a blog about travel and food.

snow!

2009-12-07T21:52:00.000-05:00

We finally have snow here in Syracuse! All of my classmates and I found it a bit hilarious that every single other place had snow while we, in the snowiest large city in the United States did not. It was pretty crazy, though, when I saw it snowing both horizontally and upward today.

escaping my studies and my troubles, fleeing westward

2009-11-22T18:12:00.002-05:00

On 16 December I'm ditching Syracuse, getting on a train for 60+ hours, and fleeing to Portland. Well, sort of.

This semester ends in less than a month and I am 100% ready for that. I enjoy studying public diplomacy here, but 15 credit hour semesters at graduate school are just insane. For anyone curious: here's the wikipedia link which sort of describes the subject that I'm studying. Hint: it's not propaganda anymore (or at least it shouldn't be)! An upside to this semester, almost making up for the 15 credit hours, is that it hasn't really snowed yet (well, once, but flurries) and might be warmer now, in November, than it was in October.

In another weird turn, I found out that, although I'm fulfilling all of the stated requirements for my scholarship, I am not fulfilling the unstated, imaginary requirements that I was supposed to somehow infer from the application, so I'm dealing with that. To make a ridiculous analogy and throwback to the old days, I feel like Harry Potter, in that I've stumbled into some weird world with no stated rules and people are telling me that I'm destined for greatness (thanks iSchool) but not actually giving me any solutions for how to deal with the actual problems that exist within all of this.

Anyway, December 16: getting away from it all. A 13 hour train ride to Chicago, a 46 hour train ride to Portland (Oregon), a week in Portland, then back to Chicago (by train, of course) to hang out and celebrate the onset of 2010. It should be a good time. Will eat, blog, hang out with friends, and make it back in time to head to DC to attend a professional conference (er, I hope.) and see friends. Woopwoopwoop!

garlic is more important than most other things

2009-10-15T23:02:00.000-04:00

Joe and I took MegaBus to New York City for the weekend of his birthday. I got "arguably the best garlic in the known universe" as my souvenir. I think I'm planning on roasting it and spreading it on bread. Yum.

french (in action!), happy birthday to me.

2009-09-08T09:27:00.000-04:00

I'm starting my 23rd year by adding more French to my life.

Since acquiring a set of French in Action DVDs, I've been meaning to start actually watching them rather than letting them languish on my bedside table. For those not in the know, French in Action is a series of 52 (?) episodes made by a professor at Yale as a tool for French instruction.

They sometimes are hilariously dated (made in 1986, they are my age!) yet also right on the mark. In episode two, which I watched today, the main character, Mireille looks somewhat dismayed that her friends are eating lunch at ELEVEN. Quelle horreur!! Also, there's a romance, a mysterious suited man following people around, and parts where the professor teaching the class walks out of his classroom and into the action. Awesome. And Mireille's outfit is really cute (red high-waisted skirt, white shirt cut low in the back).

One thing I found weird about this episode was that Mireille shook hands with two of her male friends rather than exchanging bisous. Especially since she knew their names and seemed to be in the same social group as they were. I got made fun of anytime I tried to shake hands with anyone in France. Hmmph.

garlic! butter!

2009-09-07T13:39:00.001-04:00

Last night I made bagna cauda, which sounds like the most disgusting thing ever on paper but it actually amazing. Try it.

Recipe:

8 (LARGE) cloves of garlic (chopped up)
6 tablespoons of butter
.5 cup olive oil
1 tin of anchovies
some cayenne pepper
some black pepper
some lemon juice

In a small cast-iron pan, simmer the garlic in olive oil for a minute, add the butter and anchovies, and then let that all hang out on low heat for 15 minutes. The anchovies and garlic will basically disintegrate. Just before eating, add some cayenne, some pepper, and some lemon juice. Use as dip for raw vegetables and bread.

proper salad procedure

2009-09-05T18:53:00.000-04:00

On Thursday, not only did I get cookbook part one (The Classic Italian Cookbook) in the mail, but also Joe and I went to Lombardi's on 534 Butternut Street to try to add more authentic Italian food to our pantry. We left with arborio rice, prosciutto, and capers in salt (plus some impulse buys of sesame bars and coffee soda), but sadly didn't really have the bank to buy some of the more exciting things there (homemade pasta, a variety of cheeses, authentic balsamic vinegar, etc). On the bright side, that might inspire me to make my own pasta.

So, salad: not as easy as you think. Here are the basic guidelines (from The Classic Italian Cookbook):

1. Never put anything other than salt, olive oil, and wine vinegar on salad (unless feeling edgy in which case you can maybe add some pepper, and even go so far as to substitute lemon juice for vinegar).
2. You have to intuitively know how much of each thing to add.
3. Mixing the salt, oil, and vinegar before adding them to the salad is forbidden.
4. If the leaves of the salad are wet before/while you add the salt-oil-vinegar you have ruined everything.
5. First, you sprinkle the salad with salt (but not too much salt, because if you have too much salt you have ruined everything).
6. Second, you add the olive oil. It has to be olive oil. Enough to give the leaves a "surface gloss" (if you add too much it will pool, make the salad soggy, and ruin everything).
7. Third, add the vinegar. But not too much. Be careful. "A few drops too much will ruin a salad."
8. Mix it and SERVE IMMEDIATELY (or all is lost and it's probably soggy and ruined).

I think mine turned out pretty well.

I got a single white eggplant in my CSA Thursday and decided to veer off from the cookbook's suggestions and instead to make this eggplant bruschetta recipe, which basically is the best thing ever. I skipped the parsley (because I didn't have any) and just used a ton of basil.

We had that for the antipasti-type course, then some soup (tuscan soup? inspired from this recipe but tinkered with - I added a big can of tomatoes with juice instead of the tomato paste, which I'm pretty sure makes for an indisputably superior soup) for the primo course. I'm trying to work on the authenticity, but after the first two courses both Joe and I were too full to even consider eating more.

Hello Italy!

2009-09-02T15:27:00.002-04:00

And the cooking project begins! Joe cooked the first official Italian meal for dinner yesterday. Chard two ways (Swiss chard stalks gratinéed with Parmesan cheese AND boiled Swiss chard salad) and some angel hair pasta with basil-garlic-butter sauce. We didn't have any of our fancy (used, bought second-hand from Amazon Marketplace) Italian cookbooks yet, so the chard recipes came from here and the pasta was improvised.

After getting the cookbook (pictured below) and reading selected parts, I remembered what our Swedish-Italian couchsurfing host Mattia told us and what we'd observed in Rome: usually in Italy one doesn't put all of the food on one plate, but rather has a structured order of primo, secondo, contorni with maybe some others thrown in. Basically, this means that we're supposed to eat our pasta/rice dish first, our meat/poultry/fish second, and vegetable third. So, we need to work on it.

Today, I made a sort-of-panino for lunch. I made bread (that was supposed to be focaccia, but I started it last night and then got too tired to wait up late to bake it so it got a bit weird overnight in the fridge), chopped three of the billion pieces of summer squash that we have, an onion and clove of garlic, too.

I then fried the thinly chopped onions in butter (!) on medium heat in our biggest cast-iron pan, threw in the garlic when the onions were getting translucent, then when that was getting a bit browned, I added the squash and turned the heat up to high.

When that was tender (and saturated with butter), I put it in the sandwich with some parmesan cheese. Optimal deliciousness!

For Italian cooking purposes, I bought The Classic Italian Cookbook and More Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan (available in more expensive form in one volume but my grad school income doesn't permit me to buy books like that....). She's supposed to be the best!

Buffalo! Niagara Falls! Graduate School!

2009-09-02T15:01:00.000-04:00

Niagara Falls: it's down there.

Also, we got into two places that are usually closed to the public. An old theatre in which we got a grand tour (and a history of the carpet from 1920 to today), and Buffalo Central Station. When we got to the station we saw a bunch of cars outside and the gate open. We walked in, acted like we belonged, spent 20 minutes wandering around and taking photos, and then got kicked out by a heavily mustached construction guy (but nicely!).

Fall semester of graduate school started Monday.

My summer class on visual communications trained me to see all of the different symbols around me. I've been walking around Newhouse and some of the graphic representations are hilarious. Case in point: this trash bin for throwing away feminine products (yes, I am the creepy person in the next stall taking photos of symbols and graffiti in the bathrooms). Seriously, what is going on here? I understand the tube with the female symbol, but what about the pointy things? Bobby pins? Hair clips? Why would I throw hair accessories away in a bathroom trash bin? Please explain.

a new direction

2009-08-26T11:26:00.000-04:00

Around the World in 270(ish) Days

Problem: Because I am no longer in Europe, with easy access to low-budget airlines and high-speed trains, city and country hopping is much more difficult for me now (though, to give Syracuse its due, I can get on a train or bus and easily get to New York City, Toronto, Niagara Falls, or Chicago [if I'm willing to brave a 13+ hour ride]). Still, I really want to travel.

Solution: Instead of going to different countries, make those countries come to me. Specifically, in edible form.

For my next nine months in Syracuse (starting in September), the plan is to explore the cuisine of a different country each month (as authentically as possible) on my graduate student budget. Ideally, this means cooking and eating traditional cuisine of that country for every meal in the way that it would normally be eaten. Practically, well, we'll see how it goes (relevant note: I'm taking 15 credit hours in graduate coursework this semester).

Italy is the country of choice for September, and afterward the tentative lineup is a country in South America (potentially Chile), a country in Northern Africa (potentially Tunisia), Russia, India, a Scandinavian country (Sweden? Norway?), Japan, Lebanon or Syria, and France. This could all change (for instance, I really want to do a month of Ethiopian food, but am intimidated at the prospect of making injera bread)! Countries will be chosen based on the desire to eat that sort of food, and the ease of obtaining and authentic(ish) cookbook (in English) for the cuisine.

So, that's that.

Coming soon: commentary on the relative ease/difficulty of making gnocchi and polenta, trying to use my CSA vegetables in an Italian context, determining what kinds of (homemade) sauces work with specific shapes of pasta (and I promise that Joe and I won't just go out and buy 60 cans of Wegman's Brand Ragu and 60 packets of dollar pasta and call it a day).

Montreal!!

2009-08-21T19:34:00.000-04:00

First semester of graduate school ended Friday, and Saturday we went to Montreal (for 30 hours. suck on that NYTimes. who needs 36?).

The crazy thing about Montreal, is that it feels like concurrently being in France and America. And, people will alternate between speaking to you in French if they see that you are comfortable doing it and swapping over to English if you give them a deer-in-the-headlights look.

I spent a lot of time eating at a tiny mediocre cafe, but with amazing salmon from Nova Scotia, at authentic-ish Mexican place (Maria Bonita), burgers at La Paryse (thanks, Ashley!), and cheese at Hamel. We also spent a lot of time just wandering around - Montreal is so pretty and cool looking. Townhouses' shutters and trim are painted jaunty colors, a lot of things are bilingual, and the streetsigns are fun to look at (ARRET instead of STOP).

School starts again in about a week, but Joe and I already have other travels lined up (Providence, NYC, maybe Toronto on megabus? And more?), so I'm more excited than I would be if I were stuck in Syracuse for all of the foreseeable future.

school starts in two weeks

2009-06-21T13:19:00.000-04:00

After wandering around Kansas for a month and basically acting as though I was still in France (touring local vineyards, making macarons, having wine and cheese with friends), Joe and I drove north and then east, taking in the sights of I90 (Chicago, Cleveland, tollbooths) and US20 (snowmobile crossing signs, local diners).

Now I'm in Syracuse. It has been raining non-stop, a cashier has asked me, upon seeing my Kansas ID and learning that I'd just moved here, "If you don't mind me asking, why'd ya move here? I've been trying to get out of here my whole life!," and I don't know where to park [see below (seriously, is that a joke?)].

back in the usa

2009-05-12T09:23:00.000-04:00

Stopped by Chicago for a fun 44 hours (Danielle and Dave! cats! ethnic food!). Now in Madison with Speef, Dr. Evermor's Forevertron, and beer! While visiting the Forevertron, we talked to Dr. Evermor. He asked us if we'd been to the Garden of Eden in Kansas and then gave us metal rods and told us to go bang on a giant dragon sculpture to make music. Also, since being back in the States (5 days), I've eaten Indonesian, Mexican, Ethiopian, Nepalese, French, and American food. Wow.

dublin, etc

2009-05-05T19:04:00.000-04:00

Been hanging around Ireland, putting milk in my tea, and eating at diners which are trying to be American to acclimate myself to the future (ie, tomorrow). In Ireland, Joe and I went to Howth (45 minutes from Dublin), went on a Literary Pub Crawl, saw a play (Love and Money), and drank a few pints of beer . Tomorrow is an 8 hour plane ride to Chicago on Aer Lingus, "Ireland's favorite airline." Oh, my. Looking forward to having friends and family, stores being open 24 hours a day, and dryers.

leaving france forever

2009-04-30T16:56:00.000-04:00

I leave France tomorrow. Since the public transit system doesn't work tomorrow (uhhhhhhhh, because of May Day, of course), Joe and I are really looking forward to dragging our bags across the river to the SatoBus stop tomorrow morning (hope that is running tomorrow...). After that, Ireland!

stockholm and berlin and amsterdam (and a bit of paris)

2009-04-22T15:51:00.000-04:00

Highlights of two weeks trip to Stockberdam:

Street food: tunnbrödrulle, fried herring, curryworst, beer, falafel, FEBO, vlaamse frites. (winner: Stockholm. fried herring AND a hot dog + mashed potatoes rolled up in flatbread? No contest.)
NSA Field Station Berlin Teufelsberg: abandoned, graffitied, tons of fun.
Scientology wedding in Amsterdam:
Skansen: open-air museum/zoo in Sweden. Saw a moose with one antler, saw a bear eating an avocado, saw a sleeping seal scratch its armpit. Got to ride a boat there!
St. Nicolaas Boat Club of Amsterdam: got a canal tour on an old school boat, got to drink beer on the tour, got to sit next to a guy smoking weed who opened my beer with his lighter.
Brouwerij 't IJ: microbrewery in a windmill. Wow. (link)
Narrow streets: (Stockholm)
Drinking beer while reading books in a used bookstore in Berlin run by an aging transvestite.
Touring the parliament building in Stockholm, and having Swedish politics explained to us by our CouchSurfing hosts, one of whom was a politician in the Christian Democrat party.
Graffiti: Berlin has a lot of it. Some of it is dangerous.
Liquor stores in Stockholm: Controlled by the state, close at 3pm on Saturday, have a sterile vibe.
Haircuts: Not actually a highlight. Joe and I got free haircuts in Amsterdam from a beauty school. We were unhappy with them. Mine was still long enough to try to fix. Now it isn't. (And, unsurprisingly, the second cut was from a lady who had graduated from the first haircut beauty school. Found out mid-haircut. Aaaaaawesome.)
Food, food, food, food, food in Berlin: Joe and I ate breakfast three days in a row at three different places all with the same menu, owned by Russians. Joe and I ate a lot of hummus and falafel. Joe and I ate at an Eritrean restaurant. Joe and I ate a soup with avocado in it. All ethnic food that is non-existent in France. And, of course, a lot of beer.
Eating regional specialities at McDonalds in all three cities (see flickr for documentation).
Viktoriapark in Berlin: We drank organic wine from plastic cups by a manmade waterfall, watched teenage hipsters and people walking dogs, and walked to the top of the hill for a nice view.
The Andy Warhol exhibit in the Grand Palais in Paris: Not only fun, but you could buy souvenir cans of Campbell's in the gift shop!
Funny crosswalk lights (the East Berlin one is the best!), no dogs allowed signs, and metro warning signs.

poisson d'avril

2009-04-02T03:46:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, April 1, is known in France as "the fish of April."

In the morning I helped Joe with his taxes, and discovered that (despite the fact that he'd be getting a bit of money back from the government) he still had to pay the Fish Tax of 2008! Oh, no! Quel dommage! Luckily, a fish in Lyon is not hard to find.

At present, all of the chocolate shops here are filled with chocolate fish, chocolate hens, chocolate bears, chocolate ducks with some costing as much as 100 euros! Luckily, Joe's fish tax was not that high and he scored an okay fish for the bargain price of 5 euros.

After procuring said fish, Joe and I had a serious conversation, decided that our fish was lonely, and decided to go take it to a more fishy place. We first walked it through Les Halles (the giant food market where Paul Bocuse supposedly shops) looking for a poissonerie but, sadly, since it was after 12 (noon) on a Wednesday, all of them were closed.

We didn't want the fish to cry, though, so we hopped across the street to Bo Sushi. And, despite the weird sexy menu art, it was pretty amazing. We got a combo plate for 16.50 euros, which came with two delicious cabbage salads and then 18 pieces of sushi (three pieces of each variety).

Front to back: spring roll with avocado and salmon, salmon with "cream cheese," tuna with mayonaise, OMELET wrapped around avocado and "cream cheese," salmo, and finally sesame seed encrusted tuna and avocado.

The waiter was amazingly nice, refilled our water without us asking, and joked with us in English and French!

We got the fish home, let it swim around a bit with some macarons from Seve (in my opinion, the best in Lyon!). And then started eating it when, to my surprise, I discovered that the fish had produced some caviar!!

For real, though, on the 1 April, French school children are supposed to be all sneaky and tape paper fish to their classmates' backs. That sounds like much more fun than American April Fools' Day traditions.

Paris: the land of amazing falafel and just about everything else.

2009-03-30T07:08:00.004-04:00

I got to Paris at 10pm Friday and, after drinking a third of a bottle of wine, with a third of a round of cheese, promptly fell asleep (Joe and his mom had already done a full day there - the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the first falafel sandwiches of the trip [from L'As du Falafel -- supposedly the best, though in our opinion not], and so on...). The next morning I woke up to a breakfast (in bed) of chocolate croissant and Nespresso (What else? Ha. Ha. Ha. If I ask my students "What else?" they answer with "Nespresso!" if I didn't know about this ad campaign I would be confused as hell) and then we hit the road. Saturday we wandered the Champs-Elysees, the Marais district (I ate my first falafel sandwich at Chez Marianne [good but not the best], Joe bought shoes, we all lost each other for about half an hour), and went to a great restaurant half a block from the hotel (I tried a snail!).

At this market (the first of Sunday's adventures), I took about ten photos of people with tiny, froofy, French dogs and Joe and I helped Betsi choose a cheese. After that, we went back to the Marais district I ate another falafel sandwich (from Mi-Va-Mi, in my opinion, the best falafel in Paris. they gave falafel balls to people in line! that is service!), and we convinced Betsi to buy a cool looking red jacket/coat. Post-shopping and eating (we also split an awesome borek filled with sheep cheese and spices) we walked to Centre Pompidou and hung out there for an hour or two.

After the museum, it was almost train time, so after some wine and cheese (and after purchasing two more falafel sandwiches [one from Mi-Va-Mi and another from the place that we ate falafel with Speef when she visited], bringing the falafel total up to four for me), we headed back to Lyon. Overall, I'd describe this trip to Paris as falafelici_[t]ous

joe's mother is in town!

2009-03-25T17:51:00.000-04:00

We went to the gallo-roman amphitheaters!

And ate crepes!

mother visits Lyon! and Geneva! and Annecy!

2009-03-23T04:43:00.000-04:00

Last week my mother visited Lyon (after, first, visiting the airport in Paris for longer than necessary), and we hopped around both the city and its environs. By its environs, I mean Geneva. Isn't it nice to live in a city with other cities nearby? That are easy and relatively inexpensive to visit? Yes.

In Geneva, we played giant chess (which, I won somehow. maybe pulling memories from the depths of my brain of chess strategies from childhood years of playing chess with my father? the world will never know!!), ate fondue, and didn't see the Jet d'Eau because it was inexplicably turned off. The weather was wonderful.

The fondue in Geneva was steamy and came with only bread to dip into the cheese. My mother was somewhat disappointed -- a condition relieved only by a healthy pour of the wine that we snuck into the restaurant and a promise from me of staging a fondue party for her this summer (so, Tanya and Keith, if you are reading: be prepared!!!). Then she set the table on fire and we ran away. For real.

On Wednesday we went to Annecy, which is beautiful.

I made us to go a restaurant near a canal to eat the regional speciality - tartiflette. Nt only was it delicious, but also, while sitting there, we got to eavesdrop on the people sitting next to us. There were two women talking about their past. From the bits and pieces I caught: one of them had a husband who had been thrown into jail for some humanitarian work or political work and then, something went wrong, and someone assumed that he was a terrorist. Yikes!

Going to all of these cities with lakes reminded me of how much I want to live near water and own a boat. Preferably a cute boat with both paddle and motor capacities (let's be honest: I know next to nothing about boats. but there's time to learn!).

On Saturday, Mom's last day in Lyon, we went on a macaron trek. Though first turning her nose up at my suggestion of savory macaron's, my mother was won over by the fois gras macaron and then was compelled to try the gorgonzola, the mushroom, and the olive and rye flavors.

Later that night, I made a potato gratin and salmon with morel cream sauce (and bought some Comte and Gex cheeses) to go with my newly purchased Vin Jaune . I'd wanted to try it ever since I learned of its existence (thanks, awful Geography of Wine class) and, in fact, Joe and I were going to go to the Percée du Vin Jaune in February until we learned that, to go, it would cost five times more than just buying a bottle. So, I waited. And finally the time was right to give it a try (note the year: 1995!!!).

It tasted like walnuts and went perfectly with the cheese (the other food, though I cooked as was directed by the people who sold me the wine, I'm not positive about). It was really interesting, but I lacked the strong emotion about it that was promised by numerous wine sellers ("You will either love it or hate it! There is no in between!"). Still, probably the best wine that I'll ever buy (at least, until I start making real money).

oddities of lyon

2009-03-15T11:26:00.001-04:00

Things that are strange here include:

statues and rivers
advertisements
arbitrary rules

The first: Lyon, as you may know, is a city that lies between two rivers: le Rhone and la Saone. From their articles, you can tell that the Rhone is masculine and the Saone is feminine. In Lyon, they really care about this. In Place Bellecour, there's a statue of a horse with statue personifications the Rhone on one side - looking all powerful and manly, of course - and the Saone - rocking some feminine curves - on the other. Those statues I've gotten used to. But, the other day, Joe and I were enjoying the first sunny day of the year, and we came across this statue:

If I'm understanding that correctly, the Rhone is virile and swimming forward, wanting to conquer, while the Saone is kind of passive and crushed beneath him. Weird! But, I guess that the Saone is, in reality, the less powerful river. Following is a photo of each river so that you can decide for yourself.

Le Rhone:

La Saone:

Second: advertisements. A lot of the cars here are plastered with ads -- if someone is driving a company car, you can tell. Also, France is really into naked ladies. I think that both of these things are hilarious.

Yum, tomato, parmesan, paprika pasta:

Naked lady is having an orgasm from putting on socks:

Lastly, arbitrary rules. Joe and I decided to get a petit gateau individuel at a cake place and relax in their mini restaurant to eat it. The snappy lady behind the counter asked if we wanted any sort of drink with our tiny, adorable cake. I, remembering the menu had had nice sounding wine, asked for a fillette du vin, s'il vous plait. The lady first had no idea what I was saying because, since I am not French, I am obviously a moron not worth listening to, then got a strange look on her face and (without explanation!) went to cluck at the manager (?) for a few minutes. She came back and refused our request, explaining, "I am sorry. No. We only serve wine with savory things. We do not serve wine with sweet things." Weird, non?

Delicious petit gateau individuel:

grandparents! italy!

2009-03-10T14:20:00.000-04:00

Realizations after 24-hours in Breuil-Cervinia, Italy:

My grandparents are much cooler than I am (I need to learn to ski).
I don't hate being cold if there are mountains and snow.
Walking up a mountain is easier if tipsy.
I need to buy moon boots (protection from snow, traction, and sheer awesomeness).
Hotels are great.

Thoughts on being in a car in Europe:

Tolls are ridiculous.
European SUVs are smaller than American non-SUVs (see: Fiat Panda 4x4).
I still hate cars.

pizza is not universal

2009-03-06T15:26:00.000-05:00

This is why I make my own pizza.

The toppings are sparse (except for meat, of course. but really...three olives?), the crust falls off of the cheese, and it has an egg on it (ok, that's actually pretty cool). In France, this size pizza is meant to be eaten by one person with a knife and a fork (as you see, the pizza is not pre-sliced). The couple sitting next to us each ordered an individual pizza. They gobbled it up from the outside in (crust first, ridiculous, a travesty of pizza eating). And at no point did they offer each other bites. And they drank their cokes with slices of lime in the glass.

17 degrees and sunny

2009-03-02T06:28:00.001-05:00

Saturday was this year's first nice day in Lyon. Joe and I decided to head to a park and cemetery that we'd seen in September when searching for apartments.

On our way there, we saw the Saturday market being taken down. I, in a moment of brilliance, remembered a documentary I had seen in one of my French classes, Glaneurs et la glaneuse, and convinced Joe that we needed to start rooting around the piled up crates for not-too-rotten food to swipe. Success came in the form of a clementine.

Before hiking up the giant hill to Fourviere we bummed around Vieux Lyon for a bit - it is the only district of Lyon that still has cobblestones and, consequently, is pretty. While Joe stopped to take a picture of some cool urban decay, I managed to grab a photo of the biggest car I've ever seen in France.

Joe insisted that we walk up the entirety of the hill to Fourviere, threatening to withhold the sandwich in his bag if I disagreed. Not really fair but, the sandwich was one of the best here - instead of jambon or emmental it has two kinds of goat cheese, olives, tomatoes, and sometimes pesto (I have two favorite sandwich places - that is one, the other has the best smoked sandwich ever). We ate the sandwich on a wobbly bridge, filled with tourists and children who jumped up and down on it and put my sandwich in jeopardy.

Post-cemetery, Joe got attacked by wild animals.

After we got his shoe back and made sure that the laces weren't gnawed off, we made our way (on the metro this time!) to the Asian market. We'd managed to use up an entire supply of soy sauce, siracha sauce, and sesame oil, and needed to restock. While there, I found two new things - a giant bag of grated coconut for only 1.40 euros (!!) and a can of passionfruit juice. Yum.

Yesterday I used part of the coconut to make coconut macaroons for us and the landlords. They invited us to dinner when we stopped by to pay the rent, and I told them that we would be leaving at the end of April over the cheese plate. The macaroons were delicious.

le bahhhh

2009-02-28T04:56:00.000-05:00

Based on Charlie's suggestion, Joe and I checked out a Mariage Freres teashop. There are a lot of their shops in Paris, but here there is only one - located on the third floor of the Printemps department store (third floor meaning, actually, what we Americans call the fourth floor). They had a huge selection of teas and we bickered over which one to get while the salesman stood by and smirked in a way that clearly showed that he understood each and every word we said perfectly but would be damned if he spoke to us in English. We finally chose, our of patriotism and maltiness, American Breakfast Tea (even though, as we know, Americans generally don't drink tea for breakfast and, if they do, they drink Irish Breakfast or English Breakfast tea, rendering the idea of the tea that we bought nonsensical), paid, and left. And then returned to awkwardly take photos of the store. And were laughed at and spoken to in English by the salesman.

The tea is really good. It is malty and has bits of almonds in it, and came with a pull-tab lid under the real lid! To go with it, we got some chocolate from Voisin. From left to right: quenelle de Lyon, cranberry, tiramisu, provence (?), mokaline (strong coffee), savour (curaçao), and coussin de Lyon. All were filled with chocolate infused which whatever flavor. Yum.

The next days I had to go to work for the first time in three (?) weeks (sidenote: I have a paperchain counting down workdays, just like we used to count down school days in Russian class at CIS. 17 left!), which was decent, in part because I made some new animal friends. Some goats, ducks, deer, and sheep hang out in a little fenced area halfway down the hill from Lycee Rene Cassin in Tarare.

They baaaahhed and quacked at me and now we are BFFs, even though I suspect that the sheep wants to eat my face off. Maybe because it knew that later that night I'd be eating sheep cheese and was offended.

top: raw goat cheese, covered in ash. bottom: sheepsheepsheepsheepsheep.

Lyon's chocolate and weather do not change.

2009-02-24T07:47:00.000-05:00

Since getting back from Rome, I've been trying to remember what I like about Lyon and France. One of the main things is chocolate. Joe and I went to Bernachon and picked up six chocolats, two mararons, and one little cake. Bernachon imports their own raw beans, roasts them, grinds them, and makes them into perfect chocolate concoctions. Their only store is in Lyon (herein lies the advantage of living in the French capitol of gastronomy).

The chocolates were wonderful except I really didn't like their pistachio one (weird overly sweet pistachio cream filling). My favorite was coffee cream (upper left). I also liked the little cake, I guess. You know, because, seven perfect and distinct layers of chocolate and pistachio won't just eat themselves.

The next stop on my chocolatier list is Voisin and then RICHART. I've had chocolate from Voisin before, but I recently discovered (from this blog ) that they have a specialty called "le coussin de Lyon" (the pillow of Lyon?) which is basically supposed to be the best thing ever (chocolate! marzipan! pillow!) and can only be found in Lyon because they only like to sell them fresh.

RICHART looks totally cool because they do exotic flavors (not the norm in Lyon where most are into preserving the fine traditional tastes) and, they also have elaborate looking "pastries" (if bridges of chocolate over flavored spongebreads and the like can be called pastries...) and tubes of colored&flavored chocolate that you can decorate chocolate bars with. Its the hippest chocolatier I've found here.