Food!

Food is one of the first things that comes up when I talk to people about living in France. I have been eating quite well this year, as I've taken the "I'm only in France for seven months" perspective when it comes to French cuisine. Plus, I've travelled to some places outside of France with great food as well. I photographed some of my best food experiences, from Normandy to London to Istanbul and even Saint-Quentin.

Savory foods:

~ Omelette, fries, and salad from a Saint-Quentin restaurant ~

~ Coffee, bread, and cheese in a Saint-Quentin cafe ~
~Salmon, sauerkraut (choucroute), and potatoes, New Year's Eve dinner in Strasbourg~

Desserts:

~ Chocolate lava cake with cream sauce in Bayeux, Normandy ~

~ Blueberry tart, Strasbourg ~

~ Waffle with nutella, Pierrefonds ~

From Other Countries:

~ Turkish delight and cake display, Istanbul ~

~ Tea and scones from the Muffin Man Teashop in London ~

~ Pies from the Borough Market, London ~

My Own Cooking Successes: (the tart mold opened up a lot of doors for me...)

~ Tomato and cheese tart ~

~ Apple tart; Broccoli, mushroom, and cheese quiche ~

Thanksgiving in France

This is the first year that I haven’t been with my family for Thanksgiving. It’s weird and a bit melancholy to be so far away on this holiday, which is my mom’s favorite. I’m lucky, though, for having my fellow teaching assistants here. We planned an international Thanksgiving celebration on Wednesday night and ended up having a wonderful evening. Here are the numbers:

5: nationalities represented (3 Americans, 3 Germans, 2 Brits, 1 Mexican, and 1 Italian)

2: Mexican games played (basically Mexican bingo and Mexican dreidel, and they were awesome)

5: bottles of wine, cider, and juice consumed

0: traditional Thanksgiving foods eaten (instead, we had lasagna, croissants, chips, fries, salad, broccoli, carrots, spaghetti with pesto, cookies, and chocolate mousse)

10: sincere and heartwarming recitations of thanks. This was the best part of the evening: going around and saying what we’re thankful for. While every family has a different tradition for this part of the holiday, it seemed important to include it with our international group. We also all gave thanks in French, which was certainly a new experience for everyone!

~ Paper turkey from home, which we used as a table decoration ~

~ Assistants at our Thanksgiving table ~

Baking Adventures

Earlier this week, I decided to honor my family’s tradition of making Chanukah sugar cookies, plus some Thanksgiving cookies for the assistants’ Thanksgiving dinner. It seemed like a straightforward plan: sugar cookies, pretty basic, not a problem.

Until I realized I had a tiny French kitchen and very limited baking supplies to work with. I ended up using a pot as one of my mixing bowls, was almost defeated by the cups to grams conversion, and ultimately had little piles of cooling cookies covering all available surfaces.

Luckily, with the help of some Monoprix sprinkles and chocolate icing, the cookies turned out fine and were added to our Thanksgiving feast. It was pretty fun, actually, to weigh the flour and sugar and mix everything by hand – but I think I’ll wait a little while before baking anything again.

~ Scale for measuring; mixing butter and sugar by hand in a pot ~

~ Happy Chanukah! ~

~ Thanksgiving cookie and European Union cookie ~

~ The finished product ~