Vocab Friday: A croissant in the oven.

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Oh how I wish there really was an actual croissant in my new oven. Because that one up there? I ate it. And I could really use another one.

Why? Well, I can tell you it’s not my usual appetite for pastry at work here. There’s something far more serious going on. And franchement, I don’t know whether to be honored or alarmed that no one’s called me out on it yet.

I mean, have you read my blog lately? First of all, I was completely missing in action for the month of December. That’s because I was busy walking around in a nauseous stupor, contemplating whether or not I was eating enough Ritz crackers to get their corporate sponsorship.

Then New Years came and went without one single mention of champagne. Not one! And nobody thought to check and see if I still had a pulse?

And what about all the obsessive talk about eggs and chocolate pudding? Do I scare you enough with my normal eating habits that the news of me eating nothing but huevos rancheros and Jell-O wasn’t even a blip on the radar?

Sheesh. I guess I’m going to have to spell it out for you.

Je suis enceinte.

That’s ehhn-cehhhnt. As in preggo. Knocked up. With child. Scared out of my mind.

Ok that last one isn’t entirely true. Husband and I are actually really excited about this little alien growing in my belly. What I’m scared of is not being able to eat a good rare steak until, oh, August or so. And letting go of smelly, unpasteurized cheeses. And the champagne! Oh the champagne. It’s a travesty.

And while I’m overwhelmed by the miracle of life and the pregnancy glow and all that crap, what strikes me as truly momentous is the growing list of things this baby is going to owe me when s/he comes out. Oh, I’m keeping track. Right now we’re up to about 6 bottles of bubbly, 4 steak dinners, a big wheel of brie, one ski trip in the Alps, all of my muscle tone and 2 pants buttons. And most likely a boob lift.

I think that’s fair, don’t you?

 

Harnessing the Power of Pudding.

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Husband and I just had a moment over a bowl of Jell-O chocolate pudding: We were spooning the velvety goodness into our craws, discussing the possible health merits of Jell-O pudding made with skim milk, when my dear husband took a particularly large spoonful and stopped dead in his tracks.

I thought it might be a sugar coma setting in. But before I could slap him out of it, I noticed the wheels of brilliance starting to spin in his head. That’s when he looked deep into the bowl of pudding and said,

“If we could just gather it somehow,” his hand grasping at the air, fist raised at the idea of it. “And then jam it into a buttery croissant…”

The air was electric with the sheer possibility of it. And for a moment I nodded, fully understanding his pudding croissant vision and believing in the power of this dream of dreams.

And then I laughed so hard that chocolate pudding nearly came out my nose.

Vocab Friday: Eggs

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I eat a lot of eggs. Like probably way more than my fair share, to the point that I’m scared to have my cholesterol tested. Sometimes I eat oatmeal with the sole intention of cleaning out my arteries because I’m pretty sure I can feel bits of scrambled yolk clinging to my blood cells.

It’s not really my fault though. I’m home a lot during the day, and lunch options are scarce in my neighborhood, unless I want to *gasp* get dressed and sit down to a three course meal. That seems extreme, even for my appetite, so I often turn to the relatively easy, protein rich egg to get me through the day.

Scrambled with cheese and salsa or fried with a good slice of fresh bread, I can’t think of a more satisfying lazy lunch. Sometimes I keep a bowl of those suckers hard boiled in the fridge, telling myself I’m only going to eat the whites as a snack.

What makes this egg habit more problematic is that l’omelette is a standard cafe offering. So even if I do make it out for lunch, I often find my self face to face with the most perfect, pillowy pile of eggs, surely sautéed in a block of unadulterated butter the size of my head. And how can you turn something like that down?

Part of my egg obsession also stems from a craving for good old American crap food, like the transcendent breakfast concoction known as the Egg N Cheese. Preferably cooked on a well loved greasy diner skillet and sandwiched between whole wheat toast or an everything bagel, the Egg N Cheese is the stuff of my dreams. It may be the only food that actually tastes better when Kraft singles are involved. I’m swooning a little bit right now just thinking about eating one.

But back to Paris, where standard breakfast includes coffee and a cigarette and the Egg N Cheese has failed to catch on. Thus I cling to other eggs, and hope cardiac arrest isn’t lurking around the corner.

So you can understand why I wasn’t at all upset when the spicy Chinese beef and broccoli dish I ordered last weekend at dinner came topped with a miniature hard boiled quail egg. It seemed rather odd perched there, and not having much experience with quail eggs, I wondered if it would taste funky.

But it didn’t! It tasted just like an awesome mini egg. You could have made super bite-size deviled eggs with it! Oh the possibilities! I told Husband that if I could get my hands on some quail eggs, I would hard boil 2 dozen of those suckers and pop them like candy.

Then lo and behold: A few days later, while cruising through my regular egg aisle (non refrigerated over here, of course), look what I found:

 

I feel like only in France would you be able to easily find mass marketed cocktail quail eggs. And I am genuinely elated about that. Tiny Egg N Cheese sandwiches, anyone?

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caille

Pronunication: k-eye

Definition: Quail. Actually here I think it might refer to a specific quail-like bird from a certain region in France.

oeuf

Pronunciation: uhff

Definition: Egg. Eggity egg egg egg. Breakfast lunch and dinner of champions. As in,

“Eating 12 oeufs de caille is like the equivalent of 3 regular eggs, right? So I’ll have a 24 oeuf omelet.”

 

Granny carts are the new black.

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As you may have already heard, I have to haul my groceries around the city in a cart. A 2 wheeled, pull it behind you and try not to roll through the dog poo on the sidewalk granny cart, in fact. And it’s kind of embarrassing.

Part of that embarrassment stems from the fact that I refused to pay more than 30 euro for a stupid grocery cart, so I ended up with a crappy plastic neon yellow and orange version. And a year later, it pretty much looks like a family of rabid street dogs has been living out of it for the past 6 months.

One wheel is about to wobble off and there’s a class 4 blowout in the back left corner from a too heavy load of sparkling water and pasta sauce. There are shriveled up green beans inside and blueberry stains throughout. My 7 year old niece wouldn’t even take the thing out for a spin.

Despite this, I have been hesitant to spend more money on a new one. But the sorry state of my cart really worried Husband. He claimed I needed something more sturdy and fashionable. Maybe bigger, too, so I could bring home more stuff. Heck, I could even use 2 carts at the same time! You know, to make it easier to do all the grocery shopping by myself.

Of course I truly appreciated his concerns. So I promptly starting replying to his offers of bigger, better carts with WHY DON’T YOU GET YOUR OWN BLEEPITY BLEEP BLEEP CART TO PULL AROUND ALL AFTERNOON! AND FILL IT WITH PAIN AU RAISINS WHILE YOU’RE AT IT!

Which, in retrospect, was perhaps a bit inflammatory. He was just trying to help after all. And I did need a new stupid cart, however much I hated to admit it.

So here it is: The BMW of grocery carts. It’s got a sturdy metal frame, a very preppy non-neon canvas bag, real tires, and it cost a small fortune.

I actually kind of like it. The somber colors make it slightly less embarrassing, and it’s got a nice comfy grip pad on the handle bar. But I just can’t help thinking: This is what my life has come to, luxury granny carts.

Les francais demandent justice!

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Lest you believe the news reports describing the French as a bunch of crazy socialists who only care about shorter workweeks and earlier retirement ages, I give you proof that they also take to the streets for world issues of the utmost importance:

And yes, that one protester seems to be holding a picture with Michael Jackson’s face on Napoleon’s body. They were also singing Wanna Be Startin Somethin. If that’s not a rallying cry, I don’t know what is!

Vocab Friday: What the….

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Meet my new oven. Well, “new” is probably not the most accurate term. Sure, it’s new to me. But it most definitely looks like it came from someone else’s apartment. Oh well. Beggars can’t be choosers, right?

Anyway, she was wheeled in this afternoon, as the old pièce de merde was unceremoniously wheeled out (sans sledgehammering). After she was hooked up, the repair men called me in to check it out. And because I’m living in Paris, with open access to pastries and champagne, the gods decided to even things out a bit by again making sure that my oven has pictograms where most logical people would just put a bake/broil/self clean dial:

Hmmm. Looks like light bulbs, snowflakes, meat logs, fish/croissants, pie, and some things I can’t decipher. Right. Luckily, this oven also comes with a handy pictogram translator on the front:

And thankfully there is a well marked temperature dial, so I can adjust to my temp of choice, after of course figuring out if I’m making gibier, gratin, or a pièce a la broche. Of course.

Just to make things extra special, the repair men then informed me that after setting the pictogram dial to meat log, it was imperative to also set the timer. Nothing would work without setting the timer. I gave them my most incredulous look. They both just shrugged.

On the way out, I thanked them and said in my best french that I’d call them later if my dinner turned out crappy. The older man smiled and said, “You can invite me over, but I’m not coming if the food is bad.”

*     *     *

Let’s see what some of my pictograms mean, shall we?

1. gibier

Pronunciation: jee-bee-ay

Definition: Wild game, as in some animal you hunted and dragged home for dinner

2. gratin

Pronunciation: grah-tegn (with that really nasally “eh” sound at the end)

Definition: Anything with a broiled, cheesy topping, like a potato gratin (sooo, is gratin the broil setting? only time will tell.)

3. pièce a la broche

Pronunciation: pee-es ah la bro-sh

Definition: Meat on a skewer. Grilled kebabs. (No idea how my oven is even going to do that.)

 

A lesson in grocery shopping.

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You would think that shopping for food in Paris would be a dream come true. Visiting the butcher for fresh cuts of meat you can’t identify, stopping by the cheesemonger for a wedge of something smelly, visiting the vegetable stand for only the ripest avocados. Sounds simply idyllic, no?

But what if in addition to your usual cheese and meats, you also need toilet paper? Or something’s missing from your spice rack? Or you actually want fresh produce, straight from the farmer (because contrary to popular belief, most markets sell the same stuff you find in bulk at the grocery store)? Well that means you have to wheel your cart to the outdoor bio market that’s only open on Saturday mornings. Then high-tail it over to the butcher who’s closed on Mondays and sometimes in the middle of the afternoon for no reason. Then find an actual grocery store that’s open past 7pm to pick up TP and milk. Oh, and that yogurt you really like? That’s at the other covered produce market, in the opposite direction from everything else, and it’s closed on Tuesdays and Sundays.

Did I mention that you have to haul all that stuff back in a neon orange cart with one bum wheel and then lug it up a couple flights of stairs?

Fun times. That’s why even though I’m only shopping for myself and Husband, and we eat out half the time, it feels as though I am just on one continuous grocery shopping adventure. I find myself picking up things I don’t really need just because I’m near that store or market or stand and they might be closed later and what if I need dried figs on Saturday?!!?

Adding to the confusion is the dizzying array of actual grocery stores in my neighborhood. There are at least 6 options in a 5 block radius, not counting the outdoor produce markets. Just the places you can go for dry goods and packaged foods. But whereas most U.S. grocery stores stock just about everything you could ever dream of, the French versions seem to specialize in having some of the things you need some of the time. And a lot of them smell bad.

To prove my point, I’ve charted out some of the grocery shopping options in my quartier, along with their strengths and weaknesses:

Proxi Market: Kind of like a really small 7-11, with produce. Always open!

Has: Staples like milk, eggs, toilet paper. Random surprises like dried figs. Veggies. Dusty cans of tomato sauce next to toilet bowl cleaner.

Does Not Have: The one thing you need most at that moment. More than 100 square feet to move around in.

 

Picard: Frozen food bonanza! A favorite of Parisians.

Has: Everything from frozen mini quiches and canapés to whole frozen lobsters.

Does not have: Anything not frozen.

 

 

 

Franprix: Bigger selection than Proxi, but not a full on grocery store like we’re used to in America.

Has: A wider selection of staples, beer and wine, some meats and processed ready to eat food. Also the brand of milk I like in a large container.

Does not have: A good smell, friendly checkers, neatly organized food.

 

Monoprix: Closer to an American grocery, except for the clothes.

Has: A big selection of stuff, a nice butcher and cheese shop, the habit of reorganizing the aisles every week so I never know where anything is. Oh, and 2 other floors of clothing and home goods.

Does not have: The brand of milk I like in anything other than the smallest container. Beans. Anything other than chocolate cereal.

 

La Ferme: A new addition and oddly run by Franprix, this store is a godsend.

Has: Clean floors, entire shelves of American, Italian and Asian foods, fresh pasta, seafood, lovely produce, wines, lots of bio options.

Does not have: Any milk other than the non-refrigerated, hyper-pasteurized kind, a big butcher department, many customers yet.

See how something as simple as buying milk could get a little tricky? And I didn’t even get to the Carfour or the LeaderPrice or the whole other store of just American crap at the Embassy! Thank goodness my oven is broken and I don’t have to cook anything. Next time I’ll fill you in on the bakery options – one place for croissants, another for pain au raisins, another for baguettes…

Breaking news!

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I’m getting a new oven! A brand new French oven, that will probably also have pictograms and drive me up a wall. But I’m holding out hope that things will be better this time. And that the people that come to take the old one away will let me push it out our 3rd story window.

Forget the New Year. Let’s talk about my oven.

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I know it’s a new year, and we should all be moving forward — letting bygones be bygones, forgiving, forgetting, and all that jazz. And I really do want to move on, leaving all the grocery store hate and Sephora hate and french cable company hate behind. I want a year without hate, if you will.

But my god damn pièce de merde pictogram oven just won’t leave me alone.

See that smug look on its door? The mocking tone in its clockface? Just sitting there, refusing to let me cook food in any kind of logical, efficient manner? It makes my blood boil.

I thought we had reached a mutual peace, the god forsaken oven functioning in a fairly consistent manner if I promised not to get too adventurous with the pictogram settings. We had some good times together even, churning out molten caramel brownies and cinnamon rolls and some delicious roasted carrots. Things were good.

But the oven just couldn’t leave well enough alone. It had to get one last jab in before the New Year, just to spite me. So on Christmas morning, with a houseful of in-laws, one delicious egg casserole and a tray full of unbaked sticky buns waiting, my oven decided to give me the finger.

Not only did it refuse to let me change the temperature settings. Oh no. It decided to only function in broil/dangerous fireball mode, heating and heating and heating itself (from the top only) into oblivion as the digital thermometer said it was still preheating.

I discovered this at about 8am, after letting the thing preheat for a good 15 minutes. When I checked back, it said it was still preheating. That seemed odd, since smoke was seeping out of the oven door. So I opened it up to check and almost singed my eyebrows off.

The stand-alone backup thermometer assured me that my oven, supposedly “still preheating,” was in fact trying to kill me. The inside temp was about 260 degrees Celsius, which is about 500 Fahrenheit. In other words, a very clear “F-YOU!” from le four.

So after rousing Husband with a jolly string of profanities and threatening to take that mo fo out once and for all with a sledgehammer, I decided I couldn’t give up. That would be like letting the pictogram oven win, and lord knows I was not about to give it the pleasure.

Hence, egg casserole was transferred to a cocotte for stove top preparation. Sticky buns were broiled on both sides (not a method I would ever, ever recommend, but don’t you dare tell the oven). Christmas dinner went from beautiful roasted filet to filet chops fried on a grill pan. Broiled mushrooms took 3 minutes instead of 10.

So suck it, oven. I don’t need you anyway. We’ve put in a work order, and I hope some French maniac with a tool box comes to tear you apart, burner by burner, wire by excruciating wire.

You know, some time in the next month or so when they finally get around to it.

Bonne Année!

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Happy 2011 folks! Here’s to many glasses of bubbly in your future. And more posts from yours truly.