Belated Joyeux Noël!

Hi everyone,

Hope everyone (anyone?) reading this had a fantasic and merry Christmas. While I have to admit that it wasn't the most joyful of Christmases, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I treated myself to a nice steak dinner,(rubbed with cumin, chile powder for a little kick, and coffee! of all things^^) complete with mashed potatoes, corn, carrots, carmelized onions, and homemade baked bread. And because I've gotten into the weird habit of photographing dishes I make, here's a pic:

Also in the spirit of the season, I decided that as my gift to Kevin, I would bake gingerbread cookies to decorate. Made quite a bit actually, and he enjoyed getting to do that. Don't have pictures of the ones he did, but here are mine that I did later after getting home:

(As a funny side note, I tried taking a picture of them with my phone after I took this one, and accidently dropped my phone onto them and killed Mr. Gingerbread man...oops.)

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And in the few days leading up to Christmas, I got a little nostalgic, naturally, so when I found English muffins at the store, decided to try out Eggs Benny :) I know I'd seen the powder for regualar hollandaise sauce somewhere, but couldn't find it again, and so just went with the herb version of it. It was still pretty good:

AND THEN, I decided to finally take on the daunting task of croissant-making. I'd been meaning to for ages, even though many people had told me that making them was difficult. In the end though, it wasn't so much that they were difficult to make, just that the process was very time-consuming. But here is it, (one) of my beauties :)):

AND THEY WERE SO DELICIOUS!! In fact, the only downside to making them yourself, is that then you know exactly how much butter is in them ^^;. But hey! As long as you don't eat them allll the time...

=

So anyways, pretty much everyone from ISA has left, and so it'd been pretty uneventful of late, but I did make a trip up to the Christmas market at La Defense for a little festive evening just wandering around:

(above) The Grande Arche looming beautifully in the background :)

I tried to get a picture of the enormous pans they cook food in at the martket, and while these aren't the largest I saw, (or even that great of a picture) it's better than nothing.

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On Christmas day, did meet up with the only other person from ISA that was still in town, Andrew, and so to keep us from being lonely on frickin' Christmas, we decided to meet up in the Luxembourg Gardens for a very French brunch. It was bloody cold, but nonetheless we enjoyed croissants, coffee, jam, bread (all brought by me) and cheese, fruit, and foie gras (curtesy of Andrew). Plus of course, each other's company. Oh, that, and the rather frightening pigeons and seagulls that kept stalking around our bench...but yeah, like I said, it was nice not to have been alone on Christmas. :)

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In other news, I am happy to announce that 2 weeks ago, I finally received some money from my school, and though it wasn't enough to cover my rent (had to e-mail my landlord and explain the circumstances so that she would hold off on cashing my check) it was enough to buy the things I needed, like food, a warmer blanket, TP, soap, etc. I might have enough for a Christmas gift or two, but I won't be receiving money again until a few days in January, after my bills are due, so gotta set some money aside for those..Regardless, it's nice not having to literally live from week to week with only the little money I'm getting from babysitting.

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So yeah, while money issues are not my favorite thing to post about, I feel like it's important because even though studying abroad is like a dream come true, I have to be realistic and put out there that not every dream is perfect. But you know what? It's still worth it, and that's the important part.

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And finally, Maura is in town! She got here just before Christmas with her family, and while they're leaving tonight, she's stay into the end of the first week of January. She's staying with Nadya starting tonight for a few days, and then on the 3rd-6th, she'll be crashing here with me. So that should be fun :)

Anywho, time to shower, tootles!

Rachael

Exhibit A

Second post today, but what the heck. As I've mentioned before, I've been doing a lot of baking (though only because I stocked up on a lot of cheap baking goods before I went broke).

Well, just thought I would give you guys a little peek into my obsession..

Egg, broccoli, bacon, cheese souflees:

Pumpkin spice muffins and cookies with creese cheese icing:

Whole grain bread I baked just a few hours ago...tasty with a nice and chewy inside :)

Ok, obviously I didn't make this next one (below), but just wanted to share with everyone a fruit that I'd seen around here for months but had never heard of/tasted in my life: kaki. So a couple weeks ago, I went out, bought one, washed it, and took a nice bite out of it...only to spit that bite back out two seconds later. It was the weirdest thing; the taste was fine and sweet, but the texture, oh god. Worst thing ever. I found out it was the skin, because the actual meat was ok. Something about the skin lends the kaki some kind of dry, terrible sensation similar to what I imagine eating sand must be like. Unfortunately, even after rigorously brushing my teeth, it took hours for the feeling to go away, and by that time, I lost interest in deceiving kaki and ended up tossing it out. Alas, maybe another time, kaki...

The kaki right before the bite

Also, this weekend I made a GORGEOUS pumpkin pie, entirely from scratch, along with mini blueberry yogurt muffins. I forgot to take pictures, but just know that they were both yummy..

That's for today,

Rachael

Positive thoughts on the future, FTW

Hey all,

It's been awhile, but I just want to put out there, that I actually wrote a new post about a week ago, published it...and then accidently deleted it -_-;. I'd written quite a bit, too, and was too lazy to re-type everything out. So let's see if this one can remain un-deleted, hmm?

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For those of you that don't know, I actually won't be coming home for Christmas. I was a bit depressed about it at first, but after some reflection, I figured it might actually be for the best. It'll save me some money, and Christmas in Paris is actually really nice. Even if they don't have Christmas classic songs like we do..but that's what Youtube playlists are for! ;) Also, I found out that there are a few other ISAers that will still be in town for the holidays, so I'm thinking maybe we can all band together and have a little Xmas dinner of our own :)

As a little example, here's a panoramic (kinda blurry, sorry!) photo of the Champs-Elysees just after the annual Christmas lighting (which famous French actress Audrey Tatou assisted in)

As for school, everything continues to go well. I wasn't a big fan of my fashion class, so imagine my utter joy when I found out that this week is our last class--not in late January like my other two. They told me that since it was an English class, (as in, the students in it are all American and almost all leave for Christmas) that it just made more sense to keep it a few weeks shorter than the rest. This means, that for 3 weeks in January, my Wednesday school days won't be 9 hours long anymore! :D We'll see if next semester's schedule won't be so rough..

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Speaking of which, I've been thinking a lot about my future. I might or might not've mentioned it, but I've really been strongly thinking about going into business, hopefully at a school here. Most likely management, to be exact. Mentally, I'd composed a list of reasons why this would be a good idea, so let me finally get them down:

-Paris is one of the best places for learning and practicing business. Great schools and great opportunities.

-English really is the business language. My classes would be in English, (which would help immensely) but I've decided that I would still continue learning French on the side.

-A career in business has a pretty decent return.

-And this one I only just realized recently, but I seem to be running into the old saying "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree." Between being completely taken over by an obsession with cooking and baking, and now managment, I'm becoming more and more like Papa..

-Worst case scenario, in the event that I can't find a good job here, I can work for Papa and help manage his business at home. Or maybe start French cooking workshops. I might even make that a summer thing to do at home. Ionno. I never said this was all concrete..

-And if all else fails...marry a rich French guy and I'm set.

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Of course, I haven't forgotten about a few, very important details: paying for school and housing here, and paying back my loans. I've sent an e-mail to a supervisor at the financial aid office at Western (though big surprise, I've yet to hear back..) on whether I could 1. continue to defer repayment of my loans as long as I'm enrolled in a higher institution, regardless of it's location, and 2. whether I could continue to receive aid from the state of Washington, again, under the same conditions.

And if the answer to those questions are no, then maybe, just maybe I could do it with aid from the French government and with a job. All I know then is that living inside city limits would probably not be possible. But eh, now I don't really care all that much.

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Ugh, there's so much more I'd like to write, but I feel that it's still too jumbled in my head to properly sort out and articulate. These last two months have been financially stressful beyond belief, but if there was any silver lining, it's that I'm now more determined to really set my future up right. That and that I've lost weight due to my food rationing, haha. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, knocking on wood, tossing salt over my left shoulder, but I may, may, MAY finally be getting some money in the next few days. Let's just hope I don't go crazy with my grocery shopping once I do aha.

Bisous! (kisses, in French)

Rachael

Dear teen years: to you I say adieu

I think one's teen years is like learning how to swim. Nerve-wracking and necessary for survival in the real world, but in the end, a lesson in life you're glad you learned.

Also, something you never have to go through again. Hurrah!

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That being said, everyone knows that leaving behind one's teen years is most definitely not saying goodbye to stress (I'm sure quite the opposite actually). Case in point. Wednesday, 16th of November, day of my birth: went to my 9am class, handed out mini pumpkin spice muffins I made myself, got out of class and went home for lunch. Finished paper for my fashion class, considered not going to the field trip for said 2-6pm class on account that I was tired and had plans later that night for dinner, but went anyways. Got lost trying to meet with class, had to call teacher, who was not too happy, delayed our tour, endured rest of boring tour, returned to school for lecture half of class, got out a half hour later than normal because of stupid field trip, got kicked off the metro along with everyone else due to transportation problems, had to hurry to other nearest metro, transfer to a bus, and got home an hour later to Skype Mom and Papa, hurried to finish cake I'd made, skipped shower (yuck) so I wouldn't be horribly late to Theo's and mine birthday dinner. (The got super hungry and started without me.)

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So yeah, stress-free life from now on? Hardly.

The middle of my day pretty much sucked, but dinner was nice. And everyone loved my cake, which was a two-layer banana bread with a jam center, cream cheese frosting, and shaped and garnished to look like an X-Box controller. I chose this shape because while Theo likes to pretend he's just you're typical suave French guy, I know he's a geek at heart. And I know it was my birthday as well and I shouldn't have been the one making a cake, but I took the excuse that it was also his to bake such a fun cake. Needless to say, he was surprised, and it was a big hit in both looks and taste. :)) Behold:

In other news, I think I've made progress in getting more funds from my school. But I can't expect anything before Tuesday, so my babysitting money has to tide me over until then. I really hope we don't hit yet another bump in the road (knock on wood!) so that I can get a ticket home, not have to worry about rent again and finally buy the things I need for around the house (read: my tiny studio apartment).

Also:

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....evvverywhere we gooo...

Actually, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas here in Paris, and while it's beautiful with all the lights that have started to go up, it's really making me miss home. I've already had another birthday and Christmas without them, I'm about to miss a Thanksgiving, so missing yet another Christmas would be kinda depressing. But we'll see.

Here's to hoping for the best,

Rachael

P.S. God, I can't believe I'm twenty!!

Losers see barriers, winners see hurdles

Found this on another blog on Blogger, check out the link, there's tons of these inspiring post-its

Now that I've gotten all the event-y posts out of the way, I can now take the time to post about daily life again. Even if daily life isn't always cheery and full of rainbows.

Well, what my daily events are fine: class, wandering the city, grocery shopping, cooking, baking, preserving...(more on that later).

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Let's talk about school and classes. While all of my classes are at least 3 hours long, I've gotten used to them. Wednesday (class from 9-12, 2-6) still makes me want to bang my head against something concrete, but at the very least I don't have babysitting on those days. And then it means I can faire la grasse matinée, or sleep in (literal translation, make the morning fat aha) on Thursday. And now when I think about how I thought 1.5 hour classes were long, I want to laugh.

Anyways, not sure if I explicitly said this previously, but I really, really love going to school here. Despite having two other classes, they're not terribly demanding and I feel like I can really focus on my French. Of course, I am living in Paris and French is kinda a requirement even outside of school, but still. It's nice not having to worry about writing an 8 page paper on rhetoric. Ew.

Me after my long days

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So I don't really stroll freely through the city anymore, but I just love being out and about. Being on errands, or even just admiring the scenery when studying outside (ok, I did that once, and I didn't study so much as feed hungry pigeons). Also, I love love LOVE Sunday market. Yeah, I have the market 6 days a week, but Sunday is the busiest--and therefore best--day to meander down the entire street, eyeing the redness of apples, or the abundance of lemons and clemetines. The excitement of all the people trying to find the best deals is just so...reviving, especially in the brisk November air. It's also times like these though that I really miss Mom and Papa, because I know just how much they would love it too.

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And speaking of fresh produce, what is it that I do with 2 kilos of apples, a kilo of pears, and 4 lemons? (All for under 5 euros, btw). Why, I preserve, of course! Oh, wait, what's that? Didn't you know I was into this kind of thing? That's ok because neither did I! But apprently I am and now I understand how the Martha Stewart and Paula Deen shows could be so popular. I don't know what it is exactly; is it that I'm living on my own for the first time? Are constantly seeing baked fruity creations everyone inspiring me? Or could it simply be that I have too much time on my hands? Whatever the reason, I now peruse my first ever cookbook (in French, but pssh, when it comes to food it's easy to understand in any language) daily, bookmarking recipes that sound good. Already I've made:

-Broccoli, egg, ham, and cheese souflees

-Mongolian beef

-Broiled pork

-Ginger chicken

-Muffins, twice

-Pumpkin pie, twice

-Pumpkin spice cookies

-Bakes pumpkin seeds with my own seasoning combo

-An ok baguette (was my first time)

-Various jams

Don't worry, I'm not quite this bad...

...yet...

Now I'm just gonna mention this briefly because I don't want to dwell on it too much, but I'm unfortunately having a really tough time financially. All I'm really buying these days is food, and even then, not a whole lot. Guess that's one way to slim down, har har. And if my phone gets cut off for a few days, I guess that's not THAT big of a deal...:/

I'm not babysitting as much as I was originally told I'd be needed for, and that's one problem. The major one is that there are some really incompetent people working for important positions at Western, but I'm hoping against hope that everything will be worked out this weekend and I will have money to buy myself a belated birthday gift. And pay for my phone. And maybe a ticket home for the holidays. Because hoping for anything by Wednesday is kinda pushing it. So there you have it, why this post is titled the way is it.

Well, so that this post doesn't end on a sour note, here's another picture of a kitteh!!

You know you love it,

Rachael

Salon du Chocolat...aka In Which We Gorge Ourselves On Gourmet Chocolate

Alas! This post is finally up :)

A couple weeks ago, the metro started putting up giant posters for Le Salon du Chocolat, (see the bottom of my previous post for picture) a convention apparently only held in Paris, New York, and Tokyo. Panels, demonstrations, samples, and a chocolate dress fashion show?? I was so there.

I'd just set my mind on going when my gastronomy teacher surprised us with the announcement a couple days later that we would be taking a class field trip to said convention--and at a reduced student price. Oh happy was I!! ;)

We went on the first day, and were given shiny, sparkly tickets--because of course Paris has to be classy with anything involving chocolate. I felt like one of those chosen kids from the Willy Wonka movie with their golden tickets...expect no body was knocked off, hehe.

I took a ton of pictures, but basically all it really was was us sampling chocolate after chocolate after chocolate after chocolate after....well, you get my point. Unfortunately, the chocolate dress fashion show wasn't to start until 5, but by that time I had to leave to pick Kevin up from school. Regardless, I loved getting the chance to marvel at such magnificent and artistic creations of the cacao nature--definitely one of the best field trips I've ever taken. Though I think that it goes without saying that everyone was just a tad bit queasy after consuming so much chocolate...

Anyways, enjoy the pics and try not to drool! :D

The entrance:

PILES of chocolate-covered marshmallow sticks:

Chocolate violins!

'Whoa' was all I had to say:

Got to try wasabi chocolate! Different, but not bad:

They had the Grand Marnier crepes going..definitely gonna have to try that sometime:

How clever, wanna try this sometimes too :)

Ok, so these were spices, but the sheer amount was just so impressive...

...though I'm not quite sure what that blue, green, and orange stuff were:

All made out of carefully textured chocolate:

Just realized I put this picture in twice and stupid Blogger won't let me delete it...so Grand Marnier crepes again:

Chocolate/white chocolate pencils and vegetables:

Cigars, too:

Can't forget the macarons:

I want a bouquet of chocolate flowers..!

A lot, yes:

Something they call nougat. Not 100% sure what it's made of, but it's light and airy, but stiffer than marshmallow (maybe made with egg whites?) Either way, it was good:

Sausage-shaped chocolate biscuit:

Cute necklace idea:

You can all wipe your mouths now, hehe.

Love always,

Rachael

Val de Loire

Hey guys,

Once again it's been weeks since my last post, but here's my update on the famous Loire Valley!:

While my trip to Normandy was nice, this trip was even much better. Once again, got up at the crack of dawn and met our group at Porte d'Orleans. After an hour, we arrived at a very familiar-looking castle, Château de Blois, which turned out to be one I'd visited last December with Theo and his family on our way to Royan. We toured that though it wasn't terribly exciting the second time around (it was really exciting the first time either, but I digress..)

Afterwards we all split into small groups, ventured into town and got lunch. Their Saturday market was also going on and it was pleasant to walk around and see everyone's wares.

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Then we were off to Château numero 2. This one, though not huge, was super cute, and sat on a quaint river. Also, we had to take a wooded path to get to it. I think that was the first sign that I was gonna like this castle:

The sun was shining, the leaves were turning...it was beautiful.

I also liked the interior of this castle a lot more, especially the kitchen! How I would've loved to have a kitchen and mess area like this..behold:

Of course there was a wood oven for bread :)

The autumn squashes were a nice decorating touch, too :)

After that castle, we were taken to our 'surprise'. A wine distillery! We did a short tour of the process, and then on to everyone's anticipated part..the tasting. Or dégustation, as they call it here. Oh man, it was beautiful. They had the tables set up for us like so:

I think we all had our arms crossed so that we wouldn't lunge for the food...;)p

Some amazing goat cheese and pork pate stuff, not really sure what it was. And the wine. We can most certainly not forget the wine. Glasses and glasses of it. I suppose it's a good thing there was so much to eat with it, otherwise a few of us might have had some problems. We all had a great time chatting, and here's an after picture of the table:

DEMOLISHED. hehe

I ended up buying some good sparkling wine, and a very nice white wine. It wasn't cheap, but then again, for wine, the French consider anything above 10 euros pretty up there. (It was 12,50)

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Anywho, after that, we continued onto our hotel, where we dropped off our stuff and went out to eat. Dinner this time wasn't that great either. My group was a bit rowdy, and got worse after a couple of them ordered 3 meter beers. Like so:

And my actual food? Someone please remind me never to order something that's supposed to be Mexican in France ever again. Because my 'Mexican salad' was horrid. To top it off, I felt sick shortly afterward and called it an early night when everyone else went off to the pubs. At least I got to take a bath in the hotel room?

Sure, it LOOKED ok, but I think it was the culprit for the upset stomach :/

Next day we visited our last castle, Château de Chambord:

Can't see me all that well, but I'm there ;)

Amazing view!

And what a gorgeous fall day it was, like fall should be. We toured the castle which was fairly impressive itself, but the best part were the grounds. We were given tickets for a bike rental and each of us went in groups and biked around the grounds on paths. It was beyond relaxing and tiring at the same time.

Biking along the river, side view of the castle

At one point, it was also mentioned, that the architect of the castle had designed it so that from a distance, the relatively small size (by their standards) would look like a city to visitors. I can see it:

Shortly after our bike ride we meet up again with our group, and proceeded to a nearby biscuiterie, their (yumy) version of a cookie shop. And behold! Another dégustation! SO. MANY. COOKIES. (The ones pictured below were only a tiny, tiny fraction of the ones we got to taste)

And for those of you thinking, Gee, Chambord sounds oddly familiar, you're right! Chambord is actually also the name of a liqeur sold in the US. Like so:

Originally from this same region of France, the company here was sold to to someone in the US, where they say their liqeur is now more widely bought than in France. (The bottle with the crown is the one sold in the US, the other, here.) Interesting. Anyways, when mixed with white sparkling wine, it makes a drink called Kir that goes great with sweet things, like say, cookies!

In the end, I bought a box of cookies, a little baggie of some kind of delicious brittle called Croukou, and a tiny bottle of the Chambord. I've since eaten the cookies and brittle, but am saving the Chambord for a special occasion (it wasn't cheap!)

Once we were all stuffed from cookies and Kir, we all piled onto our bus and began the long drive back to Paris, all 0f us attentive and perky.

Yeah, right.

If you honestly believed that we didn't all conk out like pre-schoolers during naptime, you are sorely mistaken. Kinda like this:

That was to be our last excursion as a group, which is a little saddening, but at least it was a great one :) Now off to start my next post about the Salon du Chocolat. Here's a little preview, an ad they had everywhere in the metro. Now let's see how long it takes me to get this one posted ^^

Until then!

Love,

Rachael