A Short List of French Foods that are Probably Making Me Fat

Probably fat but definitely VERY happy. 

Croissant: Probably my favorite indulgence and always worth the 300+ calories that I'm sure it contains. I always buy myself one and say that I will save it for my breakfast the next day (the typical French breakfast is juice/coffee and a pastry like a croissant), but I inevitably eat the whole thing within the hour. And they're all so big!

Comparison with my pre-paid French phone. 

A similar pastry that is equally delicious is pain au chocolate, which is basically a square croissant with little chocolate squares inside.

Une tarte des fruits: This fruit tart was a mini one but they come in all different sizes. I think the inside had some kind of nut mixture and the base was doughy. So gooood.

Strawberries, kiwis, and peach. Oh my. 

Macarons: French macarons are different than the coconut macaroons that we have in the U.S.. These have two crunchy egg shells and a gooey center. They look really boring and not at all tasty but then you bite into it and it's amazing. They are very light too but have the richness of a much heavier dessert. (I sound so Food Network-y, I know.) 

An inside peek of the perfection. 

Nutella: So we have nutella at home, and I don't usually ever have it unless one of my roommates at school happens to buy a jar. Nutella here is a huge deal though. They have big displays at the grocery stores, and they sell desserts, especially crêpes, with nutella. I resisted temptation for a few weeks but then I caved and bought a jar. I wrote "FAT FAT FAT FAT" on the lid of my jar to help deter me but I've still eaten almost half of the jar in like two weeks. You just can't stop yourself from eating it. Nutella. is. so. addicting. It's basically just sugar and cocoa so obviously it's delicious. The label says that nutella on some bread makes up part of a healthy breakfast. Okay, sure, French people.  They conveniently don't say that the other part of that healthy breakfast is an enormous multivitamin, because that's the only thing that would compensate for the caloric and glucose intake. I won't buy another jar after I'm done with the one I have now, but I will allow myself to indulge in a nutella crêpe de temps en temps. There's also these drink machines at the university that dispense hot drinks like espressos and coffees. There's one called caprimo, which literally tastes like liquid nutella.

 So I'll drink that too...because it's for my studies.

Mystery Pastries: I bought these two little pastries from the window of a patisserie, so I don't know what they are actually called. They are made of many layers of flaky pastry and filled with different kinds of creme. I got a citron one and a chocolate one, although the latter tasted like it was just Nutella.

I'm sure there's a strange French Revolution/peasant/king's mistress back-story to these given their peculiar shape.

Ricoré Café Chicorée: French people are big espresso drinkers, and I've had quite my share of espresso. I wanted some instant coffee for my room though so I bought this Café Chicorée mix. It's 60% chicory and 40% instant coffee. It tastes much better than usual instant coffees, and I like the strong taste that the chicory gives it. They have big displays of it in the grocery store sometimes so I'm assuming it's a pretty popular product.

Photo Credit to my friend Liz. 

Tarte au chocolat et orange: This little number was half chocolate cream, as seen on the top, and half orange cream. It was very delicious but reallllly rich. I even ate it on different days, so you know it was really rich for me to resist eating all of it. The little stick on top was chocolate with powdered sugar. The orange was covered in that weird sugary goop that bakers feel the need to cover all fruit with on top of desserts.

Goopy orange aside, c'était parfait. 

 There's no such thing as buying a small amount of cheese in the grocery store...

Chamois d'Or : similar to brie. good with jam on bread. (jam with bread, tea with jam and bread, tea and jam!)

Fourme d'Ambert : a very strong blue cheese. A LOT of very strong blue cheese. I'm a blue cheese fanatic. 

En résumé: chocolate chocolate cheese bread cheese sugar chocolate sugar bread! 

Menton Loves Lemons

The city of Menton, also called "la perle de la France," is located very close to the French-Italian border. It's a lovely little seaside town that apparently harbors a deep and profound love of lemons and other citrus fruit.

 We took the bus for about an hour yesterday to attend Menton's Fête du Citron...the Lemon Festival. 

This view of Menton's Old City doesn't reveal how lemon-crazed the city is. 

We had a little trouble finding the right bus to take to Menton, which totally wasn't our fault. Sometimes the evil powers that control the location of bus stops decide to completely change the routes of some buses without notifying anyone. ANYWAY, by the time we got to Menton we were all famished so we immediately found a restaurant. They had lunch plates that included dessert for only 10 euros.

They ran out of the chicken dish, so we all had the pork option that came with some kind of sauce that I don't remember but included white wine. The sauce tasted a little like a Chinese sweet-and-sour sauce. In France they call it sucré-salé. The pork was really tender and delicious; it's been the only pork dish besides sausage that I have had since I've been in France.

I am sure they used lemon in the sauce. 

For dessert, we had the choice of lemon tart or another tart that started with the letter M but none of us recognized. So naturally we choose the lemon tart. It was delicious, as one would expect a Menton lemon tart to be. 

Because if you're going to worship a citrus fruit, you should treat it well. 

After we tried to go to the actual festival, but the tickets for the entrance were 10 euros. It was a little too expensive, and we could see some of the stuff from outside of the fence. So we didn't go.

But we took lots of pictures of the entranceway!

We were a little offended that the city of Menton was charging people 10 euros to visit its biggest event of the year. I mean, people are spending a ton of money in your little town so maybe you should just let them walk through your citrus garden for free or at least a lower price?

So we stole a lemon from underneath the fence. 

Erin did the dirty work. I pretended to take pictures of the street and Blair was the other lookout. 

I think the theme of this year's festival was a trip around the world. 

The Statue of Liberty's brother, the Deacon of Citrusy (hee hee it doesn't even make sense but I don't care). 

We walked around the city for the rest of the afternoon, and we saw a ton of lemon statues and stores with lemons for sale and lemon products and lemon-themed furniture and shrimp with lemon and lemon-shrimp bisque and fried shrimp & lemons. You get the point.

A work in progress and an unhappy French homme. 

I liked Menton, although I am still a little offended at their exploitation of tourists. We had some very delicious ice cream. We also got free samples of the liquor limoncello, mustard made with Menton lemons, and, of course, some actual lemons. I bought a lemon that is the size of my face from a street vendor, and now I am trying to find a good no-bake recipe to use it with. 

While we're on the topic of Lemons....

If your festival wants to charge you ten euros to see a bunch of citrus statues, that's a Dealbreaker, ladies! 

...a moment of silence for our dearly departed 30 Rock. 

V-Day

So I don't ever get very excited for Valentine's Day (at least my valentine is on the same continent this year!). However, this year I did have a delightful food experience so I figured the anniversary of Saint Valentine's death deserved its own post. 

One of the best parts of my day was receiving a Mardi Gras package from the Skipper family that contained a plethora of beads, a cute flying pig, some little Mardi Gras treats, and...

A KING CAKE! 

It made my day. 

Heaven.
 I didn't even stop to hide the baby from myself. 

My stock of fresh vegetables and fruits was running low because the vegetable markets that I usually go to were closed all week. I think it may have been because of the cold weather but it may have been a secret vegetable vendor French holiday that I didn't know about. 

Anyway, for lunch I only had a red pepper and some carrots. I also had some dried chorizo sausage. 

So naturally I fried all of those things together and put them in a tortilla with cheese. 

It was weird. I pretended that I wanted all of my food to be warm colors because it was Valentine's Day. 

For dinner my friends and I wanted to go out to have fondue. We found a reasonably priced fondue restaurant, but unfortunately the rest of Nice had the same idea as us and the restaurant was full. We then went to a Niçoise restaurant that was really nearby called Le Vieux Bistro. 

We all got 'le menu niçois' which is where you get an appetizer, entrée, and dessert from a pre-set menu. Menus are popular at French restaurants and usually get the best deal. Our meals were all 19.50 euros, which is pretty good for the amount of food you get. 

For my appetizer I had 'fritto misto sauce tartare,' which is basically an assortment of seafood fritters with tartar sauce. (Fun fact: Seafood is 'les fruits de mer' in French, which is literally 'fruits of the sea.') I think it's traditionally an Italian dish. I didn't know it would be fried, but it was a nice (greasy) surprise that reminded me of home. I think it was mostly calamari, shrimp, and clams. It was tasty. My only complaint was that the shrimp had the entire shells on them underneath the batter. I also had one piece of calamari that must have been from where the squid's tentacles meet its body. I could feel the different tentacles, which gives me goosebumps when I think about it now. 

A lot of sea fruits! 

For my main dish, I got 'petits farcis niçois.' It's a traditional niçoise dish and consisted of small pieces of vegetables stuffed (farcis) with a mixture of meat, spices, and rice. The menu made it sound like it was just vegetables stuffed with more vegetables, but it ended up being very rich with the meat and the accompanying sauce. On my plate, I had tomato, eggplant, zucchini, red pepper, and onion. The onion was my favorite, because it had that sweet, baked onion-y flavor. I'm not sure what kind of sauce was with it. It came with salad and bread (per usual). I was very pleased with my choice. (Some of the others got what was supposed to be beef stew but it ended up being pasta with beef on top.) 

The petits farcis deceivingly look like a small amount of food. 

We were all incredibly full by the time we were done with our main dishes but there was still dessert! Four of the five of us wanted crème brûlée, but they only had two left. So Erin and I said we would split one crème brûlée and one mousse au chocolat. They ended up being two enormous desserts in themselves. Additionally, someone else didn't like the nougat ice cream dish they had gotten instead of crème brûlée so we ended up sharing most of that too. 

So. much. dessert. 

The flattest crème brûlée and the largest amount of chocolate mousse I've ever seen. 

I spent the rest of our time at the restaurant forcing everyone to take bites of the chocolate mousse. 

We had a late start because someone had a late class so we probably didn't get to the restaurant until around 9:30. With three courses, we didn't leave the restaurant until 11:30. ELEVEN THIRTY. At night. It was way too late to eat that much rich food. I didn't even need to eat breakfast this morning! #beingfrench 

Antibes Ain't Playin'

On Saturday we visited Antibes, which has been a happening port town since the time of the Roman Empire. It only took us about fifty minutes to reach Antibes by bus, and it was a beautiful (but chilly) day. My friend Erin wore a dress without tights, a decision that she regretted every time we stepped into the shade. Much like Louisiana in the summer, the temperature on the Côte d'Azur changes twenty degrees when you step from the sun into the shade. 

Antibes was much bigger than I expected. We visited the 'old city' and the port area. 

We chose the yachts that we wanted while we were there. 

In the old city there were a lot of little shops and a flea market. The flea markets that I've been to here usually seem like they consist of people selling whatever they inherited from their rich grandmother's castle. I keep having to stop myself from buying some kind of antique vessel, like a teapot shaped like a boat or an enormous flower vase.

We ate lunch at a café that was across from a really cute merry-go-round, which made me realize how much I like merry-go-rounds. This merry-go-round had horses, a few other animals, and then miniature old-fashioned cars (because, you know, French children are used to a certain standard of living).

We sat inside because it was cold. However, we never saw any of the staff move to go cook anything, which made us skeptical. When our food came, the waiter brought it from outside of the restaurant. So that was weird. But it was good, so if he bought it from another restaurant or a street vendor I'm fine with it.

I had a baguette pizza, with chicken, tomatoes, onions, and mozzarella. It was delicious. It also came with lettuce (salad, I guess) and fries (frites, not french fries).

Don't worry, Mom; I shared the fries and ate all of the salad myself. 

After lunch we walked to the waterfront. I think the section that we were on used to be part of the fort. We had to scramble up this wall to get onto a big ledge where we could see the water really well. It gave a really nice view of the coast to the northeast (where Nice, etc. is located).

Partial view of Antibes and southwestern coast. 

 There was a statue on the fort called Nomad; it was the skeleton (kinda?) of a huge man sitting with his knees up, looking out onto the sea. And it was made of all letters! It was pretty cool, and you could go inside, which is where the picture is taken from.

I'm sure the words form a really meaningful and metaphoric poem about traveling the world. Or being homeless and having to sleep on beaches. 

We also visited the Musée Picasso, which wasn't as cool as I wanted it to be but omg-picasso-lol-art-art-art! He stayed in Antibes one summer, and the director of this huge castle invited him to work in the castle. So when he left he donated all of his work to the city, which is what is inside the museum now (plus some other wacky modern art). In sum, he was already famous and probably just wanted to kick it on the beach so all he left here were a few stick drawings of centaurs and mussels. 

ANYWAY, my favorite part was the picture gallery of Picasso while in Antibes. The pictures were titled things like "Picasso, le torse nu, devant le centaure" and the picture was just Picasso shirtless in front of a enormous centaur. My favorite picture was the one below, and I couldn't stop giggling about it all throughout the museum visit. I would have bought a copy of it if it had been in the gift shop...

Picasso avec un hibou 

So that was my brief trip to Antibes! I would return for another visit. 

Unrelated news: In honor of Lundi/Mardi Gras and my general need to eat, I made jambalaya on Monday! It was my first time, and I had been postponing cooking it for two weeks because I didn't have a can opener. It came out alright; it tasted like the jambalaya that I used to get in the cafeteria at Fifth Ward. If I had never had jambalaya, I would have loved it. The sausage that I used wasn't very good. But it's kept me fed all week and was très facile!

My proportions are limited by my the size of my pan. Otherwise I would have made enough to eat for three weeks. #lazycooking

I missed Mardi Gras a lot this year but Nice's Carnaval starts on Friday (I don't know why it happens during Lent). I will be able to compare the festivities then!

Touching Raw Chicken and Other Feats of Incredible Bravery

I think raw meat is disgusting. Just seeing someone else deal with it can make me dry-heave a little. One time my mom made me rinse off salted pork to put in something she was cooking for a holiday once, and it was traumatic to say the least.

I was content to just cook myself vegetarian meals and eat meat while out at restaurants while in France. But alas, I found myself missing chicken as it's not the most popular meat item here. So I caved and bought some raw chicken filets to cook.

I asked Miki for some cooking advice. To my dismay, he told me that I would have to touch the chicken at some point. I didn't accept this and looked up recipes online. I found a simple one for chicken paprika with mushrooms that I followed somewhat. 

I opened the chicken package. Took the chicken out with my hands. Cut off the fatty parts (which are harder to distinguish from the meat than I thought). Rinsed the chicken off. It was a transforming experience, I have to say. It was actually a little fun. I felt like a real person. 

I put paprika and garlic onto the chicken before putting it into hot oil. I let it brown a little then I covered it with big pieces of onion and mushrooms. When it was done, it was pretty delicious (if I may say so myself).

My first chicken dish and I didn't even poison myself!

I was sure to clean the kitchen well so I didn't poison any of my hall-mates either, as I hope (and assume) they do for me.

As evidenced, I have been attempting to get a little more sophisticated with my cooking in the dorm. In my defense, it's hard to make a masterpiece meal with one pot, one skillet, and one cooking utensil.

But here are some more things that I've made! 

I've spared everyone the pictures of my many sandwiches. 

Lentils and rice with ham:

Either the rice or the lentils were under-cooked a little, but it was good. Protein. 

 Stir-fried zucchini with pesto sauce and pasta:

Corkscrew noodles make it fancy.

Stir-friend eggplant: my first time cooking eggplant which was a little under-whelming

I added onions plus green AND red peppers. 

More zucchini: This time I decided I wanted to make fried zucchini like you can get in Italian restaurants at home. However I only decided this once I had already started grilling the zucchini in my pan. So I added more oil and sprinkled pancake mix over it. It was pretty weird, but some pieces actually turned out to taste like real fried zucchini! The other pieces just tasted like zucchini with a lot of olive oil...

Don't worry, the suspicious black juice in the pan is just from mushrooms. 

As a side note, it's really easy to find out which grocery items are really American and not popular here. An excellent example is pancake mix. I bought a big box for about 3 euros, which isn't bad. But then I opened it and discovered that it had just two packets inside, that were portioned for like 5 pancakes each. Zut alors. 

Ventimiglia, Italy

Ventimiglia (Vingtmille in French) is the closest Italian town to the southernmost part of the French border. Erin and I took a 50 minute train ride on Sunday there. I didn't even bring my passport, which was a complete accident but now I'm akin to an international spy. The ticket was only 7 euros, and no one ever checked the tickets so I can use it again! #whataspywoulddo

We were super excited to go to Italy, as neither of us had ever been to Italy. Ventimiglia is the town that everyone in Nice goes to if they just want to say they've been to Italy. We passed through Monaco, which is a principality, so technically we were in three different countries within an hour!

You could see all three countries up the coast, but it didn't translate to the picture. But Italian rocks!

There wasn't a ton to do there, but it was a cute little town. There were some areas of town that were noticeably poorer than others, which I haven't really seen in France yet. Erin and I were constantly in a state of uncertainty as to which language we should speak to people. Upon our arrival we discovered that neither of us could remember even the most basic Italian word. It was a little stupid of us. For example, 'Hello' is 'Buongiorno', which is practically the same as the French 'Bonjour'. So we wavered between French and English all day. The waiter at the restaurant spoke to us in French automatically, so I am just going to assume that we looked super French. Not that I'd get excited about that. Not at all. No, really. Just ask for my French autograph later.

Did I mention I was in Italy?

But speaking of restaurants:

We were stoked to have real Italian pizza or pasta. Thankfully all of the restaurants were open even though it was a Sunday (take that, France).

We got a "normale" sized pizza, which was the medium size, and it was ENORMOUS. We split it between the two of us, and it was amazing and perfect and beautiful and really Italian. I forgot the name of it, but it had mozzarella, prosciutto, mushrooms, artichokes, and a blanket of parmesan.

The entire meal we talked about how much we loved it. 

It was also a lot cheaper than a comparable French meal (only 12 euro for the pizza and three for a 1/4 L of wine!) Interestingly, most of the people in the restaurant were speaking French. I also saw the waitress bring a dog bowl to someone's dog that was sitting inside.

For our appetizer/dessert, we bought a confection from a candy/cookie store. We thought we were just getting a little sliver of something when we pointed to it in the window. It turned out to be a huge, semi-sphere of chocolate, marshmallow, and hazelnuts. I've tried searching for its actual name, but it remains a mystery.

.We gnawed on that thing all day. 

And that was my very brief trip to Italy!