Hi! Long time no type. Things have been very busy with work and acclimating to the new city. If you're all hot and bothered for new pics, there are are few (2) below. Scroll down.
Life she improves! We are both feeling more settled in and no longer feeling like every facet of life is a chore. This was our second weekend of taking it easy and also getting a few things done. It is Sunday night (now Monday!) and I'm super tired so let me try to bust out a quick. CHOP CHOP! (Yes, not so quick. Aimee sidetracked me with a math problem and we had awesome spaghetti & meatball dinner.)
Friends & Galette - Aside from the normal workweek and Tues/Thurs French class, we had some friends over. Aimee had met this couple from San Francisco, CA, our home, about a month ago and managed to invite them over for Wednesday. We decided to cook Mexican, as everyone was from California and it's challenging to come by in Paris. Not impossible, but difficult. We went to one place in the 3rd or 4th arrondissement ("quarter") . It was a while ago and the name eludes me. The atmosphere was good, the food was ok and the margaritas were terrific, but 40€ for a pitcher. So, after many weeks of search we have found the hidden section of mexican ingredients in a few stores. Chips, salsa, the appropriate ground beef and pork, tortillas, we even had some real cheddar this time! I still haven't translated or seen "sour cream", the best approximation is creme fraich. The secret to the meat is some salsa, lots of black pepper, some chili powder and a good amount of cumin, as well as frensh long/skinny green chili onion and garlic. Everything turned out great and the margaritas were strong and tasty! We had long conversations about transitioning to Paris and about home. They were very nice to bring dessert: Galette du Roi. Loosely translated: Cake of the King. I have very little knowledge what this custom is all about, but its a January thing, it comes with a "crown" slightly better than the Burger King variety. The deal is that there is a hidden goodie in the cake and the person to find this in their piece wins! Aimee won.
After some Cognac I was lit up and ready for bed. Thursday went by fast: work, tired, coffee, staff meeting, wine at lunch, and dinner before french class. Dinner took too long and we were 15min (!) late for class, but we were at a funny place in the 1st - a place trying to be "Amazonian" in a typical red awninged, French Bistro and it was snowing pretty hard. None of it was stickin and we were hoping the temperature would drop and for a centemetre or two of snow to be covering things in the morning but it didn't work out that way.
Friday went by pretty fast also. There was a big company meeting at 1pm, and the day starts usually around 9:30/:45AM and lunch is at noon, so roughly 3-4 hours of work for the entire Friday. I don't even remember exaxtly what we did Friday night except have some wine and I think tomato soup we had made the night before. With my soup I had some prociutto de parma on country bread with butter. I've really been into this butter on the bread thing. I know it might sound silly, but I never thought much of buttering my bread in the past. It just tastes really good right now for some reason. I realized this when Aimee had a meeting at lunchtime and I was on my own one day, as we usually always have lunch together. I keep seeing Parisiens walking down the street eating a sandwich. When I first heard of this I thought it was an exaggeration, but compared to most places I've been, you just don't see someone walking down the street eating such a long (12") snack and it's no exaggeration! So this one day, I was solo for lunch, and I had a plan: aquire sandwich and walk around, eating it. It payed off. The sandwich (baguette, smoked ham, butter) was delicious. I like sandwiches and I like walking around city streets during the day.
Anyway... with my soup was bread (buttered) and some parma style ham, and the tomato soup we Mac Gyvered the previous night. Wine, email, chat, wine, etc, music and bed.
Lucky for me, Aimee was up pretty early. It was dishwasher repairman day. Aimee was up around 7:45a. The repairman was scheduled to arrive between 8-11a and we thought . o O { it has been almost a month since we moved in and getting the dishwasher to become functional has taken so long we could have built one out of chopsticks and twine so this guy will be here by 10:00 at the absolute earliest} We were wrong! I think it was about 8:30a-ish when I was still half asleep and heard some talking and ruckus eminating from below. I thought I should just stay in bed until the man left. I wouldn't want to use any water, and delay this urgent repair by causing water pressue fluctuation. As anyone would have predicted, "a part needs to be ordered, we'll be back next Saturday to intall it".
Stay tuned!!! I need to sleep, but I have so much more to say!
I'll throw in a picture of the Galette de Roi to string y'alls along.
Coming up next...
Lazy Saturday (me only)
Date Night
Meatballs
Une Bauguette
Homework
Movie
Pictures
Cheers,
-D
Life she improves! We are both feeling more settled in and no longer feeling like every facet of life is a chore. This was our second weekend of taking it easy and also getting a few things done. It is Sunday night (now Monday!) and I'm super tired so let me try to bust out a quick. CHOP CHOP! (Yes, not so quick. Aimee sidetracked me with a math problem and we had awesome spaghetti & meatball dinner.)
Friends & Galette - Aside from the normal workweek and Tues/Thurs French class, we had some friends over. Aimee had met this couple from San Francisco, CA, our home, about a month ago and managed to invite them over for Wednesday. We decided to cook Mexican, as everyone was from California and it's challenging to come by in Paris. Not impossible, but difficult. We went to one place in the 3rd or 4th arrondissement ("quarter") . It was a while ago and the name eludes me. The atmosphere was good, the food was ok and the margaritas were terrific, but 40€ for a pitcher. So, after many weeks of search we have found the hidden section of mexican ingredients in a few stores. Chips, salsa, the appropriate ground beef and pork, tortillas, we even had some real cheddar this time! I still haven't translated or seen "sour cream", the best approximation is creme fraich. The secret to the meat is some salsa, lots of black pepper, some chili powder and a good amount of cumin, as well as frensh long/skinny green chili onion and garlic. Everything turned out great and the margaritas were strong and tasty! We had long conversations about transitioning to Paris and about home. They were very nice to bring dessert: Galette du Roi. Loosely translated: Cake of the King. I have very little knowledge what this custom is all about, but its a January thing, it comes with a "crown" slightly better than the Burger King variety. The deal is that there is a hidden goodie in the cake and the person to find this in their piece wins! Aimee won.
After some Cognac I was lit up and ready for bed. Thursday went by fast: work, tired, coffee, staff meeting, wine at lunch, and dinner before french class. Dinner took too long and we were 15min (!) late for class, but we were at a funny place in the 1st - a place trying to be "Amazonian" in a typical red awninged, French Bistro and it was snowing pretty hard. None of it was stickin and we were hoping the temperature would drop and for a centemetre or two of snow to be covering things in the morning but it didn't work out that way.
Friday went by pretty fast also. There was a big company meeting at 1pm, and the day starts usually around 9:30/:45AM and lunch is at noon, so roughly 3-4 hours of work for the entire Friday. I don't even remember exaxtly what we did Friday night except have some wine and I think tomato soup we had made the night before. With my soup I had some prociutto de parma on country bread with butter. I've really been into this butter on the bread thing. I know it might sound silly, but I never thought much of buttering my bread in the past. It just tastes really good right now for some reason. I realized this when Aimee had a meeting at lunchtime and I was on my own one day, as we usually always have lunch together. I keep seeing Parisiens walking down the street eating a sandwich. When I first heard of this I thought it was an exaggeration, but compared to most places I've been, you just don't see someone walking down the street eating such a long (12") snack and it's no exaggeration! So this one day, I was solo for lunch, and I had a plan: aquire sandwich and walk around, eating it. It payed off. The sandwich (baguette, smoked ham, butter) was delicious. I like sandwiches and I like walking around city streets during the day.
Anyway... with my soup was bread (buttered) and some parma style ham, and the tomato soup we Mac Gyvered the previous night. Wine, email, chat, wine, etc, music and bed.
Lucky for me, Aimee was up pretty early. It was dishwasher repairman day. Aimee was up around 7:45a. The repairman was scheduled to arrive between 8-11a and we thought . o O { it has been almost a month since we moved in and getting the dishwasher to become functional has taken so long we could have built one out of chopsticks and twine so this guy will be here by 10:00 at the absolute earliest} We were wrong! I think it was about 8:30a-ish when I was still half asleep and heard some talking and ruckus eminating from below. I thought I should just stay in bed until the man left. I wouldn't want to use any water, and delay this urgent repair by causing water pressue fluctuation. As anyone would have predicted, "a part needs to be ordered, we'll be back next Saturday to intall it".
Stay tuned!!! I need to sleep, but I have so much more to say!
I'll throw in a picture of the Galette de Roi to string y'alls along.
mmmm, light, fluffy layers with almond creme paste in the middle
I found this on the camera... more pics of the Arc de Triomph!
Coming up next...
Lazy Saturday (me only)
Date Night
Meatballs
Une Bauguette
Homework
Movie
Pictures
Cheers,
-D
See our photos on Flickr!
About me
- I'm off2paris
- From Paris, France
- off2paris at wonky point org
- My profile