Tarte Flambee and an English Rapprochement

---

On Saturday I was invited by Aida to help out at a charity concert in the town where she lives. I had nothing better to do so I accepted the invitation gladly. I was going to put myself forward to help waitress but when I got to the event and saw how big and chic it was I decided against it, and plus waitressing can be stressful enough when you understand the language everyone else is speaking but with my basic french skills I thought I would be better helping behind the scenes.

In the end my appointed role was helping Aida and her husband, Smiley make tarte flambee - an Alscacian speciality which is a bit like pizza but healthier. We had a huge stove, which took us a while to figure out - I got a bit nervous when Smiley started fiddling with the gas taps even though he admitted he hadn't a clue what he was doing.

The afternoon concert began at 2:30 and went, I think it's fair to say, not very well. At 2:40 the organiser came out and asked us if we'd seen the rapper that was meant to be performing - no we hadn't. Then when we looked in to see how many people had turned up to watch, we counted 15 people.

Our tarte-flambee duties didn't start until 5:30 so we went back to Aida's to have a goutee (snack - the French are very sensible and have a goutee every day in between lunch and tea - and when I say snack I don't mean a packet of crisps or a chocolate bar - at our house it's usually waffles, cake, bread or pancakes).

The evening concert was much busier although most of the audience had paid to have a three course meal so didn't require out tarte-flambee-making skills. We did still get a few customers and got to eat a lot ourselves (by the end of the evening I was sick of tarte-flambee). When we had no more customers to serve we went in to see the rest of the concert - a gospel band who had come second in 'France Has Got Talent' were up playing a lot of the time. The final treat of the evening was eating the leftover dessert - Smiley went to the kitchen to persuade the harrassed chef to give us some - like all French desserts it was delicious.

Earlier in the week I'd been in contact with another English student whose staying in the area and we'd arranged to meet up on Sunday for a picnic. As it turned out there are two other girls staying in the area as well so in total there are four of us! Two of them are here on their university year abroad and the other has just graduated - all of them are here working as English assistants. They all seem quite nice and pleasant and we got on well together. It will be good to have other people that I can go out with - next Saturday we are thinking of visiting Strasbourg. As we were talking and I was listening to their stories of expensive rent, snobby landladies and broken kitchen utilities, I realized how lucky I am to be staying here with the family - admittedly last week our oven was broken but that has been miraculously fixed - I have been amazed how God provides for this family. And I'm beginning to feel more and more like a part of this family - the kids are like my brothers and sisters (the parents are a bit too young to feel like my parents - we figured out they would had to have been 12 when they had me) but I am beginning to love them as if they were my own family.

---