"No Thanks. Keep the BJ."

Yesterday afternoon I met up with my buddy Aaron for coffee….which turned into cocktails…as usual. Of course as soon as I arrived at the bar I randomly realized that it was the 3rd Thursday in November.

So after Aaron and I had warmed up our palettes with a couple glasses of Rose, the bartender asked us if we’d like to try the BJ Newvo. Aaron was a bit hesitant, but I agreed to give it a try if for no other reason than tradition and the fact that after 2 glasses of wine I’ll pretty much try damn near anything.

Long story short--- I hated the BJ Newvo. I will never become one of those people who bashes a bottle of BJ, but I gotta tell ya, the glass I had last night was crazy bitter and very flat tasting.

In technical wine tasting terms: It was yucky.

Feast of the Assumption.

Saturday is the one day each week FrenchBoy and I can go out and do stuff together, so Imagine our chagrin when we found out Saturday around 11am that it was a holiday and almost every damn thing in town would be closed all day. You would think at least FrenchBoy would have known something was up, but since he works in Luxembourg his mental schedule revolves around Luxembourgish holidays. (Yeah there’s only 10 actual Luxembourgish people but they do have their own holidays.)

As for me I’ve lived in France for almost 6 years now and I still don’t have all the Holidays memorized. Part of the problem of course is that I’m not catholic. I mean how the hell am I supposed to remember what day Mary flied up to heaven on? Geez. And frankly I’m such a shut in that we could be 3 or 4 days into Armegeddon before I realized what was what. “Oh so that’s what all the weeping and gnashing of teeth is all about!”

Alas,everything's closed. What to do, what to do? Fancy Lunch course! Eventhough we didn’t have a reservation, we popped into a local restaurant I’d read about on-line and were lucky enough to get a table on the terrace. It was by far the best meal we’ve had since visiting Brugge.

A few photos from the Menu Plaisir for your drooling pleasure:

Petite assiette de la patience. ("Little plate for patience". Something to munch on while you choose your meal and your aperitif cocktail arrives. Spicy Beef Carpaccio served on a slice of Cucumber.)

Médaillon d'agneau et côte, tarte à la tomate, jus d'ail doux et wasaby.
(Medallion of lamb and rib, tomato tart, some veggies, a bit of potatoe puree, aka mashed potatoes, and this amazing wasabi and garlic gravy in that tiny shot glass.)

Médaillon de lotte aux aubergines, fumet tranché à l'huile de basilic.
(Medallion of monkfish with eggplant, sliced and smoked with basil oil.)


Dessert:

Crème parfumée au pralin, entremet et sa glace façon tiramisu

(Praline Ice Cream and a Tiramisu)

Blame it on the salt content of our little Feast of the Assumption or perhaps it was the heat, but I’ll have you know that the next day neither my pants or my bras would fit, and my toes looked like cocktail wieners. I literally went up one whole clothing size overnight. I waddled around the apartment all day Sunday. At Sunday dinner French mother-in-law even mentioned in a ‘round about way that I looked a bit “Forte”….which by the by is one of my FAVORITE French expressions. How lovely is it that when a woman is a bit overweight they say “She’s a bit strong!”

Anyway, the meal was wonderful, even if it left me feeling a bit strong.

If You Ask Me How My Diet Is Going...

I'll kick you in your teef.

Just in time for Christmas, I bring you Thanksgiving!

Yep, I'm a little slow on the uptake. I've been meaning to blog this forever, but I just kept getting sidetracked. You'd think I'd be a bit more excited to talk about it since it was in fact my FIRST Thanksgiving dinner in five years. Thanksgiving is the one American holiday that I simply can do without. And as soon as I moved to France I dropped it like a brick. Besides the food, there isn't much of anything that I find particularly special about it. I loath the whole Pilgrims and Indians mythology and I much prefer Christmas because you get to stuff your face and people give you stuff!

But when my California Ex-Pat friend Heidi proposed that I invite people over to her place and she would cook us a whole traditional American Thanksgiving meal, I immediately said yes for two reasons: One, I never turn down free food, and two, she is an AMAZING cook. She's the kind of foodie that loves to cook and that makes food so yummy that I've taken to inviting myself to stop by her apartment on my way to ___________ (fill blank with any random excuse that will get you in the door) because I know there will probably be fresh baked treats of some sort popping out of the oven the very moment I arrive. I heart Heidi. If she ever moves back across the pond I will shed many a tear, and NO, not just because she'll be taking her cookies with her. But anyway...

The guest list included: one Aussie, one Greek, two Americans, and 5 Frogs, and about 8 bottles of Pinot Noir.

Everyone that wasn't American was incredibly excited to be invited to a real live American Thanksgiving. For most of their adult lives they had witnessed this mysterious holiday over and over again through Hollywood movies and they were all excited too have been invited to eat some Thanksgiving turkey.

The turkey of course had to be special ordered from the butcher well in advance because you have about a snowball's chance in hell of finding a turkey in a grocery store or butcher in this region of France. (Frogs don't eat Turkeys.) But Heidi saved the day by planning ahead, and thus we had had turkey for dinner and not a chapon.

Needless to say, everything Heidi made was wooooonderful.

Sorry there aren't more photos.

I was too busy eating.

You Might Be a fat Ass.....

This post is just a riff off of yesterday's post.

Does anybody remember that comedian Jeff Foxworthy's stand-up routine from the 90's called "You Might be a Redneck." Well, when I finished my last post I thought up my own version called "You Might be a Fat Ass".

Top of the list: You might be a fat ass if off the top of your head you can name more than 5 French Pastries by their commonly used/historical names.

1. Opera

2. éclair (extra "fat-ass points" if you can name the 3 most common flavors.)

3. St. Honoré

4. Profiterole

5. Mille-feuille

6. Religieuse

See? Fat Ass.

p.s. Lovely artwork supplied by New York artist Carol Gillott at Paris Breakfasts, who makes amazing and very afordable watercolors of French pastries which you can buy in her Etsy shop.

Fancy Fungi.

Whenever I look in the mirror and think to myself: “Damn, how did I get so fat?” I only need to look to my own blog for answers. I eat a lot. But I figure it’s a good trade off. I take on a few pounds (each year) but I get to taste all this magnificent food. And anyway, who really ever regrets eating French pastries? The only reason I'm even nice to people is that when I die, I desperately want to go to pastry and champagne heaven.

One of the best things about living in France is the food. Face facts, if you have an American-style metabolism and an American-sized appetite, France is not a country you move to in order to shed a few pounds. I always joke that I moved to France for my husband, but I stay for the pastries. And it’s not so far from the truth. The food is AMAAAAZING. Whenever I go back to the US I am constantly complaining and moaning about the food. I am a traitor to my own country’s cuisine.

(Except the Cheeseburger. The French will never master the Cheeseburger. Never. They can't even say it correctly. "Sheesbergeeer?" "No, CHeeeeZbURger m*therf*cker!")

To make matters worse, since moving to France I have had the occasion to sample over and over again the things that I had previously only read about in books or seen in films. Foie gras? We eat eat it on a bi-monthly basis chez nous. Champagne? Once a week! And this you see is the ultimate luxury for a girl who grew up in Des Moines, Iowa where champagne (from California) passes over the lips only once a year at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve. So it’s no surprise that in November of this year I had truffles for the first time in my life. And not just any old truffles. We went all out and ordered the full truffles menu et El Theatris.

Truffles on risotto! Truffles on Carpaccio St. Jacques!

Truffles on Filet Mignon! Truffles on Duck!

Truffles on ice cream and crème brûlée. OK, not really, but still you get the point.

That’s a lot of fungus my friends!

London's wicked, init?

Before I start this post, I have to make a public apology:

Dear Mom- I’m sorry I left France and didn’t even tell you where I was going. Next time I do travel that requires use of my passport I will at least email you to tell you first so that you won’t have to find out about my travel plans on my blog and then call me all indignant because I told 1000 strangers where I was going but didn’t tell you because I am a horrible daughter and I love complete strangers more than you eventhough you gave birth to me after 48 hours of labor with no epidural or something. So what I’m really really trying to say is, I’m really f*ckin’ sorry, K? *giggle snort*

So, London.

As soon as my butt muscle healed, FrenchBoy and I hopped on a plane to London. But before I get to that, let me rant a hot minute about the crap airline that is Ryanair. Ryanair maybe be cheap, but you get what you pay for. Their level of organization is for shit. In fact I had a realization on the flight home-- In the future I will not be entrusting my life to any airline that runs their business so horribly and hires morons to work for them. In the future I will be spending the extra money to take the train or to fly out of Luxembourg on Luxair. Screw Ryanair already. (End Rant)

So, London.

OK, one more interruption and then I’ll get on with it. I have a confession to make. For the past, say, 10 years, I have been harboring, a not so secret distain for the British accent. Whenever I would hear it, the skin on the back of my neck bristle like a cat and I would have the urge to punch someone, anyone, in the teef. If a character in a perfectly good film turned out to have a British accent I would instantly start hoping that the plotline of the film somehow involved said character's gruesome demise. And I love movies that have magic in them, but I refused to see the Harry Potter movies cuz the accent sent me into convulsions. At one point it got so bad that any good mental health professional might have suggested I had a true phobia. And moving to France did nothing to help matters because as you know, the French find it perfectly normal to hate all things British. In fact the French strongly support the sport of “Making fun of the British” as an up-and-coming category for the 2012 Olympic games to be held in London. So, it is with great pleasure that I announce: I have been cured of my British accent phobia.

So, London.

London freakin’ rocks. Honestly I didn’t really know what to expect and I didn’t do much planning, but we arrived and just hit the ground running. And as a couple who plan all their trips around food, art, and shopping, London is about as good as it gets. We only brought a carry-on bag and one medium suitcase. Big mistake. We pillaged and plundered every shopping district in London from Sloane Street to Camden market. It was a very bloody feeding frenzy. There was just so much interesting and totally affordable fashion in my size even.

For the record, French Prêt-à-porter ("off the rack") fashion is surprisingly predictable and really quite shitty. The average French person may be well dressed but boringly so from head to toe. Like little cloned frogs. London was the exact opposite. Even those with ridiculously bad taste were at least creative with their tacky get-ups.

(Note to women in London: Tights are NOT pants. They are meant to be worn under skirts to keep your legs warm. I repeat---They are not pants. I can see your knickers through them and it aint pretty. What are you thinking? Run into M&S and buy thyself a pair of pants already!)

Knicker viewing aside, it was so refreshing to have so many choices! Even FrenchBoy, who normally has to be dragged kicking and screaming into a store just to buy new socks, got into the act. I went into the changing room and when I came out he had picked out a whole outfit on his own! In total we came away with 4 pairs of shoes, 2 coats, 2 sweaters, 2 hats, 2 scarves, 1 pleather purse, a Dunhill wallet/moneyclip, a crystal champagne bucket, and 2 boxes of codeine which much to my absolute delight is sold over the counter!

Also, I am in the honeymoon stages of Shoe-Love with my new Terra Plana "Maple" boots that I bought at a tiny boutique called Stella at Camden Market. It was love at first site. Almost as good as cheap codeine.

Other highlights from our trip:

• Watching a guy eat porridge. (From the grimaces on our faces you would have thought we were watching someone eat a bowl of worms on Fear Factor.)
• Getting served champagne at Ferragamo because I faked them into believing I was gonna buy a 2000€ python skin purse.
• Totally righteous brownie and ice cream eating at Harvey Nichols.

So, London. I like.

We’re heading back the first week in December for FrenchBoy’s birthday. I’m already dreaming about fish & chips and Brick Lane. Next time we’ll bring a bigger suitcase and stretchy pants.

A Month's Worth of Fancy lunches

French people hate Fusion food. Maybe it has something to do with their xenophobic suspicious culture or their absolute distain for change or anything new, but whatever the reason they like their recipes with a little dust on them. So the first time we went to Thierry, I knew it would take some time or FrenchBoy to warm up to the menu. I on the other-hand was about to do summersaults as soon as I started reading through the menu and saw the phrase “Wasabi Sauce”.

FrenchBoy of course was not convinced. His reason being that for the same price we could go to Pampre D’or and eat “real” French cuisine at a Michelin rated restaurant. The idea being that just because its traditional French food, it is immediately of higher quality.

A-ha! And there it is. “Real “ French food. Which is slightly problematic for all sorts of reasons. In fact I would argue that it’s just as problematic as describing what a “real” French person is. What is real French cuisine anyway? I’m not sure who gets to decide these things, but I often feel as though I live in the land of the food Nazis. “You can't possible serve this with that!” "Are you really going to drink that after you’ve eaten XYZ?”

Suddenly it makes sense. I’m not a huge fan of “real” French food because I’m not really French nor according to most, will I ever be “really” French. So technically it’s not that the French hate Fusion food, it seems they may very well hate all sorts of fusion in general.

Moving right along...

Last week we once again went out in search of a decent Chinese food restaurant. In general there aren't many, but finding one that is actually palateable has been even more difficult. For the last 5 years, whenever we've wanted good Asian food of any sort we've been forced to go to Luxembourg and pay an arm and both legs for it. And we have done so quite happily because we love good Chinese and Thai food. So this weekend we lucked out. I found a small little restaurant that had great food, good decor, friendly service, and a decent price. I forgot to take photos of our hot steamy food, but here is a photo of our cocktails, complete with jewelry!

And last but not least, sometimes you just want a greasy cheeseburger and fries. Hence..

The Mc Fancy lunch!

The Last BBQ.

Well summer I officially over. I swear it only lasted 2 weeks! I hate that summers in France tend to fly by and that winter seems to last about 6 months. Weather-wise, this year was even worse than last year. This summer, each day was either scorching hot or pissing cold rain. The earth is clearly pissed off at us. But I digress as usual. This post is all about the end of summer.

Everyone is home from holiday; all the stores have re-opened after being closed for weeks on end for "congé été", and all the snotty French tadpoles went back to school on Tuesday! Now during the day I can open my windows without hearing their constant shrieks and laughter.

Ah, perhaps Le rentrée isn’t that bad after all.

I guess the thing I’ll miss the most is the summer food! Last weekend we held what is sure to be the last barbeque. Maybe it was the black billowing smoke, but I got tears in my eyes as I watched French-Father-in-law survey the fire. It’s simply too sad to think about how long I will have to wait until I can eat another properly grilled marguez.

But on a brighter note, as we waited for dinner to cook, we were lucky enough to catch a hot air balloon race!

How cool is that? Actually, I’m not sure if it was a race. From the ground they certainly don’t seem to be moving very fast, but they sure are purty!

The Not-So-Fancy Lunches.

FrenchBoy and I have been floundering a bit when it comes to keeping up on our weekend ‘Fancy Lunch” tradition as of late. It’s not that there aren’t plenty of fancy restaurants in and around Metz, it’s more that we’re becoming too lazy to do the research to find them all. Yes. We research restaurants. After-all if I’m gonna pay 40 euros a person for lunch, I want some reassurance that I won’t leave with food poisoning or that I won’t have to suffer through some waiter’s horribly obnoxious service.

So anyway, a few weekends ago we found ourselves in a pinch because we hadn’t done any research. We headed to Rue DuPont des Loges which is lined with restaurants which we’ve been sampling one by one. We randomly chose an Italian restaurant called La Storia. We didn’t have a recommendation from anyone but the menu looked OK, and I was about to go into a low-blood sugar rage so we went it and ordered.

Let’s just say we were not impressed. The food was mediocre and so was the service. And to make matters that much more annoying, there was an insane 4 year old girl at the next table that was carrying on like she had just taken two hits of crack. Possibly three. A few minutes into my pizza, I hear a loud “whack” and simultaneously feel a thud on the back of my chair. You guessed it, the little cracked-out 4 year old somehow managed to run smack into the back of my chair at full speed. How? No clue. And is it wrong that the sound of her wailing from her head smacking into my chair somehow made my pizza taste better? Anyway---on a scale from one to ten, that place gets a six.

Fast forward a week. Indonesian food! Yum. It wasn’t fancy, but then again neither were the prices, but still…Yum!

I’d actually been to this place before, but years before with my wedding planner. The owners are an older Singaporean couple who lived in Paris for many years before moving to Metz to open L’ile de Java. Go figure. Anyway, the service was as delightful as I remember and the food was quite good….and so were the three ginger cocktails I slurped down.

So, lessons: Italian restaurant with crack-head 4 year old = bad.

Indonesian cocktails = good.

“Honey I’m home!” …. For real this time!

So… I actually got back from San Francisco a week ago. But I’ve been so busy that I totally forgot to blog. And by busy I mean 2 days of sleeping off my jet-lag and another 2 days of cleaning and running errands, followed by an entire weekend of family obligations. More on all of this stuff later.

First things first: I absolutely adore San Francisco. So much so, that I feel that I must have lived there already in a past life. The whole time I was there I had this weird familiar feeling, yet was acutely aware of experiencing everything for the first time. I used to feel like I was cheating on New York every time I fell a bit more in love with Paris, but now I feel even guiltier because I have a serious crush on San Francisco.



Dude, totally trippy.

Also during my trip I had the pleasure of meeting so many amazing people. Besides meeting all the artists at the MoAD events, I met up with the blogger formerly known as BuzzGirl and her daughter who I affectionately refer to (only in my head) as Baby Buzz.

In fact I had a wonderful day walking around the Mission district with BabyBuzz while Mamma Buzz was at work. Now, Baby Buzz is probably the coolest 13 year old you’ll ever meet. I just tried my best not to embarrass her with my dorky presence too much as she played tour guide.

We visited 2 art galleries, had fancy over-priced tea, and sampled Indian ice-cream before calling it a day. Oh and did I mention she speaks French comme un Français? I mean really. I was embarrassed to talk in front of her for fear she would roll her eyes and correct me.

Side note: Folks –you don’t realize how old you are until you’ve spent an afternoon with a 13 year old. All the walking around wore me out.

Later in the week we all met up again for some playing around town. Buzz rented a zip car and we rolled all around San Fran and I tried not to barf in it even though going up and down all those hills gave me crazy motion sickness. We did the obligatory Embarcadero and at pier 39 we all squeezed into a photo booth. It was good old fashioned giggly girl fun.

Buzz snuck us all into the San Francisco art institute to see the Diego Rivera. While there we also checked out an exhibit, and snuck into the sculpture studios…which made me drool a lil bit out of the left corner of my mouth. (So this is what 30 G’s a year buys ya?”) It’s like art heaven in there.

We ended the evening with a drive to Oakland for an oversized meal of Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles, which recently had a falling out with Roscoe so they simply crossed his name off the awning but kept on serving the waffles. Hilarious!



Sunday I just spent the day walking around the mission again. When I die can I go to the Mission and spend eternity browsing used bookstores and dozing off on an over-stuffed coffee shop sofa with my laptop resting on my belly full of coffee?

Oh and how could I almost forget? Although like a dumb-ass I managed to schedule my trip to miss Gay Pride by only a few days, my friends Ina and AJ managed to grab us three much sought after tickets to the 2008 Fresh Meat Transgender and Queer Performance Festival. It was amazing good fun.

Photo by: Asha Leung, 2007.

As icing on the queer cake I had the honor of having Sunday brunch with one of this year’s performers Turner Schofield who is not only too damn good-looking for his own good, but also happens to mix a hoppin' mean Mimosa. Turner's performance was a huge hit, and I was lucky enough to snag a copy of his book Two Truths and a Lie, which he was nice enough to sign and make a little note in French no less! *swoon*

That night at the festival I also saw the Harley boots of my dreams being worn by a totally cutie who was nice enough to tell me exactly where to go buy them.



I also met her friend Idexa, from the very famous Black and Blue Tattoo on Guerrero and 16th street who turns out is a major celebrity in the international tattoo world. What luck?

Also-- Jasmine--I made it to 24th and Mission to eat at Farolito’s. Like you said, the outside is a bit sketchy, but I walked in and it was packed. The so-insanely-handsome-that-it’s-just-wrong guy at the counter greeted me with a “Hey girl.” and I had to keep my knees from buckling underneath me. Dude---why didn’t you tell me the carne asada super burrito is the size of a newborn? I could only eat half of it.

Anyway. San Francisco rocks.