Christmas Time is Here . . .

December has arrived and with it has come two weeks of vacation, a ton of red and gold, a sprinkling of green, some spray painted trees, and even a bit of snow. I sit here sipping hot chocolate after a lovely breakfast of christmas brioche and watching the giant heap of presents at the foot of the little lopsided christmas tree, which has mysteriously appeared there sometime after the party last night and before the coffee this a.m. and I'm thinking how perfectly content I am. I've always loved the holiday season, but I'm mostly a thanksgiving and New Year's Eve girl rather than a christmas girl per say. Don't get me wrong, I love christmas too, as clearly displayed by instance on mangling every christmas carol I can get my hands on, and I adore christmas shopping, in fact I think christmas shopping is the tops! This is why I'm terribly excited about the upcoming week of shopping mania. Christmas shopping is condoned shopping frenzy, with an added bonus of good old fashioned, adrenaline pumping, giggle suppressing secrecy; what could be better?! This past week has been a bit of a winter wonderland, which did wonders to boost my lagging holiday spirit. Yes I admit it, my spirit was lagging a bit around the start of the month, which made me rather unhappy, but never fear, I think I've got it all caught up to speed just in time for the break. The week started out with a monday morning snow storm, well a snow sprinkling actually, but unlike New Mexico it continued all day long and then the next night, and is still here, making the whole week snow flurried, including but not limited to snow ball fights on the quad during break and dancing on the ice in the deserted park at lunch to the sound of church bells playing christmas carols. And next weekend I'll be jetting off to London, which I'm totally over the moon about, considering I've never been to England and I've always wanted to see London. Well more later, Joyeux Noel, Bons fetes, Joyeux Nouvelle Annee, a bientot,

e a la france

Thanksgiving, Emma style . . .

Thanksgiving is known here in France as 'the american holiday,' and if you think about it, it is about as american as you can get: non-religious, its a totally unbiased holiday in terms of race and religion, no politically correct schools have ceased to decorate their halls with turkey hand-prints for fear of offending some one's belief system; over-eating, the whole point of thanksgiving is to share food with friends and family and eat until you can't imagine ever putting hand to mouth again, hypocritical, this is a celebration of the aiding hand extended to us by the native population whom we slaughtered, but not until after we had extracted all the useful information they had to offer us, and now we still use that one day of false friendship as an excuse to close the banks and be merry. Don't get me wrong, while I feel it is important to recognize the ridiculousness in the pretenses of this holiday, I love thanksgiving! Much more than christmas ever can, thanksgiving excites in me a holiday spirit. I crave the warmth of the candles on the table burning low because we've been delayed by the turkey, which is never ready on time. The excitement of no school and pumpkin pie with fresh whip-cream, simmering under the babble of the children, impatient to start the feast, bored from too many rounds of hide-and-go-seek chase which is really forbidden in the house, but in the rush of holiday preparations has been overlooked, is totally unique like a rare specimen butterfly.

It was with all this background of expected feelings that I awoke on Thursday the 26th this year. I felt sure something, some feeling or event, would distinguish it from all the others in my mind, but nothing...It was like any other day in every detail; nothing changed. It was a grand disappointment. However my host family knowing about Thanksgiving had decided before I even got here I think that we ought to celebrate it somehow. At first it was just going to be maybe a pumpkin pie, then a small meal substituting chicken for turkey, which is eaten for christmas here, and is regarded as the kind of meat one needs only eat once a year as its dry and does not in general illuminate the culinary imagination. However when I planned a slightly more elaborate menu it was decided we should invite Chrystal and Olivier and their kids Marion and Martin to join us, and with this edition came the idea we might need/want the quantity a turkey offered, thus a turkey was ordered and finally Gilles, Sarah's god father, was invited as well. We were a merry party of ten.

I planned to make corn-bread, apple and sausage stuffing, cooked separately from the turkey, cranberry sauce with orange zest, mash potatoes, sesame seed green beans, gougeres au cumin (little cumin bread cheese puff things from the Chocolate and Zucchini cookbook, or the cookbook of my dreams), and of course a pumpkin pie. Lists were made, kinks were smoothed, for instance my cornbread in the stuffing had to be replaced with extra french bread instead and it was determined I should make my own breakfast sausage as the french don't eat it, a date and time were selected: Sunday at 12:30. I planned everything out. I was to get up on Saturday and make the crust then that would chill and I would start the stuffing role out the dough chill it, continue the stuffing etc. The baking sessions were perfectly timed, and never were both pie filling and stuffing on the stove at the same time. However as these things usually go, nothing went how it was supposed to. I got up on saturday and realized that in planning all the shopping for my menu, indulging every item I thought to make, my host parents had saved the specialty stores for late saturday afternoon, namely the bakery for the bread and the butcher's for the sausage pork (and the turkey) both of which go into the stuffing, which I simply had to make the day before or I would never have time enough to finish everything. This error was easily corrected but it still through off my plans considerably and I started late. As the afternoon rolled away filled with my kitchen labors, the evening and consequently Isabelle's mother's birthday dinner loomed closer. My cranberry sauce was blended up, though the food processor wasn't quite strong enough to blend the orange peel into the tiny bits of zesty flavor I had envisioned but after a lot of pulsing and a bit of picking through it with a spoon all was well. My pie on the other hand was smooth sailing. While I'll admit the crust was not nearly as easy to handle as when I made the apple pie, after a bit of excess water, and a lot of patching I got it to fit in the pan, and look some what presentable (my fluting was a sad sight though, uneven and clumsy, but you can't have it all). I made the filling as instructed while the crust was pre-baking. It started out calm and careful and then become more and more rushed as I tried to get the pumpkin from the food processor to the stove to a shiny, creamy smoothness, back to the food processor and then into the crust while both were still warm. It was not an easy task; the crust was ready too soon, and I had to enlist an unsuspecting Thomas who wandered innocently into the kitchen to drop of his laundry and instead found himself trying to measure heavy cream in a third of a cup. Still the hot syrupy filling was rich and delicious, perfectly spiced, and I was pleased with the visual effect as I watched it through the oven door like a stay at home parent on the first day of pre-school. I pulled it out of the oven after just 25 minutes and it was puffed, lightly cracked around the edges and jiggled scrumptiously: text book. Unfortunately, my stuffing was a bit more last minute with all the missing ingredients, and ended in a frenzied frying of pork sausage 7 minutes after the original departure time for the dinner, in two different pans at the same time. Of course I enjoyed every minute of it, well almost, the insane chopping of two and half cups of onions, minced, with a crooked, dull knife, on tiny chopping board was not so hot, but in general I delighted in my day in the Kitchen, warm and dry, while it drizzled on the other side of the windows. However I was afraid to make my whole family late, and thus taint my stuffing with the back weight of disaster, mistiming, and loads of dirty dishes. Luckily however I got ready so quickly that I was waiting for some of the others, and we arrived first of all the guests (though there were only two other parties to arrive so thats not really saying much). Still, the delay in the morning had left me with no time to bake the stuffing, and as it had a different baking temperature than my little cheese breads I decided to abandon them.

Sunday morning came, and I was the first up. I got the stuffing in the oven and got up from the breakfast table dutifully every five minutes or so to baste it with a little chicken stock so it didn't dry out and burn. The smell of my nicely seasoned sausage, and butter soaked apples, softened from a light cooking was very encouraging. It was finished just after we finished trimming the green beans and peeling the potatoes. Everything was ready and set out, all that was left to do was boil the potatoes and mash them and then fry the green beans. The turkey was roasting away in the oven and the table was set. I went to get ready, feeling a little restless and confused with no more preparations to make, no more spices to measure, or veggies to chop. I came back to the kitchen and started the potatoes boiling, standing by ready with a knife to test them. After the knife sunk sufficiently into their yellow, flaky flesh I pulled them out and set them to soak in some cold water on the counter to remove extra starch as I had been instructed to do by my father: mash potato Ph. D. The guests arrived; the chips, crackers, and cheese puffs were pulled out with the cocktails. Chrystal and Co. thought that we exchanged gifts as at christmas time, a very good natured and easy mistake to make, and they showed up with lovely little cadeau's for everyone.

With a glass of champagne in hand I eventually returned to the kitchen to pull together my meal with a few finishing touches. This did not go so well though. The pan was too small for the green beans and they took forever to cook, even in two batches, and then they didn't cook super well, but the real horror lay in the potatoes, my knife test was totally false, they weren't even half cooked! I had forgotten to cut them into quarters before boiling them, so they didn't cook except on the very outside. Poor Gilles, who offered to help me by mashing the potatoes in my pre-made butter, milk and cream sauce waiting on the stove, was the one who discovered this and he was also the one who pulled them out of the pot (and sauce) rinsed them off and re-boiled them, while I tried to make my green beans work and started the gravy. I hadn't thought about the gravy because when I'd planned everything I was going to be using chicken, which wouldn't provide enough juices for a gravy sauce, and I'd never made gravy before, yet after a short conversation about it with Isabelle, who'd never heard of it, and a last minute google search I found a presentably simple "old-fashioned" brown gravy sauce and was determined to try it. I flagrantly ignored the instructions I'd sought out earlier and followed my instincts with the gravy and luckily for me it was scrumptious: success! That leaves the score Emma: 3 (Pie, Stuffing, Gravy) to Murphy's Law: 3 (Green beans, cranberry sauce, mash potatoes).

After the potatoes really were cooked all the way through I set to mashing them, and they came out wonderfully, more butter than I care to confess, and the perfect amount of salt, they were eaten all once. Actually everything was good by the time it reached the table, even the cranberry sauce with its too large orange chunks was a big hit. The only thing no one liked was the green bean dish. I ate them and thought they were fine, but I think they were a bit too crunchy for everyone else, who preferred unseasoned, over salted, mush as is often the case with green beans, but veggies are not at all the point at thanksgiving so, tempis (too bad). My stuffing was the crowning jewel of the feast; soft and savory of the bread, flavorful burst of sausage and the sweet apples blended into a perfect thanksgiving classic.

Then for the pie. I had forgotten to tell Isabelle not to put it in the fridge or cover it with plastic wrap, thinking that my leaving out on the counter without plastic wrap would be enough, but she probably though I'd forgotten in my haste and took it upon herself to both wrap it in cellophane and stick with the stuffing in the unheated office, which they said was good enough to be a fridge. Luckily just before loosing consciousness that night, the possibility of this unexpected disaster crossed my mind, and I was able to pull my precious pie out from under the plastic tomb under which it had been trapped early that morning. Unluckily the cellophane had done its job and my crack-less, plumped pie of saturday had been metamorphosed into a slightly sunken sunday pie with a small but jagged cicatrice on its gleaming, umber surface. There wasn't enough whipping cream left after the pie and mash potatoes to make whipped cream, so though I knew it would end in disaster from multiple cases of personal experience, I let Isabelle convince me to mix creams. Then when that didn't work I gave into Gilles and his whipped creme fraiche, which was bizarre (picture trying to turn sour cream into whipped cream if you can't picture creme fraiche) but he seemed completely satisfied with the odd result so I went with it and set it out on the table with my pie, and a spare can of store bought whipped cream. It tasted as good as I had expected it to, well seasoned, flaky perfect crust, creamy filling. I was well satisfied until I realized that neither Isabelle, nor Gilles, nor Sarah liked the taste of spiced pumpkin. This shocked and hurt me more than if I'd made an atrocious attempt at pumpkin pie and tried to serve it to them with bad results, but to see them muttering things like interesting, special, unique taste and texture, kind of like flan, and watch the obvious displeasure in their faces as they tasted something that disagreed with them, over my perfect specimen of a thanksgiving pumpkin pie, and knowing it was in fact the pumpkin spice flavor that I so cherish, itself as the cause, that was quite disheartening. It did boost my spirits considerably when Olivier finished the slices of both Isabelle and Gilles, because he liked it so much, however. Over all I considered my thanksgiving a smashing success. Everything was generally liked and I was swamped with compliments and almost everyone ate second helpings. I had really pulled it off, almost by myself, it was: thanksgiving, Emma style.

Parties

So tonight is Saturday night, which means for the French: Party! So far I've been to two real parties, both on Saturday nights of course, but both were with my host family, for their family friends, and one of them was thrown by my host family themselves, so its not like they were too wild. Still there was plenty of loud music and dancing and refreshments, and general merriment. Tonight marks the third of these parties and its Gilles' nephew's 18th birthday. The French basically party like we do, though later and with more dancing, and probably harder than most middle-aged american parents party on an average Saturday night. The real difference comes in the fact that each of these parties has had a theme beyond the basic birthday party, or dinner party, or cocktail party etc. that americans are so fond of using. At first I thought it was just one wild exception, after all its not unusual to have a theme. This first theme was black and white, and we were all entreated to wear black or white, or get really wild and inventive and scramble the two. Not too hard, luckily just this summer I bought myself a 'I'm-going-to-France-for-a-year-right-on!' gift in the form of a black short-sleeved mini dress with a wide window pane stripe in thin white lines, from American Apparel, perfect for a black and white themed huge crowd dance party celebrating someone's fiftieth no? . . .yes! Well the next one, being thrown by my host family themselves, I had a bit more warning. They're chosen theme: Caribbean! A fun summery theme with good food, and great dance music to lighten up the month of November. Unfortunately, even with all my extra warning I still didn't have time to go shopping before hand which left me with two options, a little bright green sun dress, or a bright yellow thin sleeveless blouse with . . . I had no bottom save for a light purple over sized scarf that I attempted to wrap as a sarong. It would have worked too, but it was a little too little fabric between the unsuspecting friends of my host family and my 'bootie-shorts,' meant to be worn over a leotard in Dance class, which I employed as a safety measure; after all there would be dancing. As you might have already deduced I went with the sun dress.

Now I'm on to number three, and again there is a theme, which must be dressed for. This one is by far the hardest yet, and also the least respected ( already Thomas and Sarah have neglected it completely and Isabelle and Gilles haven't tried much harder). After must frustration, a 20 minute video chat, several minutes on the floor, and I lot of wishing for my Fairy Godmother to come change brunette (the dog) into a sports car for me, and get some local birds to sew me an outfit, I finally decided on my Ochre yellow tights, (very thick and opaque, and very yellow) a pair of grey tweed shorts and a black sweater.

Snacker's revelation

Every Friday afternoon, while we are school, a trip to the super market takes place. We are invited, in fact we are encouraged to add to the shopping list in the day preceding this trip. At first I was shy about adding things to the list, and I still try to keep my additions to a minimum, but I feel more confident in adding a need or craving to the list thursday afternoon. However, the really exciting part about this fairly normal, and universal endeavor is not obtaining an item I've pined for, but in seeing what new and delicious completely French goodies have found their way into the cupboards. Every friday I come home to a multitude of pastries, cookies, yogurts, chips, jams, cheeses, drinks that I've never seen before. Its the most glorious feeling; I think it must be akin to the feeling a child growing up in East berlin felt surging in his breast, and stomach upon first entering a supermarket after the fall of the wall, and the introduction of capitalism was well underway. Since a child I have cherished the 'snack', almost always in miniature size, which in itself appealed to me in several ways, first children like things children sized, second, I never ate much as child so that meant it was the right portion, being a picky eater I enjoyed most this time of choice, when the options were totally open. Plus, one always eats snacks at happy times, in the middle of school: time to socialize with your friends without the intellectual burden of classwork, after school: when you have that nice sense of accomplishment for having survived another day, in the middle of the night: the pleasure of being the only one awake, a no man's land, the adrenaline of an act not quite sanctioned, yet not really forbidden, no matter when you eat them snacks=good, its just a fact! Not to mention, snack food is almost always just plain yummier than real food. So imagine the ecstasy of finding a whole new world of snacks only ever dreamed of in the abstract during times of great hunger awaiting, its a snackers paradise, and I am a snacker, the very definition.

October Vacation

I know I haven't written in forever but as today is the French version of Memorial Day and as my absence was not in the slightest due to lack of things to write about, I shall use this holiday to catch up: on blogging, on sleep, on emails, and on homework (though I'm not really behind on that last one).

The last week in October all the schools in France have a break. My host family decided to use this break to start off the traveling around France and Europe that they've planned for me. This first trip we stayed in France, but saw two different regions outside of the North, which was fun for me, as again before this year I'd never been anywhere in Europe outside of Paris, and the suburb towns of Paris. First we went to the South, where Gilles' sister has a second house. Her house is in a little town called Barjac, and is ancient. Its built in huge slabs of white stone, which is very common for the farm houses in the South. Its probably about 400 years old at least. The inside has been redone of course, but there remains the original fire place big enough to stand in. I'm told that when it was built it was designed so that you could put two chairs, one on either side of the actual fire (probably being employed for roasting a large hunk of meat) in the fire place along with the fire to keep warm. The whole south looked like a setup for a postcard.

It wasn't like every now and then you could find a view fit for a postcard, the whole thing was postcard-worthy, everywhere you looked. It was so beuatiful, and I think that October was the perfect time to visit, because many of the leaves had turned and the landscape was a rich ocher color. Rows and rows of vineyards, where the leaves looked like they were dripping sweet honey. and next to the vineyards were rows of lavender. The farm houses were all in ancient white stone with little painted shutters and bowing olive trees. They had tall square walls and almost flat perfectly square tiled roofs. Every now and then you drive in to a town and the road would be covered with a tunnel of huge trees, the leaves of which were burnt umber, and fluttered in the thick mediterranean sun. It was 27 degrees (late 70's up to 80) the whole time we were there, and we were sunbathing on the terrace of the house every afternoon. The first lunch we ate a fresh roasted chicken with potatoes and farmer's market goat cheese with olives and white wine, and the most wonderful baguette (I love France!). It was really quite picturesque, which is why I have included a picture. That afternoon we got back in the car (Barjac is 9 hours from Marchiennes by car) and headed on down to Avignon to see Le Palais de Pape, where the Pope lived when he lived in France for a short time; I believe there where nine popes who lived there. It was beautiful, like being in the Tudors or some other period piece movie. Full of winding stone staircases and turrets and huge feat-halls and hidden pa

ssages leading away from courtyards and arched double doorways. Then there were the painted rooms which are frescoes on the walls, ceiling, and seem to extend by means of painted tile, to the floors. Most of the frescoes, which once covered all the major rooms, have faded but they've been restored or kept in good shpae in a few rooms, which are really remarkable. We also saw Le Point d'Avignon, which is quite famous. It has some religious connotations,

but I was much more taken by the sunset visible from the point then the history involving a shepherd and some miracle boulder moving. It was splendid, never have I seen such a sunset, and I l

ive in New Mexico which is quite renowned for its sunsets, though it was perhaps not my favorite ever, as I'm picky about color and backdrop, it was breathtaking: picture time. What I really wanted to do was walk through the evening streets of old Avignon, which were alive with shops open to the last of the warm weather, and little sidewalk cafes and gelato shops, but everyone was tired and hungry, and we had to drive all the way back to Barjac, so I said I didn't care if we stayed and walked or not. I think Isabelle wanted to walk too, but we decided to leave, which was fine.

The next day we headed down to Marseilles. We left the car in the parking lot of Notre Dame de la Garde, which is called La Bonne Mere, because the huge gold plated statue of the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus mounted atop the Moorish style cathedral is supposed to protect the city and watch over it with a benevolent eye. We then took a little tourist tram down the huge hill to the 'vieille porte' or the old Port, which has been a functioning sea port since the Roman Empire owned it, and its biggest import was Salt. We walked around there and the streets around it for an hour or so before lunch. We stopped during our wanderings in a little confiserie, (or candy shop) and stalked up on artisanal cookies, lollipops, chocolates, bonbons, etc al in a variety of flavors. The shop displayed its goodies in a painted wooden front window with matching shutters and on the interior in large glass cases, with open tops and little baskets and cooke tine filled the shelves about them. A second story was visible from the first as it simply encircled the shop with an open middle. Everything was well lit and there were shop girls in matching aprons handing out samples to everyone. While the cookies were perhaps a little dry, and the bonbons were so-so, the lollipops and chocolates were wonderful and everything was so perfect you couldn't help but be impressed and cheered by atmosphere and merchandise alike. The raspberry cookies which were tinted pink and had soft, but not too chewy fillings of the real fruit were delicious. Then we went and had lunch outside a little cafe. I had the most wonderful salad, which was comprised of a small green salad, with a vinaigrette, and a small caprese salad. It was so hot though that I hadn't much appetite, and I only ate half of it to save a little room for the pasta I'd ordered which was so-so, I think I ordered the wrong dish, but I guess you live and learn. The other discovery waiting in marseilles was the specialty candy which was sold at the confiserie and given out with the espresso in the restaurant: Calissons. They are little almond shaped spongy things with a white icing glaze over the top. They have a kind of citrus-y taste, and are made from almond paste (which you can taste as well as the citrus) and candied fruits.

On the way back to the car the little tourist tram took a longer route and showed off some attractions the city possesses. I think my favorite of these attractions was the prison where the novel The Count of Monte Cristo is set, which can be seen far off on its island in the sea, looking dark and somber in a sea full of hot bright turquoise water, which makes you think of sunglasses and fruit juice and happy hours of vacation, not at all a dark cell and torture. I like Marseilles, though I could tell it deserved the reputation of being France's dirty, industrial city from the surrounding area, the old port and the narrow lively streets leading up the hills around it were fun and full of the mediterranean spirit. On the way back to Barjac we stopped in Cassis for a half hour to see the little town, but mostly to see the ocean. It was spectacular. I have a special soft place in my heart for the sea, living as I do in a land-locked desert. I covet all glimpses of the calm vast expanse, and I have to tell you it had been almost seven years that I had not touched the ocean, though I'd gotten a chance two summers ago to eat on the board walk and be near the water for an afternoon, in California, which was wonderful. However, there is something about putting your feet in the sea which is a thing all to itself, and this feeling was magnified enormously by the fact that it was the mediterranean sea. I really liked what little I saw of Cassis. It seemed like the perfect place to spend a summer, as it possessed the desired mixture of calm beach own cool, and jet-setter excitement that one likes to have during the summer, though I'm sure this would not be a cheap summer, being so close to the sea, and in the South of France no less.

I still have to tell you about Gap, but its dinner time now so I'll have to finish this later. Not to worry though as I have no school Saturday so plenty of time, though Saturday is the night of the big Caribbean themed party my host family is throwing, which should be quite an event, and I must say I'm awfully excited.

a bientot e