I made the most delicious homemade salsa this week. It was my first time....and it was a success I am pleased to say. Here is the recipe, not exactly sure what the measurements are, so I will just list you the ingredients with an approximate amount.

"Mardi lunch Salsa"

• plum tomatoes fresh from the market - 10

• jalapeño pepper (green) not the super strong kind - about half, but it was mild so I could have added more
• 1 red onion chopped finely
• some minced garlic
• salt
• a bunch of cilantro (coriandre en Francais)

Blanch tomatoes and pepper so that skin can peel off. Stew tomatoes in a pot and when juice goes to top, skim off. Chop the jalapeño finely, then spread into a paste and mix with tomatoes. Cook onions and garlic with as well. Add some sea salt. Leave to cool, and mix half of cilantro with, and after cooled, add some more fresh cilantro when ready to serve. Enjoy!

I made this salsa, along with some wonderful quiche for a Tuesday lunch at chez moi with 2 friends of mine.

"Mardi lunch Quiche"
(I used an internet recipe.... shame on me)

Préparation : 10 mn
Cuisson : 25 30 mn

Ingrédients :

- 1 pâte brisée
- 100 g de gruyère
- 125 g de mozzarella
- 200 g de tomates cerises
- 3 oeufs
- 20 cl de crème fraîche
- 1 poignée de basilic
- poivre
- 1 verre de lait

Préparation :

Disposer la pâte dans un moule à quiche, couper les tomates en 2 puis la mozzarella en dés, les disposer sur la pâte, parsemer le basilic. Dans un saladier mélanger les oeufs la crème fraîche le lait puis le gruyère, les battre et recouvrir la pâte. saler et poivrer



I just can't help but love and want to be best friends with Nico and hang out with her and Andy and do drugs. It's a serious problem I have. She's definitely a strange lady. Has anyone seen any of Andy Warhol's films? I can see bits of them on youtube, but I'm not sure where to find a full video.

see you next year november

Hello and welcome to my first post this December. I am so happy that it is December. Why? Because so many amazing things are happening this month. And also because November was relatively a cold and un-eventful month.
Reasons for me to praise December:

• Christmas
• Going home for the holidays
• Seeing all of my friends and family that I haven't seen in 7 months
• Christmas decorations and an excitement in the air for the coming holiday
• Shopping for gifts
• Christmas dinner party (I hope I can have one because I have amazing plans for holiday appetizers)
• New Years
• New Years in London

On Saturday I went to 2 amazing restaurants. The night began with some girlfriends at La Perla, a Mexican restaurant in the Marais. Friendly waiters, delicious and inexpensive wine, with complimentary salsa and tortilla chips. An amazing house salsa, which inspired me to make my own homemade salsa this week. After drinks came dinner (and more drinks) with my boyfriend, his brother, and some of their friends. It was at La Main D'or, a restaurant not far from where I live, which I walk past almost every day without realizing what an amazing menu it had. The cuisine is "Corsican", which is a kind of Mediterranean cuisine; lots of tomatoes, cheeses.... delicious filling food! I especially enjoyed my appetizer which I think was basically spinach cheese balls, in a tomato cheese sauce.... amazing. After I was a little drunk, and quite well fed me and the dinner group, met up with the drinks group from earlier, at Motel. It was a super packed and inexpensive bar. Full of every kind of person, from every nationality it seemed. It was really small, but had a great atmosphere and really cheap beers which is I guess why it is so popular. At about 1:30am big beautiful snow flakes began falling from the sky. We went outside and enjoyed the beauty for 10 minutes, where it then began to rain a typical cold winter Parisian rain. We went back inside and warmed up and had another beer or two.
It was a lovely night.

The next day (Sunday) was Clementine's birthday party. She is turning 7, the perfect age for a boy/girl birthday party. They aren't scared or hating each other yet. There were 12 children to the birthday party; 6 boys and 6 girls. They were all so incredibly adorable and French speaking. Her mom planned an amazing party for her. With lots of games, 2 pinatas, 2 cakes, and a scavenger hunt in the park. She worked so hard on the scavenger hunt! With 2 teams, and clues hidden within the park, leading from one clue to the next. And at the end of the clues was the "Snow Treasure". Each team was to find a treasure box which was filled with fake (and very realistic looking) snow, shiny crystal looking decorations, and of course candy. The kids loved it. I am definitely stealing this idea for the far future when I have to start planning birthdays for my future children.

I have a secret. I don't like Dallas Green....at all. I'm sorry, his voice just makes me anxious and a little pissed off. "Save Your Scissors" just played, and I just realized that I cannot listen to him anymore. Sorry guy, but I just couldn't keep this secret anymore.

Someone who I do enjoy listening to is Thomas Fersen. Listen, and I'm sure you will like.

another delicious reason to never leave france

Tonight my friend/french-english conversation partner and I went for dessert at Chez Justine. He has impeccable taste in restaurants; great ambiance, not too expensive, and great food and drinks. We ordered chocolat chaude, (dark chocolate of course), and fresh whipped cream. Let me tell you, how the French have a very different concept of "a hot chocolate". They are quite literally made of HOT chocolate. Please take your time imagining.... thick and creamy, just melted dark chocolate, with cream added to it. Then topped with fresh whipped cream and sprinkled with dark cocoa. Yes, this is for real. No cheap North American packages of hot chocolate mixed with water. I was telling my friend about this over messager last night and had her drooling on her keyboard.

my friend - fish
me - cat

fish says:
yummmmmmm
fish says:
i watched a show once where they talked about french hot chocolate and it looked amazing! that sounds sooooooo friggen good
cat says:
this accompanied by tarte au pomme (apple pie) with buttery fresh pastry and mmmm apples topped with real french vanilla ice cream (not chapmans)
cat says:
and a glass of red wine
cat says:
we are going here when you come to paris.
cat says:
and when i visit you we will make real hot chocolate
fish says:
ohhhhh my
fish says:
that sounds sooooooo good
fish says:
my mouth is actually salivating
cat says:
mine too, and i already ate this tonight

le fin

Chez Justine
96, rue Oberkampf - 75011 Paris
Métro Menilmontant/ Parmentier.

I don't think I would last very long back in Canada before going through delicious-French-food and beautiful-bar withdrawal. (and also beautiful-French-boyfriend withdrawal too).

how to look incredibly un-french and other pieces from a carefree friday

salut les pote!

(that translates to something like "hi-ya folks!" in english).
I would never actually walk up to a group of French people and say that (a second time anyway....).

Re-cap of the week time! I worked 12 hour days both Wednesday and Thursday taking care of 3 children, with occasional visits from their friends. Needless today.... je suis très fatigue. But my boss is incredibly kind, and gave me Friday off. Merci beaucoup! Friday was spent sleeping in until a well deserved 12:30. The only reason I actually woke up was because I was staying at my boyfriends, and he had class at 13h. Otherwise I think we both could have continued sleeping straight through to the next day. It's winter, it's our natural instinct to hibernate, no? I went to Rue de Rivoli to search for some possible Christmas gifts to bring back to Canada for Christmas, but didn't have a lot of luck. I did however by a scarf for my mom (and a pre-christmas gift scarf for myself, it is warm, wooly, navy blue and plaid; my favourite things). And guess who I passed while walking down the street!? Starbucks, looking all tempting and full of chai tea lattes. So of course I entered, and bought one for myself. Even after my craving earlier in the week with the cupcakes I had no time to splurge on one, so this one tasted even more beautiful. It was Christmas in my mouth. Spicy, warm and exactly what I needed. Most of the tables were full, so I said to myself, no worries, I will take this cup of cosy with me while running my errands. This was a mistake. Never have I received so many anti-tourist glares from Parisiens. Never. Even on my trotinette, even speaking English loudly with my friends on the metro, even hanging out with a group of French people and foring them to speak English because my French was so terrible! Even then, it was accepted. But walking down the streets of Paris with a to-go coffee on hand, that is unacceptable. The French are so keen on sipping away on their coffees for hours, or atleast downing their espresso at the bar. They even carry around meter long baguettes, carelessly taking bites off the end of it. And these things are both completely acceptable? But not my coffee carrying? Maybe they were even more offended because I was dressed quite Parisien that day.
In the end, I didn't care, I happily sipped my coffee all the way from boulevard Sebastopol almost to Place Concorde.

It was a pleasent afternoon, really.

Later that evening I went out for some drinks and dinner with my boyfriend and his 6 other friends. It was actually a very enjoyable night, me being the only girl amongst 6 French guys. The night began at Chez George for a few glasses of wine. We then migrated a few streets away to El sol et Luna, a Mexican restuarant where I had an avacado quasadila and we all shared pitchers of margarita. After dinner we then found ourselves at a cosy bar with French musicians singing classic English music.... their adorable French accents singing anything from Radiohead to Pink Floyd. At this bar we switched to beer.
It was a very fun night, and I spoke French almost the entire time!! The night began at 6:30 and we didn't arrive home until after 2.
This morning when I woke up my stomach was quite disappointed with me for the assortment of foods and drinks I consumed that past night: wine, quasadila, margarita, beer.

cupcakes & flill

Flill
is a word that just came into my head today. It doesn't mean anything but I just thought the word. That happens to me sometimes, is that weird? Probably. So I searched the word on Google and found this. This is such a good idea, if only it worked. I was really excited when I first realized what it was, but was then disappointed to find that it wasn't very entertaining. If I ever happen to find myself with some spare time after completing my long life list of things to do, then I will create a much better version of this idea. Flillustrator.

In other news, prepare yourself when looking at the following photos and recipe. If you happen to like chai as much as I do, then you will probably be baking these sometime this week. Or atleast craving a chai latte, or chai tea. A nice frothy creamy chai latte sounds delightful right now, but in Paris, those are few and far between. And by that I mean, I suppose I will make a quick stop at Starbucks tomorrow. Shame on me, but this is a chai-emergency.

I have just found the most delicious website. A website entirely of everything cupcakes. I have always loved cupcakes. The shape, the taste, the creativity; a perfect little personal dessert. If you don't like sharing your desserts, then cupcakes are the ideal dessert. I don't mind sharing. When I make these I will definitely be sharing.... if I can manage the recipe.

Chai Spice Mix

2 teaspoons fennel, whole
2 teaspoons cloves, whole
1 tablespoon cardamom, ground
2 teaspoons cinnamon, ground
2 teaspoons ginger, ground

1. With a small food processor, grind up the whole fennel and cloves.
2. Transfer to a small bowl and add remaining spices. Mix to combine.


Chocolate Chai Spice Cupcakes
24 regular cupcakes / 350 degree oven

200 gram bar of Valrhona 61% cacao
3 sticks butter
2-1/4 cups sugar
8 eggs
1-1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder, unsweetened
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3 teaspoons chai spice mix
pinch of salt

1. Chop chocolate and transfer into the bowl of a standing mixer.
2. Add butter to the chocolate and place the bowl over a pan of simmering water. Stir until chocolate melts and butter is combined.
3. Remove from heat and stir in sugar. Let mixture cool for 10 minutes.
4. Beat in an electric mixer for 3 minutes.
5. Add one egg at a time, mixing for 30 seconds between each
6. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, chai spice mix, and a pinch of salt into the mixture and mix until blended.
7. Scoop into cupcake cups and bake at 350 F for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.


Chai Spice Buttercream Frosting

1 cup (2 sticks) butter
4-5 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1/4 cup milk
2 teaspoons chai spice mix
2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger

1. Beat butter until creamy, scrape bowl.
2. Add 4 cups of sifted powdered sugar, milk, spice mix, and ginger. Beat until combined.
3. Add more powdered sugar as needed to get piping consistency.

Note: Everyone's personal preferences differ. With frosting, the flavor is up to you. If you are unsure of how much of a chai flavor you want, start light on the spices and add a teaspoon at a time until you get to a flavor you like. Same goes for the sugar. It's a matter of taste and what consistency you want to work with. Experiment until you get at what works for you.

Thank you Chockylit for the lovely photos and the recipes.

All this talk about cupcakes reminds me of muffins, which reminds me of muffinfilms. My best friends and I were obsessed with that site all through high school. One friend and I went as far as basing our final assignment in communication technology course on "Muffin Woman". A feminist muffin who saves the day. I wish I still had that video. Also in high school another friend and I made "spinach-feta muffins" in cooking class. I will try and find that recipe another time. It is 2:05am and I have been typing about muffins and cupcakes for far too long. Bonne nuit.

t for tasty

I just finished a very busy week. C'était un semaine étrange. Many ups and downs. I am confused about the week and need a while to reflect.
To relax myself after a wierd week I made a big pot of soupish stew on Friday. It is the perfect Autumn soup, and its cheap and pretty healthy too. When I cook, I rarely follow a recipe that isn't my own. I am useless at baking because I refuse to follow all the particular measurements. This is something I need to work on, because I love to eat baked goods.... so it would be super if I could make some myself. I remember when I was in middle school I was really into baking cookies. "ginger crinkles" were my fave.
Here is the recipe for my Autumn Soup. I recommend it, and goodluck figuring out the recipe....

1 or 2 sausages depending on the size. A salty pork sausage with lots of flavour, and maybe spicey.
Chou vert - thats in french, in english its like kind of a cabbage
3 zucchinis
2 large sweet potatoes
half a cup of onions approximately
2 cloves of garlic
1 can of white beans
3 cups of water
6 cups of chicken broth approximately
3 spoons of dijon mustard
salt and pepper to taste

• Cut the sausage into thirds, put in a pot with the 3 cups of water and cook on medium for about 15 minutes
• Cube the sweet potatoes and zucchini
• Put the sweet potatoes in with the sausage after the 15 minutes, and about 10 minutes after, add the zucchini
• Mince the garlic and chop the onions finely, then add to the mixture.
• Chop into thin slices the " chou vert" and add to the soup (i'll look for the translation)
  
• The sausage and the veggies will create a base flavour for the soup.
• Take the sausage chunks out, and chop into cubes, the same size as the potatoes
  
• Heat the chicken stock seperately and add the dijon mustard and whisk so the mustard is disolved into the broth
• Add the mustard and chicken broth mix to the rest of the stew
• Rinse the white beans, and add to the soup.
• Add salt and pepper to taste
  
• Turn down to the minimum temperature and let sit for a couple of hours with the lid on

Bon apetit!

It makes a large amount, which is ok because the soup can be good for about 4 days if refridgerated. The soup tastes best on the 2nd or 3rd day infact.

chim-chiminey

Had a very nice brunch today with my French guy. It was at a little cafe that serves bio-food. (organic). Literally everything they serve is organic. We sat outside on the patio, it was a cool but sunny autumn day. Inside the restaurant are shelves stocked with bio-confiture (organic preserves). Such as apricot jam, pepper, olive pate. yum! We both ordered bio-jambon, on bio-pain, with 3 bio-mutards. There was Dijon mustard, mustard seed mustard (thats not the real name....), and purple mustard. The purple mustard I had never tried before, but it was exceptional. I have to go buy some. We also ordered a flask of wine. It was only 1pm, and I had to work at 3pm. Bad idea. No worries though, the booze wore off before. Although I'm sure when I arrived I smelled like wine. The one time I'm not carrying gum in my purse! C'est domage. Maybe the espresso I had after gave me bad enough coffee breath that it cancelled the wine????

We were cold from sitting in the shade on the patio, so went to warm up at Place de Vosges (one of my fave parks). I unrolled my scarf and we layed down together on that in the sun. But this damn nosy pigeon stared at us the whole time from a distance. He perched his ugly feet on the fence thing, and just sat there for 10 mins glaring. Finally he moved, but then began to circle around us. What nerve he has. Then I went to work.

Je vous present....the "patrol pigeon".

Le cupid (the youngest of the 3 kids I au pair for) was sick today. With I think the same thing I had. He was being so cute! He was kind of groggy from the medication and not feeling well I think. But surprisingly he was in a great mood! So we had a little photo shoot. He was talking to himself and roaming around the house playing, and I followed him around with my camera.

I am finished work for the day, and have wandered up to my room on the 7th floor.... where, let me remind you, I have only a bedroom to myself. No toilet or shower. A bed, desk, TV , laptop & wardrobe, and my clothes etc. I share a toilet with a few other people on my floor. And my shower is on the 4th floor in the families apartment. It is a private shower for my use only. The sink on the 7th floor is too old and dirty looking to use. This building has to be over 200 years old. All the rooms on the 7th floor are just "chambre de bonne" which basically were used as a bedroom for all the housekeepers of the nice apartments below, in the 1800/1900's. I guess things haven't really changed that much....except the fact that I have a TV maybe. Anyway, the point to this explanation is that after work I was feeling the need for a facial, so I immediately coated my face in a mint-julep mask. Looks like toothpaste. After completing this I realize that I have no way of washing this off in the privacy of my room. Uh oh....stranded. Either that or embarrassment. The hall way and stairwell is surprisingly busy on a regular basis. "Merde." Still haven't decided what I will do. But in the meantime....

My face may look like this....

.... but the view outside my bedroom window looks like this.

"Chim chiminey, Chim chiminey, Chim chim cher-ee"

I don't mind staying here a while with my mask on, listening to Indian music. It is the perfect autumn night, warm enough to have my window open to enjoy the view and let in fresh French air, and cool enough to have no insects! Bon nuit.

i put this in my espresso

Last night I had an urge to listen to "Sugar Sugar", by the Archies. I am trying to figure out how to ad this song to the post, but no luck.

sugar

sugar ps. i only put one sucre in my espresso. not 2.

That song reminds me of the 'good ol' days'....when I was young, and didn't even have summer job yet. It was around the time the movie "Now and Then" came out and my friends and I were in love with the 60's soundtrack. I miss the feeling of having no responsibilities. Waking up in the morning and watching cartoons with my sister and probably eating captain crunch or honey combs. Or maybe I was eating toast? With peanut butter and strawberry jam. I miss peanut butter....nobody eats it in France. mmmm toast with peanut butter. But back to the topic of cereal. I have noticed that there are many American cereals here in France....the exact same cereals infact, but they change the names of them. Why?! "Corn Pops" become "Miel Pops" (a kinda frenglish name). And another thing, there is this really good chocolaty cereal that I don't think is in America, called "choco pillows". If it is clearly a French cereal, why not give it a real French name? Instead of "choco pillows"....I mean, really, why? And timmon and pumba are on the box cover. I haven't seen those guys in a long time!

paper chain people

The internet knows....
that I am in France. Suddenly all the words I typed (in english, because I can hardly write in french) had squiggly red lines under them....because they weren't French words. And facebook displays French advertisements. And thats all I can think of right now....but I know there are other strange french internet things. oh, ya....google too.

Went to a Thai restaurant today. Of course I had springrolls. The springrolls at every Thai or Vietnamese restaurant I go to in France are like no other I've had before.
The spring rolls are served like this:
step 1 - a piece of leaf lettuce the size of your hand.
step 2 - put about 3 or 4 mint leaves in a line on the middle of the lettuce leaf.
step 3 - put the heavily deepfried most delicious pork filled spring roll in the middle with the mint.
step 4 - roll the lettuce so that it is wrapped around the springroll.
step 5 - dip it in this sweet kinda spicy sauce with little grated carrots.
step 6 - wish you were eating one right now.

This is what I can afford to put on my wall.... not as nice as the wall paper and wall stickers from the previous post, but it will do. And look at the cute little bear head trying to poke his way into the picture....sneaky bastard.

As I find more scraps and things to put on the wall, the border will eventually go around the entire room....which wont take long because that is already half of my room almost. They can't be seen very well in these photos, but there are a couple Degas prints that I bought at le Musee D'Orssay. AND, you can see a some paper chain people above one of the Degas'. There is a chain of boys, and a chain of girls. Today is the first day I have successfully made my own paper chain people. I remember trying all throughout childhood, but it just wasn't as easy as a snowflake. Eventually I just gave up, and up until today I could never spawn my own paper chain people. But today, everything changed. Here is up-close proof....


I did some random exploring today around Bastille. I had finished sticky-tacking most of my photos and scraps to the wall. Some guy asked me out while I was crossing the bridge during my exploration. His teeth were dirty. That's all I could pay attention to. He looked me up and down before stopping to talk to me. That is so typical random french guy of him. He didn't speak any english, so I had to speak french....and he actually understood me, so we continued to talk for a few more minutes even though I refused his invitation, and his teeth were dirty. It was my first real conversation in french that lasted more than 1 minute, so I didn't want the conversation to end. I was trying to find a good route for jogging I was telling him, and he gave me some suggestions in the area. He asked me my name, and I shook his dry hand and told him my name was Dandy (first word that popped into my head), and continued across the bridge. I was kind of really lost, but eventually I made it home. When I finally made it back to my neighbourhood, and began recognizing things I got really excited, and was suddenly extremely happy to be home, and felt so comfortable where I was! It's strange how you sometimes don't have to go very far to realize how much you appreciate or miss something.

Two firsts today:
1) paper chain people - at the age of 21
2) first real french conversation - with dry hands creeper

C'etait un bon jour aujourdhui!