, but the same thing. All three gas burners did the same thing. I had seen Geoff handle this before by turning it on...

Without bothering to shower, we woke up and immediately left our seedy room. Geoff had picked the town for the new day - Bayeux. Having learned our lesson, we decided to make the first stop a prospective hotel. So I successfully navigated us to Chataeau de Sully, featured in two of our guidebooks. We drove up to the impressive driveway towards the grand mansion. The outside was much like the one from the night before, but obviously this house had been lovingly restored and maintained. Initially, we figured we would book a room and have lunch.The friendly man at reception spoke to me in English and feeling lazy, I answered the same. He suggested dinner instead since the menu was the same, which actually I thought was a great idea. It sounded very relaxing to be able to enjoy a wonderful meal, and then simply walk back to your room. The hours of driving to and from each place had definitely stressed us a bit, so that would be a welcome change. So we booked a room. It was more expensive than the previous night, but Geoff reasoned that it's really about how many showers you get in a room,...

There are two phrases in French: "manger pour vivre" and "vivre pour manger" meaning "eat to live" and "live to eat." The French do both.Geoff and I both had some homework to do, so we decided to leave for class early and get some lunch while we did our homework. We found a café near school and took a table outside.The cafés in Paris have several things in common. First, out front they all seem to have petit round tables packed together under an awning. You don't wait for a table; you simply sit down. Usually there's a menu lying on a nearby table, which it's tacitly understood you will grab and decide what you want by the time the waiter comes. If you ask for a menu, you throw off his whole rhythm. And I say his, because there are very few waitresses in Paris cafés.Anyway, there's no need to look at the menu because aside from slight variations in the prices, the menus are identical. You can get a croissant of varying quality but only if it's French breakfast time. You can always get espressos (one of the cheapest drinks) usually for about two euros and hot chocolate...

It was Monday - the first weekday in our new apartment and our first day of school. It felt like the beginning of something.But first, something smelled a little funny. Literally - we started to notice something rancid in the stairwell of our apartment building. We tried propping open the windows, but the odor wouldn't budge.Meanwhile, I constantly voiced my amazement that in the week since we had arrived I saw very little garbage on the street. Obviously people must have had trash but where was it? In New York, it seemed that there are always smelly black plastic bags lining the streets. Compounded with the dogs using the streets as their public toilet, Manhattan emitted quite a summertime aroma. Paris didn't seem to have this problem. Despite the French's reputation for being dog-obsessed, I had seen many more dogs smuggled into cafés in New York than Paris. And the trash, where were they hiding it...Our suspicion proved true when we discovered a closet on our ground floor filled with green plastic trash containers, which were obviously not air-tight. These were the containers put on the street for garbage collection. Although honestly I hardly ever saw them, so they must...

Not everyone dreams of living abroad, but Geoff and I did - all the time, especially about Paris. What made us actually move all of our furniture into storage and fly here to live is harder to pinpoint. We wanted to speak French, especially me since I had been taking classes for the past three years. We loved the food - especially Geoff who had studied French cuisine at the French Culinary Institute. And we both adored the city. Anytime we planned a European trip, we would schedule in a few days in Paris.But it was more than that. Back home, we both felt a bit stuck. We had lost our inspiration in our day-to-day lives and in our careers. Trying to start a family with no luck in nearly three years had worn us down. We had lost our mojo. And we suspected we might find it in Paris.A few weeks before our trip, I dreamt that I joined the space shuttle mission. The rocket shook and I was off - to an unknown world. And that was exactly what it felt like. We were leaving the comfort of everything that was familiar to us - our language, our...