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Published: December 22nd 2007
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cookies!
me and my hundreds of cookies! I have never made so many cookies in my life.
I spent all of Friday baking. Now let me set the scene a little for you. Will has the smallest oven I have ever seen. It is smaller than his microwave. There is one shelf and a normal baking tray does not fit. I baked cookies on some strangely small cake pan...6 at a time. That's right folks, 16 dozen cookies, baked 6 at a time. It does in fact get better. Have you ever shopped for ingredients at a French supermarche? It is not easy. We probably spent 30 minutes looking for baking powder and the closes molasses is probably in Canada. And I forgot about the little measurement differences between the US and the rest of the world. The rest of the world breaks out scales and measures their ingredients in grams. We use cups. Of course Will has no measuring cups, so I guessed and used a tea cup as my measuring cup. And it also didn’t help that I baked the first batch at 350 degrees Celsius instead of 350 degrees Fahrenheit. So after some improvised ingredients and baking materials, and six really charred cookies, I knocked out some pretty impressive peanut butter cookies, ginger snaps and jam bites! We gave plates of cookies to all of the people Will lives with and to his father and I’m pretty sure we still have 50 in the fridge…I might just need a seatbelt extension for my flight this week!
So after an entire day of baking and consuming cookies, Will and I headed to Roger and Monique’s house for dinner. Monique looks after the caravans used by Will and his Dad’s company and Roger (Raw-Jay) is her husband. And they don’t speak a single word of English. Luckily, we were also joined by Will’s dad and another couple, Stephan and Doris. Stephan and Doris are both German but speak fluent French and fluent English, so they basically sat in the middle and served as translators. Roger and Monique are simple country French people…they have been on one vacation in their life, to Germany with Stephan and Doris. They still count everything in old Francs…which were replaced by new Francs in 1960…which were replaced by Euros in 2002. You get the idea.
We arrived at 6:30 and sat down to a glass of pastis. Pastis is an anise flavored liquor that is literally absinthe without the wormwood. If you know anything about pastis or absinthe, you understand the effects…if you don’t, just know that I was seeing double after one tiny glass. After the pastis came a traditional Perigueux soup, served with red wine. It was just a basic vegetable soup, but when there is only a bit left you pour the red wine into it, lift the bowl up to your mouth and slurp away. It tasted exactly as you would expect soup and wine to taste…mmm. But little did I know that the real taste sensation was just moments away. Out comes a plate of unidentified meat and more unidentified meat. I try a bit of unidentified meat #1 and it wasn’t bad…a little salty, but not bad. Turns out it was Magret, which is duck breast. Unidentified meat #2 was slightly more disappointing. I literally had to put little pieces in my mouth and swallow without chewing. The texture was not pleasurable and the taste wasn’t exactly a chocolate bar. Unidentified meat #2 was foie gras, or duck liver. I don’t care if it’s a delicacy, it is not nice. But being the fine guest I am, I ate it all and kept a smile on my face. Only you lucky readers know exactly how I feel about the livers of ducks.
After my run in with foie gras, I was very ready for the next dish to be served. A big bowl of lapin and potatoes was served. For those of you wondering, lapin is rabbit…and I was told this just as I was taking my first bite. If you know my past, you know I was a vegetarian for many years…I still struggle with eating meat, and all I could think was that I was so glad it was Christmas and not Easter…poor Easter bunny. After I got over the psychological effects of eating the Easter bunny, I decided rabbit is really delicious. This particular bunny had been slow cooking for two days so it was tender and fell right off the bone.
After consuming the spirit of Easter, I was getting quite full. I had had three courses, three glasses of wine, a glass of anise and was still struggling mentally with all of the things I had just eaten. And then came veal roti, another potato mix and green beans. First duck liver, then the Easter bunny and now baby cows! The hippie inside me was screaming. But of course I ate it all, with a smile on my face. The green beans and unknown potato mix were actually quite delicious. After this course, I decided I was just about finished…I would take little bits of food and the wine was being replaced with water. I excused myself to the bathroom and came back out to course number five and a mysteriously full glass of wine…
Luckily for me, the heavy food was done. The next course was a ‘salad’. I use quotes because it was lettuce and a bit of onion…not exactly my idea of salad, but I was so glad to have something familiar and non-meat! Stephan told me the French eat lettuce after their meal because it helps with digestion. After ‘salad’ came a cheese platter…and they had camembert which is my absolute favorite! Then was fruit…pears and oranges. I passed on the fruit, I literally didn’t think there was room for one more bite of anything. But then came the marron glace (candied chestnuts), chocolates and the special dessert wine, Mont Ballizac…how can you say no?? I had one of each, and another glass of wine, and called it quits. Monique and Doris cleared all of the plates and then I saw out of the corner of my eye that they were getting out yet more glasses! Please let it be for water, please let it be for water! Monique asked me if I would like café and I responded with a non, merci. Praise the Lord, the glasses were for coffee!
And then when they were breaking out the bottles of brandy I realized God must have a sense of humor. By this point I just figured what’s a glass of brandy…I couldn’t walk because I was so full of food and let’s face it, I probably couldn’t even stand after my wine consumption (I promise this wasn’t really my fault…Stephan kept filling my glass, insisting I drink wine with everything because it just won’t taste the same without it…come on these people even put wine in their soup!) I drank the brandy while we talked about how Americans are all fat and stupid and George Bush is the worst world leader of all times. Hearing foreigner’s opinions of my people will never get old. I usually agree with what they say, but I still can’t help getting defensive, or at least feeling a little offended. I’m not fat! I’m not stupid! But I’m not Georgie’s #1 fan, so I let them slide…plus, I knew I’d be bashing all of their food the next day in my blog 😉 We made it home safely after 4 hours of eating, and it was straight to bed for me!
So that is the story from my first truly French meal. I did enjoy myself a lot more than I lead on during this post, and I actually understood a lot more French than I ever imagined I could. It’s definitely good to have these truly authentic experiences and I’m glad I was there and tried all of these different foods. But I still woke up today, ate some peanut butter cookies and made sloppy joes for lunch!
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Mom
non-member comment
You make me laugh
I enjoyed reading this as much as I did hearing about it on the phone! Now you know why I never made you eat liver. Have fun, Kitten! Love you, Mom xoxo