Guess what? I have insane compulsions. I bet you were in no way aware of this. I, myself, am sometimes unaware of my own compulsions until they are pointed out to me. Apparently it is strange to threaten someone with bodily harm when they try to add the milk to your tea before removing the teabag, without being able to explain exactly what it is that you find so distasteful about the two touching. It's just wrong! It just is! Who would do such a thing? GAH!

Junior Mints are a little firm and standoffish
on the outside,
but the inside is soft and comforting.
They are like a hug, in candy form.
I like Junior Mints.

I like a good caramel apple, me.*

That's not entirely true. The idea of the caramel apple is a delicious one. The sweetness of the caramel combines with tartness of the Granny Smith (the best variety of all for caramel appling) for a delightful mixture of flavours. Unfortunately, it is impossible to eat a caramel apple without looking ridiculous eating off a stick and without getting your face and hands all sticky. And as you may know, avoiding messiness is one of my top priorities in life**. It's a conundrum for me, so I often only catch myself halfway through the eating of a caramel apple and wonder why I put myself in this situation. A much better alternative is Granny Smith slices dipped in caramel sauce, but this is much more difficult to find at fairgrounds and apple orchards.

So what do you think annoys me most about this delicious delicious waylaying temptress, the caramel apple? From the previous paragraph, it would seem that the messiness and stickiness and lookingstupidness would win out. Oh reader, how little you know! The most annoying thing about caramel apples has nothing to do with the apples themselves, but with the tendency of the caramel-apple-vending industry to advertise their product as "carmel apples." Do they come from California? While I am terribly obsessive-compulsive about messiness, I am far more OCD when it comes to spelling.

-----
* Another thing I like: Starting blog posts with short, one-sentence paragraphs. Have you noticed?
** Along with The Acquisition of Things That Glow In the Dark.

I received a sample of Ice Breakers Liquid Ice™ Instant Liquid Mints, stuck to the cardboard protectory-thing on my chai tea today. On the back of the package is written:

Safety Warning: Avoid contact with eyes.

Right. I hate it when that happens.

Update: People Are Stupid, #413: Especially me. These mints are awful!!!1

Dear France,

Popcorn is meant to be salty. Sometimes it is also meant to be buttery and delicious. We are the continent that spawned popcorn, so we should know. Stop your crack-smoking, popcorn-sweetening ways! You are wrong and we are right; get used to it!

Sincerely,

SRAH who got her hopes up when she found out there was, for some reason, a brand-new popcorn vending machine in the abbey

Dear World,

I would have it known that today, June 29, 2004, I did make The Greatest French Bread Pizza Known To Man. Except we're in France, so it's just a Bread Pizza. Whatever.

Of course, when you finally get around to eating dinner at something like 10pm, anything is good... but I highly suspect this may have actually been tasty.

But why would anyone be eating dinner at 10pm? you ask. You nosy bugger. As a matter of fact, a new look for the blog is underway...

The woman in front of me at the supermarket today was buying brains.

Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains!

Echhhhhh.

Now that I'm sober, I can tell you about last night's meal in more detail, without the danger that reviewing it bloggily would cause me to review it vomitally.

Becky and I went to the nice restaurant in town, sort of on a whim, after discussing how much we both like food. Becky told me that although she'd never been there, she'd heard that they don't like Americans, so we had to be on our best behavior and I had to do all of the talking because we'd have to speak French. We went in and asked for a table for two.

"Do you have a reservation?" We admitted that we didn't and they said that they only had one table left, so we were going to have to take that one. Um... fine with us! So we sat in the middle of the room and tried to behave ourselves, realizing that by not making a reservation, we had made our first gaffe.

Things actually got better from there. We ordered our kir royales with crème de pêche as apéritifs and by doing so, I managed to get a bit squiffy before we even opened the bottle of rosé. Once we'd ordered, the wait staff seemed to warm up to us and our waiter teased us about our bad habits (slow eating for me, smoking for Becky) all through the evening and spoke English, Spanish, German and Japanese to us as well as French.

Anyway, Becky and I each ordered from the menu. We had the salade de chèvre chaud, then she had some kind of porc dish and I had coq au vin for the main course. As we finished up our main courses, we realized there were still two courses to go, but luckily we (erm... I) had taken so long eating that they actually asked us if we wanted the cheese course or if we wanted to skip straight to dessert. I had crêpes with a Grand Marnier sauce and Becky had the clafoutis aux cerises. We adjourned to the bar for our coffee and tea, as we had outlasted everyone in our dining room and they were getting ready to close for the night.

We managed to roll/wobble ourselves to the computer lab to send drunken/potentially-sick emails to our friends, then wobbled up to bed.

When I went to the grocery store last week, I bought some tortilla chips and salsa, knowing that at some point, I would be homesick and need some good old-fashioned American food.

As I stooped by the exotic foods shelves, I saw one kind of dipping salsa. I couldn't see a label indicating whether it was Mild, Medium or Hot, but I knew that this is France and they are afraid of spicy things here, so if they only had one salsa style, it would probably be fine. So I tossed it in the cart along with the triangular chips, which were slightly cheaper than the round ones.

I opened both today, not because I was feeling any more homesick than usual but because I am the Ultimate in Lazy and they were both in my room, whereas for anything else I would have to climb two flights of stairs to the kitchen.

As I opened the chips, I noticed that they were marked 'Chili Flavour'. Well, that's exciting, I thought, Maybe it will liven up my salsa. Funny that I didn't notice, though. I guess I was so starving and in such a hurry that I was just kind of pulling things off shelves without looking carefully. I opened up the jar of salsa and scooped a generous pile onto the chip, then put it in my mouth.

My eyes teared up. Damn, these chips are very chili flavoured! I ate a chip on its own to see how it was, but it was only pleasantly spicy. The culprit was the salsa.

After examining the jar more closely, I came to realize that the reason I couldn't find a label was that the tiny red "HOT" marker blended in so well with the yellow-and-red Old El Paso label. I don't think I've ever willingly tasted hot salsa.

But I can't stop.

There's spice, yes, but there's also juicy tomato goodness! And if I can somehow get past the burning, I can taste this tomato goodness! I'll just try another and -- OW OW OW OW OW! Well, you know what would be good for this terrible, life-threatening burning? Nice cooling tomato! Like in this tomato salsa here -- OW OW OW OW OW! Oh my god, that was a terrible idea. I am not eating any more of this. I'm going to walk away and... well, now I'm getting kind of hungry. Maybe I'll just have a chip. Well, that chip was good, so maybe I'll have another. But the last one was so boring, so I'll have some salsa on it -- OW OW OW OW OW!

I should learn to read.

On the way to work this morning, I picked myself up some sushi for lunch. The sushi place where I went serves eleven-piece sushi boxes. Why eleven? Not ten, not quite a dozen. Is eleven a lucky number in Japan? It's made even weirder by the fact that most of their sushi boxes are labeled as 1/2 and 1/2... or, you know, 5 avocado and 6 crab.

In a restaurant, I always feel compelled to eat with chopsticks and make a mess of myself. Luckily no one is in my little desk-pool at work today, so I am able to pick the rolls up with my fingers, plop them around in wasabi/soy sauce and nibble away at them for a while.

I have always been a snob and am no less snobby when it comes to tea. As a tea-drinker, I like to think that I have something over all of the coffee-drinkers out there. I like to imagine that I am in some way more sophisticated than the java-guzzling proles*.

I imagine that one day, scientists will find out that - like cigarettes - coffee is really bad for you, but all of the evidence has been hidden for years. Meanwhile, millions of people will be addicted to caffeine and I, who have only tasted coffee once or twice and declared it undrinkable, will laugh through my long life.

Some people are dependent on coffee and meander zombie-like through days that have not begun with a cup, drinking more to keep awake through the day. And yet, I'm beginning to find that I'm just as dependent on tea. My average 4 cups of tea a day has just as much caffeine as 2 cups of coffee. Any day that I'm running late and skip my tea is pretty lost, as I prop my eyes open with toothpicks and loll around all day.

It's not better at all!

-----
* Which would be a good band name. Yes, I am Dave Barry.

I love California rolls, but I don't like eating them in restaurants, with chopsticks. I either have to stuff the whole thing in my mouth and choke on it, or I have to try to take bites from it and the whole thing falls apart and falls into my lap.

I much prefer eating them at home, where I can eat with my fingers. The whole thing still falls into my lap, but at least no one can see me picking bits of rice and avocado out of my lap.

We went out last night to the Gandy Dancer to celebrate my dad's birthday. I had a mozzarella-tomato salad, Coquilles St-Jacques and coconut sorbet.

I don't really have anything interesting to say on that subject, except yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum.

I spent Fat Tuesday 2000 in Louisiana. 2001 was in Grenoble. 2003 was in Vichy. I didn't expect them in France, but I was disappointed to find that paczki seem to be a Michigan tradition that has not spread around the US.

This year, I will be in Washington, DC. Does anyone know where one can find paczki in Washington?! Do I need to go and scratch at the gates of the Polish embassy?

My parents are willing to buy and freeze one for me to eat when I get back, but it's not the same. I really don't want to have to call all of these bakeries and ask...

Interesting note: In my Googlings research, I have discovered that the singular of paczki is "paczek" (pohn-check).

Today was Crazy Bubble Tea Day for some reason. I was mopey in the afternoon and frustrated at my blog-block, so I dragged Mr B------ down to Bubble Island for a treat to get us through our discussion section.

Standing in the hall and waiting to enter the classroom, we raised our glasses to a fellow bubble-tea drinker, who came over to observe our strange hot beverages in their styrofoam cups. Someone else remarked that ours were the largest straws they had ever seen, and we had to explain that the wide straws were for sucking up the bubbles of tapioca.

With three drinkers in the small(ish) class, tales of bubble tea and its virtues and oddness ran rampant throughout the room both before and after the class period and tbone demanded demandingly that we take her there when it was convenient for her (which is never).

Bubble Island should pay us for this publicity. In bubble tea.

Never let it be said that I don't like to try new things.

For the record, cold almond milk tea with black bubbles is nowhere near as good as hot almond milk tea with black bubbles.

While generally I am all about clutching any British traditions to my bosom, I am gnawing at a sugar mouse and wondering who on earth came up with this idea. I like the idea of eating a mouse made out of sugar... I just wish it had a flavour. Other than... sugar.

Monkey cooks a bit more with his feet than I care to, but he has a lot of good ideas and has fun while he's doing it.

[via The Pie in Paris]

Irony: eating Lipton Cup-a-Soup from an American Heart Association mug.

(Sometimes I think that I subconsciously make things happen in my life so that I can use the titles I want to use)

I went to buy some lentil soup at Rendez-Vous Café today, because I am dangerously addicted to it. I could, quite possibly, survive for the rest of my life on lentil soup, tea and Junior Mints. And wouldn't that be healthy?

I went in with the intention of buying lentil soup, then realized I was running late, so I would have to settle for potato pie. But they were out of potato pie, so I had to settle-settle for thyme pie. Who makes a pie out of thyme*?

I stood around and got ignored for a while, then Jim** turned to me. Jim likes to wear gloves when he is handling food, which I find admirable from a hygienic point of view. Of course, he also likes to wear the same gloves while handling money, which completely defeats the purpose. But I suppose it keeps his hands clean.

I ordered my thyme pie and Jimbo went to work on the various steps involved in heating it up. Then two attractive - or at least not as frumpy, sleep-deprived and bespectacled as yours truly - girls came in and ordered crêpes and Jim wandered off into the back to make them, ignoring my poor little pie.

I waited and waited for Jim to return. He did. Then he went back into the back. Then he came back out. Then he returned to the crêpes. All the while, my pie was sitting at the end of the conveyor belt of the pie-heating-machine. It was a bit darker than I would have liked, because Jim couldn't be arsed to change the settings for my poor darling pie (this is how I was referring to the pie in my head. Damn, I was hungry). And now it was burnt and cold.

Finally, when Jim disappeared into the back again, I started staring at the other employee. After helping everyone in line, refilling the coffee containers and checking on Jim's crêpe-making progress, she noticed me trying to get her attention.

"Is that my pie?" I whimpered, pointing. She found the poor little pastry, forgotten and forlorn at the end of the conveyor belt, and made me a new one, which was golden brown and warm when it finally came to me.

The moral of the story is: Even short people get pie. It just takes longer. Or something***.

* Actually, it was quite tasty and ground up, sort of like a pesto-consistency. But it does sound weird.
** So called because I think that's his name and even if it isn't, I don't care.
*** Don't tell anyone, but the real moral of the story is: Tell a pointless story about pie and maybe people will stop talking about Borders.

Bubble Tea is the greatest thing ever. Her Cariness introduced me to it at a trip to the local bubble tea joint during one of our ever-productive User Interface Design group meetings and it fascinated me. It's sweet, milky tea with squishy tapioca "bubbles" at the bottom, which you suck up while you drink the tea.

While doing my Network Computing homework in the computer lab today, I had a terrible craving for bubble tea. I decided I would have some when I finished my homework and the desire for the squishy sweetness almost drove me to stay on task. Almost. There were a few distractions that prevented this, of course, but I got my tea eventually.

I highly recommend the hot almond-cream milk tea. It is my New Best Friend.

David and I went to Sushi.Come for lunch today. I had never been there before and had actually only been to a Japanese restaurant once in my life.

I had California rolls, which were garnished with fish eggs. When is it caviar and when is it just fish eggs? I don't care. I love the little buggers. I imagine that most people just swallow them down, but I love to bite each little one and feel the tiny crunches between my teeth. I truly am the Queen of the Chewers, which explains why I only ate about four of my rolls in the hour we were there.

Had a 501 editing meeting this morning at 9 that has not finished yet. And probably won't finish for several hours.

I am surviving on a constant stream of Starbursts and chocolate mint Kisses. I have the mother of all sugar highs and I am going to crash and burn when I run out. I think my veins hurt.

Quotes running through my head:

I'm so hungry, I could eat brownies!
Smashed brownies need the most love.
These berries taste like brownies!
My cat's breath smells like brownies.
Mrs Hoover, my brownie crawled into my mouth and I ate it.
Brownies. Glaaaaaaaaaaagh...
It's bringing brownies! Break its legs!

Is it lunchtime yet?

I went for years without a Junior Mint and never missed them. Then Katie started talking about them* this summer and I went out and tried them again. Now they're my comfort food and I now crave them whenever I'm having a bad day or I'm stressed or torn or confused or feel like crying.

I feel just fine today. My worries of the weekend are mostly behind me and my stress of the week is ahead of me. And yet I had to have Junior Mints. I think this may be a sign of addiction.

I took a break and ran down to the Union bookstore, my usual Junior Mints supplier. But there were no Junior Mints to be had. I had to settle for York Bites, which is like taking Nyquil when you really want crack cocaine. York Bites have a completely different texture and are too minty. They suck and have in no way appeased my ravenous desire.

* and their user-unfriendly packaging...

I went out to dinner in Dearborn tonight. One of Robin's engineering buddies is from Lebanon and wanted to show off his country to some of his friends. And their friends. And their friends. So we were a group of about 40 in all. We had a banquet room reserved for us, we paid a set amount, and the food appeared and appeared and appeared and appeared. We had hummous, Lebanese bread (we weren't allowed to call it pita, although I don't know why), salads, tabouleh, falafel, shish kebab, shwarma, freedom fries*, and a million other things I didn't know the name for. It was all delicious. Well, almost all.

There were suspicious bright pink vegetables on one of the vegetable trays. Frenchie #1 tasted one, made a face of excruciating disgust, and said to Frenchie #2, "This is terrible. You have to try it." So Frenchie #2 tried it and made the same face. I had tasted something bright pink earlier and it wasn't bad. Wimps.

"Pass it on over here," I dared. Frenchie #2 cut off a piece and gave it to me. Uh... horrible. Horrible horrible horrible in a way that cannot be described. The color was all wrong for a food to be. The texture was insanely squishy yet impossible to cut. The taste... Robin asked me what it was like. My mind was a blank.

"You really have to taste it for yourself," I said. "There's no way to describe it." She took a bite and made the same face we'd all made before. "Well," she described, "It's sort of like when you burp bile." This is the best description I heard all night. It turns out it was turnips pickled in beet juice.

Luckily we were able to cleanse our palates with dessert. It was a creamy filling wrapped in phyllo dough and flavoured with what was identified as either persimmon or chirimoya. It was sweet, with a delicate floral flavour to it. The name of the dessert translates into English as "ladies' arms". I asked for the Arabic name and have forgotten exactly what it was. All I remember is thinking that it sounded a lot like he said, "The nudists sit"**.

* as labeled by Frenchie #1
** Where does a nudist sit? Anywhere he wants. And then you should probably wipe down the seat or something.

Mr B-------, the Urstodian and I went to Earthen Jar for lunch today. It's a vegetarian buffet-style restaurant, so I got to try a little bit of everything.

Good vegetarian food is so yummy and flavorful and creative. It makes me want to be a vegetarian. Only, you know, the kind who rips into a steak every now and then.

My lovely assistant, Mr Dave, brought Twizzlers Bites to class today. I don't even like the damned things, but it's a three-hour class and I need chemical assistance to stay awake, so I had one. And it wasn't any good at all.

So I had another one. And that one wasn't any good either.

But I kind of had the taste of the last one lingering in my mouth, so I figured I would have another.

And another. And another. And another.

At one point, I decided to carefully nibble away at each damned tiny candy in order to make it last longer. There's a limited amount of nibbling you can do on a Twizzlers Bite, but at least it slowed down the incessant consumption a little bit.

I realized how nibbly I was being, looked around, and realized how many people in my User Interface Design class read this blog* and were probably thinking, Geez, I thought we could keep her from being nibbly if we didn't give her almonds. But there she goes again. I think they were probably just glad I wasn't sucking on them and spitting them back out.

By the time our break arrived, I was having some kind of sugar fit and couldn't sit still for the rest of class. Boing boing boing boing boing!

* I can think of 7 off the top of my head. Oh my god!

Dear candy corn,

You are gross. Please stop existing.

If you don't already think me mousy, you should see me eat an almond. It occurred to me while eating a bag of Almond M&Ms on the bus today that it's really quite a disgusting sight to see. This is one of those times where I wonder who lets me out in public.

Generally, when I eat a candy with whole almonds in it, I eat away the candy, then suck on the almond for a while. Eventually, the skin softens up and I can eat that separately. Then I can finally break up the almond and eat that.

The disgusting part is when I can't get the skin off with just my teeth and tongue, so I hold it in my hand and nibble away at it. Suddenly I realize that someone has seen me remove the soggy, drool-drenched almond from my mouth in order to remove the skin. All I can do is smile nervously and continue nibbling away. I don't think I could eat almonds any other way, unless I realized what I was doing and made a concentrated effort not to. If I were meeting the Queen of England, I suppose I would have to do that, but the rest of you poor suckers will have to deal.

I can make a bag of Almond M&Ms last for hours.

Someone brought a bowl of chocolate-covered dried cherries to work today and left them in the kitchen for the staff. I tried one and despite being covered in dark chocolate, it was quite tasty*. So I had another. All in all, I had at least five in the time it took me to make a cup of tea. So I have self-imposed a ban on kitchen visits for the remainder of the post-season play day. Yeah, like that'll work.

In other work-kitchen-related news, who is stealing my tea? And why are they nicking the Earl Grey with my initials on it instead of the Plantation Mint, which I haven't labeled and wouldn't mind losing? Clearly these tricksy hobbitses is wiser than they looks.

* I know, dark chocolate is supposed to be wonderful and better than milk and all, and everyone thinks I'm insane. Meh.

I am always retrying and rebuying things because I forget I hate them. So I will try to remind myself by recording it here:

Bigelow Plantation Mint? Booooooo. Not nearly minty enough. One might even say anti-distinctly minty.

It is The Fall Study Break, so I am at home alone and forced to make my own lunch. I have made grilled cheese sandwiches. Some people make their grilled cheese with cheddar. I, on the other hand, have to make everything into a big exotic production, so I have made one with cantal and another with three-month gouda and they taste... well, they both taste exactly the same as with cheddar.

I suspect that all grilled cheese sandwiches taste like bread fried in butter. Ho hum.

Why isn't there a fast-food restaurant in the Union that sells tuna salad sandwiches? I waaaaaaaant one.

Why don't my friends like mushrooms? Everyone seems to hate them these days, whereas in the past things were pretty well divided between the violently anti-mushroom and violently pro-mushroom camps.

I don't see how you couldn't like them. They don't have much flavor. It must be the texture - I can see how the canned ones are a bit squishy. Is that the problem? They're wet and raw and wriggly... like fisssssssshessssss.

As my grandma says any time we disagree with her about anything, "You just don't know what's good."

Dear onions,

Thank you for existing. Please continue to do so.

srah

I am probably dangerously addicted to tea. I laughed at all of the coffee-addicts and their caffeine cravings, but I think I may be having a similar problem.

I was in a hurry yesterday morning and didn't have time to make myself tea before I left home. I felt dead when I got to work, so I went to the kitchen and made myself a cup of tea. As I drank it, I could feel my senses waking up, much like the stupid guy I heard on NPR the other day chronicling his pre- and post-coffee morning.

There really isn't much caffeine in tea*, so it must be psychological rather than a physical addiction. Just don't bother me until I've had my first one (or five) of the morning.

* Actually, in French they differentiate between the stimulant in coffee (caffeine) and the one in tea (theine).

Sheri has requested a story about cheese. And I am a people-pleasing kind of people.

All of my life, I've been rather obsessed with cheese. Not necessarily with eating it or being a connoisseur - because I only really developed a taste for exotic cheeses in the last year - but mostly with the word and the concept of "cheese".

In middle school, "cheesy" (and its middle-school-French translation, fromagey) was one of our favorite words. We used it in the normal connotation, of something that was kitschy or ridiculous, but I seem to remember also going through a period where "cheesy" meant "good". Who knows? We wore our coats upside-down and inside out, too. We were strange children.

The height of our cheese obsession was probably late in high school, when my friend Becky hosted our Cheese Party. Dude, we are such nerds. Anyway, everyone brought a different cheese or cheese-related food. We had cheddar cheese and crackers, cheez whiz, Wensleydale, cheez curls, and cheesecake for dessert. We stuffed our faces and watched Wallace & Gromit videos.

Cheese is good. To an extent. There really are limits to the amount of cheese you should or can eat at one time, especially when you are 16 or 17 years old and can't drink wine to cut through the cheese. There really is no other beverage to drink with such vast amounts of cheese. It makes me feel rather ill just thinking of the amounts of cheese we ate.

I don't think "cheesy" meant "good" anymore after that.

I could really go for a glass of Riesling with my lunch (peanut butter sandwich, or whatever it is). But we are in the United States and I weigh about 25 pounds, so I suppose I would be regarded as some kind of alkieholic. What would go with my imaginary Riesling? Now I'm craving choucroute. France, why have you forsaken me?

There's still a half an hour until lunch. Must stop thinking about food...

Before I left for Grenoble, I would tell people I was going to live in France for a year, and they would inform me that I was going to return full of valuable knowledge about wine and cheese.

I did eat some cheese and drink some wine during the year, but not huge amounts of either. I never knew what I was eating or drinking because it was whatever was in the bottle or the cheese box at my host family's house, and it didn't make much difference to me. I found a cheese or two that I liked and stuck with them and refused all of my host family's attempts to get me drunk at family gatherings.

I came back to the United States and was grilled about my wine and cheese experiences by all the people who'd told me I'd be an expert. "I dunno," I'd say, "I like Double Crème. And Boursin. I think I tried some other stuff and it was okay. Wine? I had some rosé once that was okay. I guess I like that." I think they were disappointed.

When I went to Vichy, I assumed it would be the same. Fortunately, I was just on the edge of France's Cheese Plate (sort of like the American Bread Basket... I'm trying to be poetic here. Shut up) and in the company of someone who could teach me how to appreciate that fact: Stefan. Stefan was the German assistant at Presles, and was considered by many - French and foreign - to be more French than the French. He was fiercely regionalistic, believing that you should support your region first, then your country, and then start importing things. If you wanted to drive Stefan nuts, you could search out a bottle of Australian wine to bring to one of the Presles parties.

Upon being assigned to Presles, Stefan adopted l'Auvergne as his own. Stefan loved Auvergne and he loved food and his enthusiasm spread throughout the Vichy assistanat. We learned about all of the major cheeses of the area, as well as some of the minor ones. There was always a bout de St-Nectaire (a semi-hard cheese) in the cheese box for Stefan and we came to love Cantal (a cheddar-like cheese) and Bleu d'Auvergne (a blue cheese) as well.

I think Stefan distrusted me at the beginning of the year because I always refused wine. What kind of weird teetotaling American was I? Really, I didn't like the taste of wine, so I didn't take any. After a while, I realized I should at least try what they were serving, so I would take a little dribble. Stefan still looked askance. By doing this, I learned what I liked and what I didn't and built my way up to a whole glass (although no more, because Stefan would probably look even more askance at a weird American who could get drunk on a glass of wine).

Now that I'm back in the US, I miss having a bottle of wine open at all times. If I want some, I have to open it for myself or polish off a bottle split three ways. I miss Cantal and Bleu d'Auvergne, cheap and easy to find in the French supermarkets but rarer and more expensive here. I miss prepackaged shredded emmental. I'm still no expert, but I'm happy that I can finally enjoy wine and am willing to eat exotic and smelly cheeses. Danke schön, Stefan!

Yeah. Si + imparfait... conditionnel. I like the "si" rules. They make sense to me.

Why can't you get a decent baguette in the United States? Is there something in the baguette-making process that is not up to American hygiene standards? Are the ingredients different? Are there ingredients in a baguette that are too expensive over here to make it economically feasible? Do they think it's not worth the bother to make bread that won't last more than one day?

American baguettes, sometimes also known as "French bread", are not baguettes. They are a loaf of Wonder bread that somehow got stretched out. They're not bad when making garlic bread, but are useless for anything else. I can't get a real baguette here (even in the hippie/yuppie/soccermom paradise that is Ann Arbor), and I demand to know why.

I think my menu choices in American restaurants are solely based on which menu item will taste the best re-heated. I never ever finish anything in restaurants. I am the Doggy Bag Queen. They give you way too much food, and we are trained to clean our plates and think of all the starving children in Ohio or wherever the hell children are starving today. No wonder Americans are so fat.

The thing I hate is that you can order a salad and it's this enormous monstrosity. There are no small portions of anything. I don't want just a salad. I want a small salad, a small soup, a small sandwich, and a French fry or two. I want a varied meal, but I don't like that ordering a varied meal will keep me in leftovers for the rest of the week.

Uh-oh Oreos are the devil. They have shaken the base of my existence. Or something.

My mom bought a pack and my first thought was that they tasted just like regular Oreos. My second thought was that they tasted just like E.L. Fudge. Now I'm all confused. Which do they taste like? Do all three taste the same? Why, then, do I like regular Oreos, but not E.L. Fudge? Is it because I'm a racist and don't like white cookies? Do I like these Uh-Oh Oreos or not?

My life is so sad.

It could be a cold. It is a possibility. But I think my eyes are a bit too itchy for a cold.

Anyway, at this point, I would kill for a Cantal-and-butter baguette sandwich. But why must it come to that? Feed me, and save humanity.

1. What brand of toothpaste do you use?
Right now I am finishing off a tube of Aquafresh bought in France because it was the only kind I could find that stood up. Normally in the US I buy Colgate because I like their packaging better than Crest's. They're all the same, anyway.

2. What brand of toilet paper do you prefer?
Whatever my mommy has bought. In France, I bought The Pink Kind That Is On Sale brand toilet paper. I was very loyal to this brand.

3. What brand(s) of shoes do you wear?
I don't have any loyalty to a particular brand. My current trainers are Nikes (prounounced "nykes" because I bought them in France), but I think my last pair were Reebok or Adidas or something. Right now I am wearing a French shoe labeled Buggy. I don't know if that is the make or the model.

4. What brand of soda pop do you drink?
I try to avoid pop if possible, but usually end up drinking Coke when I do drink it. I drink Coke over Pepsi for the same reason I pick Colgate over Crest - I prefer red-and-white to red-white-and-blue.

5. What brand of gum do you chew?
I don't like to chew gum. It makes me feel trashy-looking.

Robin and I went out for bagels for lunch today. I wanted to try the garlic-dill cream cheese, so I asked for it on an onion bagel. Unfortunately, they were out of onion bagels, but the bagel lady suggested a garlic bagel. So I had garlic-dill cream cheese on a garlic bagel. Garlic-dill cream cheese on a garlic bagel. I have been mocked and avoided all day, but it really is quite atrocious.

It is so noxious that I can smell my own breath. It isn't just my breath, though. I seem to be exuding garlic odor from my pores as well. Run away! I reek and I haven't brushed my hair in several days.

"You can't find herbes de Provence in the US," said an unidentified person named Renata who shall not be named, "and if you do, they're super-expensive."

I just want to make the observation that not only did I find reasonably-priced herbes de Provence in every grocery store I went to today, but I have also managed to locate Salers, Fourme d'ambert, Bleu d'Auvergne, St-Nectaire, and Tomme. Strangely enough, no Cantal so far, but Salers is close enough for now.

Boo-yeah. Thank you, Ann Arbor, for being a weirdy-beardy hippie-town full of people who eat things like imported cheeses and organic alfalfa.

Christianna packed me a little snack for the train, which included both a bar of chocolate and a chocolate-covered waffle. I am so going to marry this country.

Belgian thee met melk report: level three.

The milk was forgotten by the server, and there were lemon slices on my saucer. This merits a ranking about equal to that of the United States. Of course I am basing it on one experience and I don't know if the results would be any different in Bruxelles or Wallonie.

Did you notice that "tea with milk" is one of the few Dutch words/phrases I've picked up? Dank u wel for noticing; yes, I am an addict.

In Belgium, you can buy waffles from a vending machine. Is this a great country or what?

I am also quite content to be in a country where I can say nonante for 90 instead of quatre-vingts-dix. I don't know where this desire to say nonante comes from, as I've never spent any significant time in Belgium or Switzerland, but it makes so much more sense than the ridiculous compound "four twenties and ten" numbers the French use.

Never mind. I'm a dumb ass. Tables and chairs and a sign that says "Tea Room" really should have tipped me off. Must go consume liquids.

Renata, Jennifer and I made a trip to Thiers this afternoon, to revisit the site of one of our first voyages ensemble, and so that Renata could buy some knives. We had a walk by the river and up and down the hills of the town, enjoying the delapidated romance of the lovely city. We returned to the same pâtisserie we'd loitered in the last time and I had a thiernoise, the local delicacy: layers of meringue and praline cream covered in a chocolate shell. Jehosephat, it was tasty.

We returned to Vichy and - much to the delight of my male readers, I'm sure - the three of us climbed into bed together. Well, technically we all just sort of collapsed on Jenny's bed and didn't move for about an hour, digesting pastry and recovering from hill-climbing. So much for titillation.

Once again, I am the chouchou of the cybercafé. And all it took to buy their affections was a dozen homemade American-style chocolate chip cookies. Yay me.

My marathon of cookie-baking is finally at an end and I am spending the night in Stefan's bed. Unfortunately (or "fortunately", as it is pronounced in Chilean), Stefan is not in it.

I knew that I had some chocolate chips and I thought I would use them up before I leave, by making cookies for my SMS students' wee party on Tuesday. When I got home and actually looked, I discovered that although I no longer have a four, I had managed to accumulate 1.5 bags of chocolate chips, a bag of peanut butter chips, half a bag of Hershey's Kisses, and a bag of chocolate chip cookie mix. So rather than Cookies For The SMS, I ended up baking Cookies For Everyone In The Entire World. Renata and I hae calculated that I must have made at least 16 dozen, although some were very small and some were very eaten.

I have donated some to my colleagues in informatique, Amandine and Cédric, others to Renata, Andrés and Johanna, and the rest will be dispersed among Everyone I Know. A large amount will be left in the teachers' lounge to entice people to sign my cahier de souvenirs and another large amount will be left in my stomach.

After a visit chez les BTS and a chat with Andrés and Luisa, it was remarked that there is an extra bed here and no need to go home at all hours of the night. So me voilà, taking up residence in the chambre of the absent Stefan, which is full of Brassens lyrics and bottles of Ricard, as the chambre de Stefan ought to be. Night night.

I miss popcorn and toast.

Hoy día en la clase de español hablamos de McDonald's. Mis estudiantes, que son estudiantes de hoteleria, y que deben tener standards, van al McDonald's dos veces por semana.

Might as well use my Spanish, or I'm going to keep forgetting it.

When Sonia asked the students who enjoyed going to McDonald's, the hand of the petite ricaine was one of the few that wasn't raised. I was afraid during the whole class period that I was going to be asked for the American opinion on McDonald's. In Spanish.

I wouldn't say that I don't like fast food - because it is fast and cheap and portable (rapido, barato y portatil?) - but McDonald's is really the dregs. The poor French don't have anything to compare it with, except the Belgian chain Quick, which is almost as bad. I certainly hope that if they had tastier options like Arby's and Burger King they wouldn't continue bouffing the merde that is MacDo.

Another filling meal at the resto gastro of my school. This time, I was showing off the restaurant and my 1AHOTs to the other assistants. On the menu:

Talmouse forestière
Cuisse de volaille poêlée aux artichauts
Pommes noisettes
Assortiment de fromages
Crème brûlée et pain d'épices au miel

I am going to burst.

Every time I go to England, I am stunned and delighted by the huge variety of candy bars they have. There is a veritable cornucopia of chocolate confections, most of which are impossible to find in the US or in France.

Unfortunately, none of them are particularly spectacular. I seem to buy a Toffee Crisp every time I hike it over to the Isles, forgetting every time that I don't particularly like them. The idea of a Toffee Crisp is so appealing that I forget the reality. You have things like Aero, a straight chocolate bar with air bubbles in it, or Cadbury's Fruit and Nut, which has raisins in it. It astonishes me that in an enormous candy display like that the candy, despite its exoticism, turns out to be less appealing than its American counterparts.

I like milk in my tea.

In England, this seems to be the norm and I didn't even have to ask for the milk. I love you, England.

In France, thé au lait is a bit more unusual, but still understood. Sometimes one has to put up with waiters' jokes about "Spanish tea" (thé olé!).

In the United States, tea with milk is rather strange. Waiters are always forgetting the milk and my friends look aghast. Milk?! In tea?! Is that any good?

In Chile, té con leche is an order made by mutants and can result in anything from a tea and a glass of milk to a teabag steeping in hot milk (which is really not too bad!). I find it rather odd because it seems to be even more of a tea-drinking country than the US or France.

How do you feel about milky tea?

I was a bit concerned about taking The Fam to the restaurant gastronomique yesterday because it is exam period and the students would be graded on their service. I didn't want to make it more difficult or stressful for them, so I considered cancelling our reservation, but their service teacher, M. Merlino, wanted butts in seats, so we came.

Our server was E. I don't know why I feel like I need to protect his anonymity when I never do with any of my other servers in the resto gastro, but voilà. He handed us the menu and I started translating it for my family.

"Gnocchi parisienne... gnocchi is a sort of potato pasta dumpling. Then we have ragoût de lapereau. Ragoût is a stew, lapereau is... uh-oh. Geez, I don't know." I turned to E. "C'est quoi, lapereau?"

"Rabbit," he replied, and continued speaking English throught the meal, asking if we had finished our courses, if we wanted more wine, etc. He even called my father "sir", when we'd had the lesson on the difference between "sir" and "mister" only two weeks before.

I was impressed and proud to find that one of my students could se debrouiller so well in an English-speaking situation - especially one whose voice I never hear in class. Especially when he didn't have to - he could have depended on me to act as translator throughout the meal. I hope he got a good grade on service - I know I'll put in a good word with his English teacher!

I have written before about the evil deceit of some citrus fruits, and I come before you today to warn you of another such menace: the clemenvilla.

Like the tangerine before it, the clemenvilla tries to pass itself off as a clementine and it is only the Pure of Heart and Clementine-Obsessed who can unmask this fiend!

For the clemenvilla, while not as dastardly as the dreaded tangerine with its thick skin, sour taste, and seeds, has greater weapons of disguise than its comrade in crime. It is only slightly larger than the average clementine and to my eyes, the only way to be sure is to remember to check the sign in the supermarket.

And this must be done, citizens. We must continue our vigilance and must not give in to this thick-membraned, chewy, flavorless impostor, even if Casino's clemenvillas are attractive and orange and the clementines are a bit spotty. This is all a part of their evil plan of dominance.

Support the downtrodden and oppressed clementine!

Would you hate me if I told you that one of my big problems at the moment seems to be that I've lost weight? I don't remember this happening in Grenoble, but these days my pants seem to hang a bit lower, which means I have to cuff them, then I keep stepping on the cuffs and I have to yank them up so as not to expose my underpants. Whereas other people try diet after diet, I have never had any desire to lose weight, and here I am with what butt I had rapidly disappearing. Thus I bring you...

srah's diet tips

Be easily distracted and get easily bored while eating. Then at some point during dinner you will see something shiny across the room and when you remember what you were doing and come back, your food will be cold and unappetizing.

Live alone. If you're only cooking for yourself, you have no one to impress, so you can make the same really boring stuff night after night.

Be lazy. This ensures that you will probably only have two courses at the most - a main dish followed by a yogurt or fruit or cookies - something that doesn't require work or preparation.

Be poor. If you are trying to make those last 90€ last until you get paid at the end of this week when you will hopefully be paid, you will not be buying yourself exciting, fun new things you've never tried before. You will be eating pasta and salad.

Be forgetful. If you suddenly realize at 11pm that you forgot to eat dinner, it's simply too late and you'll have to wait until breakfast.

Don't eat anywhere comfortable. Although you want to eat in bed where it's nice and warm and comfy, you would spill stuff all over it. Instead, sit in a chair facing the bed, so that while you're eating, all you can think of is how much you would like to be finished with dinner and in your pyjamas.

We had our Christmas lunch in the cafeteria today. I had sanglier, wild boar. I felt very much like Asterix and Obelix, minus the wingèd helmet.

I spent the weekend travelling in the Cantal department of southern Auvergne with a group consisting of three Americans, two Colombians, and Stefan, the partridge in our pear tree. We picked up Nelson, a Colombian friend of Andrés' and Stefan's and a non-stop dragueur, in Clermont, and continued south in Stefan's famous Orange Van, a VW camper with a moose on the side.

We stopped for lunch at Super Lioran, a cross-country/downhill ski station with a great view. We hopped up and down in the cold while Stefan worked his magic, converting the Orange Van into a kitchen/dining room. He made us soup on the van's stove, using water from the van's sink, then the six of us sat around the van's fold-out table and had a sort of picnic. It really is a wonder to behold, the Orange Van.

We continued after lunch and arrived at Aurillac just after sunset, so we had a lovely view of the lights of the city as we descended towards it. Aurillac is the umbrella capital of France, although that wasn't why we went there. We didn't know that until we arrived. We went because Andrés, in addition to his 12 hours divided between Presles and Valéry Larbaud, commutes down to Aurillac every week to teach in a school there on Wednesdays. He worked in this school last year, so he still helps them out and makes a special trip to Aurillac every week to do so. When he goes down, he stays with Claude, a sort of host-father he's adopted. So we were all invited to crash at Claude's as well.

We dropped off our stuff, then the two Aurillacois took us for a tour of la vieille ville d'Aurillac. There was lots of lovely medieval architecture and colombage and a former convent with sarcophagi dating back to the Middle Ages. There were medieval passageways, stairways, balconies, and Renaissance-style architecture that was built on later.

Vichy is the victim of one of the peculiarities of the French administrative system. This is the same peculiarity that put Nantes, the ancient capital of Bretagne and home of the ducs de Bretagne, in the Loire Valley region instead of Bretagne. Vichy is in the ancient region of Bourbonnais, home of the ducs de Bourbon, who later became the kings of France. The Bourbonnais is different historically, linguistically, geographically, culinarily, and geologically from Auvergne, but has been lumped in with it for administrative purposes. So after our tour, we went to an Auvergnat restaurant to taste la vraie cuisine auvergnate.

From everything I had read about Auvergnate cuisine, it was with not a little trepidation that I entered the restaurant. First of all, Auvergne is one of those rural farming regions where tout est bon qui vient du cochon, and second of all, the only specific dish I knew of was tripoux. Tripoux is some kind of horrible unmentionable food, but I'm not exactly sure what. I was under the impression that it was sheep's feet stuffed with sheep's stomach, but Renata thought it involved testicles. Alors, as I'm sure you can imagine, I was not particularly thrilled with the prospect of stuffing myself à l'auvergnate.

Once I got to look at the menu, though, I discovered that Auvergne does offer quite a few edible foods as well. I ordered rumsteak et truffade and tasted various elements of Renata's Auvergnat Cheese Salad as well, while waiting for my main course. The rumsteak was a thick steak which was rather bloody, considering I asked for well-done. I would never as for anything less than bien cuit in France, because their idea of well-done is often about equivalent to the American medium or even medium-rare. Anyway, I didn't mind because, being underdone, it was nice and tender and easy to cut. The truffade was a side dish of mashed potatoes, Cantal cheese, and a bit of bacon.

O Truffade! I told Renata and Jennifer that I would write poetry to you, but very few things rhyme with you, so I will have to leave off at O Truffade!. If you, the reader, did not already think me insane, perhaps you will once I tell you that I spent a goodly amount of time speaking to my plate last night. At first it was just little nummynummynummy noises, growing into quiet groans of pleasure, but then I actually started talking to the truffade, telling it how much I loved it, and even at one point giving it a little kiss. The funny thing is that this was not looked on as particularly insane by the other assistants, who are always talking to their own food and beverages. So the moral of the story is: Eat truffade. It is good.

During dinner, conversation turned, as it is wont to do, to the subject of Having Sex With Donkeys. Just a normal over-dinner topic among assistants, quoi. Apparently this is a popular pasttime in the countryside of Colombia.

After dinner, we went out for a drink in a gay bar before heading home. I didn't realize it was a gay bar until Nelson started squirming and looking uncomfortable, at which point I looked around and realized there were Gay and Lesbian Rally posters on the wall and men dancing together. The Americans had a little giggle at Nelson and his discomfort, because he'd been trying to pick us up all day and we weren't very sympathetic. I had an apricot juice.

Then we went back to Claude's apartment and had dancing lessons in salsa, merengue, and various native Colombian dances. I refused but was eventually physically dragged into involvement. Nelson threatened us with a striptease, but thankfully didn't take anything off.

Then we went to sleep. Tomorrow to come in a later post.

I went to lunch at the resto gastronomique today with Christine, the prof d'allemand who is also new this year. We both have the THOTs in class (I have all of them, she only has the three who have chosen German) and wanted to see them in action.

We didn't know each other well previously, but we had a good time talking about the world and the school. We also had a good time bothering Damien, our waiter and student, by asking him questions in English and German and asking him if he knew the German and English translations for the various foods we were eating, such as:

bisque de crustacés
carré d'agneau persillé
gratin provençal
assortiment de fromage
crème brulée à la lavande

Damien was not too bothered by our linguistic teasing to offer us a tour of the kitchen after our meal was finished. I, camera-laden as always, went around snapping pictures of the kitchen and the waitstaff, because I am a dork.

I am totally going to bring everyone I know there, and tell the waiter they don't speak French - even if they do - so that they have to practice their English serving vocabulary. Mwah ha. Evil assistante.

I bought a bag of papillotes, a French Christmas candy. They are lovely chocolates in fancy wrappers that are supposed to resemble papillons but look rather like British Christmas crackers. The chocolate is yummy and delicious, but my favorite part is that each papillote has a quote wrapped around the chocolate. I have found one that I think should become my motto or something like it, because it is exactly what I strive for in my blog and everywhere else:

"Le talent consiste à dire les mêmes bêtises que les autres, mais plus élégamment..."
- Philippe Bouvard

Today I had lunch with Agnès, Marie-Claude (a math teacher at Valéry Larbaud and friend of Agnès') and Claudine, a friend of theirs who teaches at Presles. This would not have been blog-worthy, except that we ate at the "resto gastro", the fancy restaurant in the school where Valéry Larbaud's hôtellerie sections get to practice their art.

Today it was the Première Adaps' turn to serve, so I was surrounded by the class I met last Thursday, looking serious and professional. How scary.

It was an incredibly enormous meal of:

gnocchi à la Parisienne
truite meunière
pommes à l'anglaise et petits legumes tournés
assortiment de fromage
choux à la crème

not to mention apéritifs, wine and coffee.

Our server was Fabien, who seems to be more mischievous and bavard in class and had an unnervingly professional concentration and reserve... at least until we were the only diners left and he started teasing me for not finishing my cheese.

Everything was delicious and enormous and incredibly fancy, with millions of forks to choose from and Fabien to pour the wine and filet the trout at the table. Very enjoyable. If you find yourself in Vichy, do try the Restaurant Gastronomique du lycée Valéry Larbaud!

As I try out new things in an attempt to learn how to cook, I am amassing a collection of spices. As if you cared, I will tell you that I am the proud owner of ail, cumin, curry, origan, paprika doux, poivre noir (which comes in a container with a grinder attached to it - so it's nice and freshly milled), and sel. More shall be amassed, I am sure, when there is a need for them, and once I figure out what things like cerfeuil are in English. I feel so grown-up, owning spices. How sad.

In all my whinging about how I don't know how to cook (I really don't - I had to call my mom for help with hard-boiled and scrambled eggs), I forgot that there is one thing I know how to do, thanks to Baldwin: stir-fry.

So I went out and bought veggies and sauces and spices, and have come to one certain conclusion: I am - to paraphrase Ana Gasteyer as Celine Dion - the best cook... in the whole world!

No, seriously, I am very happy to have put in all of the chopping and frying effort and to have come up with something I was proud of. I decided I wanted to use curry, so I went around the kitchen alternately sniffing the curry and my other spices and sauces and often cringing, but I ended up using onion, curry, chickpeas, mushrooms, soy sauce, lemon juice, a bit of vinegar, carrots, and green peppers. I highly recommend the curry-lemon juice combination.

Once again, we have managed to commit a deportation-worthy offense: that of squatting in a restaurant. We went to a chocolaterie/patisserie/restauration rapide for lunch in Thiers and sat there for an hour and a half, nursing various foods and drinks and chatting and giggling, while waiting for the rain to let up. Thankfully the lady was very nice about it, but we still felt guilty afterwards.

And here's a message for one of my favorite pastries, in case it's out there reading: I love you, flan.

I have suffered for some time from an addiction to coke. My own parents first introduced me to it, and my boyfriend is the most frequent user I know. But now, away from all the pressure at home, I am working on kicking the habit.

Oh, I'm sorry. Silly [shift] key. I meant to say Coke, of course. I've only had it twice since I've been here, and neither was out of any real desire for the nasty stuff, which is so bad for you between the sugar, caffeine, and carbonation. The day after I arrived in France, when Françoise's brother Michel visited, we had apéritifs and I preferred Coke to the alternative of pastis that was offered to me. Then when we went on our 25km hike and stopped in a bar to get out of the rain, I ordered one for the sake of having something to drink and because I wasn't sure a bar in Molles would have tea or apricot juice. So that's 18 days I've been off the stuff and I'm not looking to have any more for a while.

How do you feel about pop/soda/fizzy drinks?

What idiot bought me Carambars when she went to Monoprix, starving and bored? I can't stop eating the damned things. Yum yum yum. I am out of control.

Agnès and I went this afternoon to LeClerc, the big Meijers-style supermarket in Bellerive. She noticed that in the yogurt aisle, they were carrying cottage cheese (marketed under the very French name of "cottage cheese") and said that it was the first time she had seen it in France. Now we just need to get fromage blanc going in the other direction.

Have I told you I love Petits Suisses?

Any recipes or cooking advice for a beginner in the world of the culinary arts can be sent here. Nothing fancy, please - I've only just mastered boiling pasta.

The word "culinary" reminds me that in the staff list of the handbook that I got from Valéry Larbaud, the yet unnamed Hôtellerie et Technologie Culinaire teacher was referred to as Mr X HOT CUL. I giggled.

As I walked past the cereal aisle, what should catch my eye, but a box of Chocapic! I am so excited.

Let's see if you can identify this yummy but not-very-appetizing-sounding food from the ingredients on the package:

Pork fat, pork liver, water, decorative gelatin, onions, milk, seasoning, corn syrup, milk proteins, dextrose, sugar, lactose, blood proteins, preservatives, ascorbic acid, sodium ascorbate, sodium nitrate, natural aromas.

To quote Mr Green, "Urp. Is that what we ate?"

One of the students asked me today if I was going to celebrate Halloween with the other American assistants. I think they have an overblown image of the importance of Halloween here. When I was in Grenoble, Halloween came and went and I thought 'I suppose I should have made an effort'. For me, Halloween can be passed over if you're not in the homeland. Halloween is really all about costumes and trick-or-treating, both of which are hard to incorporate into an adopted culture.

What will be difficult for me is missing out on Thanksgiving. Even in Grenoble, we had a makeshift Thanksgiving à la française. I don't know about any grande echelle Thanksgiving plans for assistants, so I guess I'll have to buy some smoked turkey slices and try to find some yams to put Chamallows on. Yum.

The best part of a Petit Suisse is the last spoonful of the first one, hence the need for a second. That taste is so lovely, you think it can only get better. But no spoonful in the second is as good as the last spoonful of the first.

Name: Sarah
Nationality: American
Favorite fruit: clementines
Likes: finding another clementine segment sitting on the table when I thought I'd just eaten the last one; eating the individual fruit capsules in each segment of clementine.
Best thing of all: a bat carrying a block of wax.

Never mind. I don't expect you to understand how my mind works.

At our soirée raclette this weekend, I learned that the French are taught that to speak English, you have to pretend you have a great big potato in your mouth. I can sort of see how this would work, but I don't find it particularly flattering or effective.

The nice thing about this revelation, however, is that it creates a nice code word for anglophones. When we were walking around the grounds of La Grande Chartreuse yesterday, Françoise turned and whispered to me "Attention, il y a de grosses patates qui arrivent" when the people behind us passed us, speaking English. So now I will be à la chasse aux grosses patates à Vichy.

Do you know Max? Never mind.

Another delicious gastronomic specialty of the Auvergne is... beef tongue. I am in a "Tex-Mex/Français" restaurant where that is the plat du jour. I am having a steak-frites instead.

I arrived, set off on the wrong street, got lost. Pulled out my bulky guidebook (the one with I AM A TOURIST written all over it in bright orange flashing letters), got to the hotel, pulled on the door, and it was locked. Why was it locked at 6:30pm? I tried again. I looked around for a doorbell for a while and thus was just standing outside the hotel when the manager came up to the door and pushed it open. Do you see our little problem there? There's really nothing to say in these situations, in English or in French.

I got my room, went upstairs and unloaded some of my crap, and started exploring, by which I mean getting lost. It was exploring until it started to rain and then it was being lost. I found my way back to the hotel, got my raincoat, and set off again, this time in search of a public telephone and some dinner.

Vichy, you are sorely lacking in three things. One is a cybercafé. Two is pedestrian crossing signals. And three is public telephones. I wandered all over, getting as lost as the last time, but finally found two. I will never be able to find my way back, however.

Then I went in search of dinner. I wanted something more than a sandwich, but that necessitated a horrible event: Dining Alone.

I don't mind dining alone as much in the US. Or I guess I don't, because I don't remember ever doing it. What makes it difficult in France is that a meal is so long (especially if you are an imbecile like moi and order a four-course menu). If you grab a sandwich, you are Girl on the Run, too busy to stop. If you sit down, you can feel the gaze of the other diners, wondering what this girl is doing, eating all alone. Or, in my case, you can hear the other diners. I only caught snippets, but I'm pretty sure the people at the next table were speculating about me.

Despite the loneliness and the stares, dinner was good. I had forgotten how much I liked fromage blanc, a cheese with a taste/texture sort of like cream cheese mixed with sour cream. You add sugar, stir, and enjoy the calcium seeping into your brittle little bones. Or at least I do.

In closing, I leave you with a somewhat altered Monty Python quote: "The town is full of French people... some of whom... are very old."

Earlier this summer, the ol' high school gang and I would go out to the bar every night. After a few weeks of this, we were exhausted and destitute, so we had to come up with a new way to waste our time: baking. It's something we used to do all of the time when we were in high school. It was a return to the old days, when we were underage. The best thing about baking is that you spend a fun evening together, then you get something out of it at the end.

Sophie and I baked chocolate chip cookies at the end of my year in Grenoble. We were using a US recipe and had some American measuring cups and things, but a lot of the measurements were eyeballed, including oven temperature. We burned some, some were flat, and we added more flour halfway through the baking process. But they were still yummy.

So I've decided anyone who likes to bake can't be half bad. Do you like to bake?

Another lovely thing about Auvergne, Let's Go points out, is their regional delicacies, including tripoux, which is sheep's feet stuffed with sheep's stomach. Sounds almost as appetizing as haggis!

I brought up tuna fish in my last post because I'm hungry and looking forward to lunch because my mom made me a tuna salad sandwich. Her tuna salad has tuna, mayonnaise, and raw peas and carrots. I love it.

What do you like in your tuna salad?

Although I don't eat a lot of meat, every once in a while, I crave a big hunk of steak. I'm not very good at giving things up for moral reasons, either. I once tried to give up tuna fish because I heard that the tuna population was being depleted because they had to be older than other fish to reproduce and we were picking them out of the sea before they had a chance. That didn't last too long. I like tuna fish too much.

My paternal grandmother was a vegetarian, as were her ancestors, going back to the 1840s. It's my generation and the one before me who have dropped the custom. That's my family for you - we always want to be going against the normal trends. We were vegetarians when it wasn't popular and started eating meat just when everyone was becoming a vegetarian.

I don't like peanut butter.

There, I've said it. Twice, in fact.

My favorite flavor of M&M is almond. What's yours?

milk chocolate | peanut | crispy | almond | peanut butter | dulce de leche

I was cursed yesterday with waitpersons who, for some reason I never identified, hated me. Or they hated everyone at our table. But mostly me.

At lunch, we went to the restaurant whose name I can never remember. Either Round Robin or Red Robin. Anyway. We sat at the same table we sat at all three times I've been there. I'm going to start calling it my "usual table". Last time, it was I who hated the waitress, because she kept calling me "hon". Different waitress this time, but equally evil. We all placed our orders and the waitress left.

A different waitress brought us our food. Becky got her burger, Mommy got her guacamole burger (but with no guacamole, so they had to get some from the kitchen and give it to her on the side!), Daddy got his turkey burger, Aunt Pat got her turkey burger. The waitress looked at me. "Did you get something?" "I thought I did," I replied. "I ordered a BLTA croissant and french onion soup..."

She went to get our waitress, who returned to our table. "I'm sorry," she said, "I forgot to turn your order in..."

Thus the slowest eater at the table was the last served. You would think they could bring my soup out first, but they waited until it was all ready to bring it out. Thankssomuch.

I ate my soup and by that time everyone was finished, so I took my sandwich home in a box and put it in the refrigerator. We got busy with other stuff and I never got around to eating it.

So then we went to Becky's graduation. About halfway through the Ls, we started to notice we were hungry. This was pretty understandable, especially for poor srah who had a cup of soup for lunch. We were a bit disappointed to find, when the graduation ended around 7:30 or 7:45, that our dinner reservations were for 9:15. But we headed over there and ended up getting seated early.

Maybe that's why he hated us. Because we, a party of 13, showed up early. Hard to tell. We had to wait a while for the last two members of our party. Maybe refilling our drinks was what drove him nuts.

He went around the table, collecting drink orders. When he got to Alex, Alex asked if he could have a hot chocolate. The waiter said he couldn't, which Alex took to mean that they were all out. So he asked for a lemonade, and the waiter said he couldn't have that either. After Alex settled for a Coke and the waiter left, we began speculating that it wasn't that they didn't have hot chocolate or lemonade, it was just that the waiter didn't want to give him any.

When he came back, he took our orders. He asked what kind of salad dressing I wanted and I asked if I could have French onion soup instead (I know, my name is srah and I'm addicted to French onion soup. Sorry). He said I couldn't. This rather surprised me, since it said on the menu that French onion soup could be substituted for soup or salad. But I didn't argue. Maybe he just didn't approve of my choice.

Once he had taken everyone's meal orders, my mom tried to order a hot chocolate for my sister. The waiter said they didn't have hot chocolate, and my mom pointed out that it was on the menu. He said that it wasn't, so we had to point it out to him. As long as we were pointing things out, I mentioned that the menu allowed the substitution of French onion soup for salad, so we changed our orders for that, too.

Perhaps he was upset about the soup and being proved wrong. Maybe he knew that I was with the hot-chocolate-lemonade boy (who did get his hot chocolate, after all). Maybe he forgot to put in my order. Or maybe duck just takes longer to cook than anything else. But once again, I was the last one served, by a long shot.

After I sat there, foodless, for a while, people started sending green beans down the table to sustain me. Finally, my food arrived. I gobbled up my yummy duck and then we had tea and coffee and dessert. I ordered a cup of tea and when he brought it, I asked if I could have some cream. I had to repeat myself several times for him to understand, and then the waiter announced, "Yes, you may." Well thank you, mommy, I thought. Thank you for allowing me to have some cream in my tea.

I'm sure the second time was my punishment for trying to convince my mom not to leave a tip for the first waitress, but I'm not sure what I did to deserve her. Whatever it was, I'm sorry. I apologize. Just don't give me any more service like this!

31 days.

The first time I ever had peach iced tea was sitting out in the back yard chatting with Denis. We had run out of Coke, so he got me a peach iced tea instead. I knew I didn't like iced tea, but I was thirsty and a year abroad is all about trying new things. I'm glad I did. I believe it was a Nestea.

They don't seem to have peach Nestea anywhere around here. Peach Nestea is pretty impossible to find, at least where I've been shopping. It's also hard to find peach Lipton except by the bottle. I would like to buy more than one bottle at a time, please. Do you have a case or something? The only place I've been able to find peach Lipton is Albion's fast-food joint, the Eat Shop. Not even in Meijers, just in the Eat Shop. It's odd how things will turn up in one place you wouldn't expect and nowhere else. Right now I am enjoying a peach Snapple, though less than I would a Nestea or Lipton. It's sweeter than the others.

So there you go. Blogged about tea and a graduation memory. Take that, two birds! *THWACK!*

35 days.

One of the last things I did, between my final exams and flying home from Grenoble was to make cookies with Sophie. It was something we'd talked about all year, but we never had all of the ingredients. So one day in May, we finally sat down and made them. It was interesting because we had the directions in English and in cups and teaspoons. We had the right measuring utensils, because the Morins had had so many Americans before. We had alsatian raising powder, which was something akin to baking powder or soda or something. We had some flour, but I don't think it was the same kind we use in the US. But we mixed everything together. We heated the oven, but it was hard to correspond the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, etc. settings on the oven to Fahrenheit degrees. So we guessed that we wanted it somewhere around 6. We cooked about 5 trays full of cookies and never managed to get the temperature quite right. We'd put it up to 7 and they'd burn, we'd put it down to 5 and they'd be flat. But once we fed all of the burnt ones to Denis, our cookies were quite yummy and we gobbled them up.

What do you do with Peeps that have gotten so stale that they are physically inedible? Yes, that's right, you torture them in every way possible. Twenty seconds in the microwave is good for a Peep. They expand to enormous sizes and become sort of edible again. And if you were curious, Peeps are flammable, just like normal marshmallows. I wish we had a digital camera - now we're going to boil poach one. It smells like toasted marshmallows in here. Mmmmmmmm.

An American Peep in Paris

45 days.

When my freshman seminar took a trip to France, we visited Paris and Grenoble, where Albion students were studying, and Noisy-le-roi, Albion's sister city.

When we were in Grenoble, we took the télépheriques to the top of the Bastille and ate dinner in the restaurant there. I was peacefully eating my salad when a little friend said hello to me. "Bonjour," said the slug, "Je suis dans ta salade!" Well, that started me gagging. Remember, I thought to myself, you are in a foreign country and you are a representative of the United States. Let's try to understand this culturally. The French like their food fresher than Americans. A slug wouldn't stand a chance in American lettuce. Mmmm, fresh salad. So don't freak out. DON'T FREAK OUT! The really stupid part is, I didn't freak out at all. I just covered him with a piece of lettuce and kept eating. Then when he crawled out from under that piece, I put another one on top of him, all the while trying not to gag or bring any attention to myself or my salad.

Worst. Salad. Ever.

Krista and I talked about sharing Baldwin recipes... Yesterday I had a sandwich based on something Roommate, Stephanie and I used to do freshman year. It was toast (although when the three of us did it, it was sub buns) with mayonnaise, mozzarella cheese, mushrooms and green pepper between the slices. Nothing fancy, but rather tasty. It's good with black olives too, but the likelihood of finding both mushrooms and olives in Baldwin is low.

Chewy, crunchy Peeps are good, but there are limits. Our recommendation: leave the box open for about a week, but eat them quickly afterwards. Otherwise, you never know what will happen. They may begin dancing, attacking each other, going places they oughtn't, staging elaborate theatrical performances, boiling in oil, or offering sexual favors.

Or they may just become inedible.

[some links via Luxomatic]

When we went to visit my great-uncle in England this summer, he apologized for not having any cereal in the house. We all scratched our heads at that, but it turns out Americans have a reputation for eating cereal all the time. I've had this confirmed by someone else, too.

I think this is from the rushed American way of life rather than any real love for cereal. Or maybe that's just me. We don't want to or feel we can't take the time for anything that involves more work. Personally, if given the choice between cereal and milk or toast, eggs, tomatoes, bacon and tea, I'm going to go for the English breakfast any day.

One of my favorite shows in France was Union Libre, a show where they brought in guests from several countries in the European Union and had them compare the way of life in their countries with fun little games and things. One day they all brought in an example of a traditional breakfast from their country. It was great.

What do you like for breakfast? What do you actually eat for breakfast?

We took Satoko out last night to celebrate her birthday so I finally got to go to the "new" Chinese place that opened while I was off campus. What an odd place. We placed our orders, then the counter guy sat down and ignored us for a while so we thought "Well, I guess we pay when we get our food." Then the guy got upset when we walked away without paying!

I don't think wonton soup is supposed to be spicy, but the crab rangoons were good. And they let us stay there for hours, just talking.

I spent Mardi Gras 2000 in Louisiana - visiting various Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans, Lafayette, and some crappy podunk town I hated because their parade consisted of the paraders getting really drunk and then trying to ride their horses into the crowd and their costumes were suspiciously similar to KKK robes.

Louisiana is not my favorite state. I think it's mostly because I didn't like the weather and I didn't like Mardi Gras. And the fact that I had to ride around in a van with Carlos, the Spanish Native Speaker who didn't like to bathe. And the fact that the trip came as a part of an awful class on French Louisiana, which was mostly about some big Cajun/Creole literary revival that happened for about two years in the 90s and was never heard from again and listening to traditional Cajun songs about 'Ti' Jean who fell out of the boat and drowned.

I went around to the various parades and collected beads from each one. Everyone on the trip was competing to see who got more. Then we got back to Michigan and I realized I was weighed down with a crapload of plastic beads and what was I going to do with them now? I think I gave them away. They should throw food. You can do stuff with food.

I much prefer Fat Tuesday in Michigan, with our high Polish population. Our Fat Tuesday tradition is a deep-fried Polish jelly pastry called a paczki.

How do you celebrate Fat Tuesday?

Last night we (several members of ISU and the Wenzels) went to the Japan America Society of Western Michigan's New Year's rentai (networking) and film. What a great experience.

First we filled up on Japanese food like rice, noodles, fried vegetables, shrimp and vegetables, and sushi. There was a lot of food and it was all excellent. We all at least tried to eat with chopsticks.

Then we went into the auditorium and saw a Japanese juggling group. Normally, if I hear the word juggling I start to squirm and look longingly towards the exit. Not such a big fan of Western-style juggling, me. But this was completely new and different. First they juggled using umbrellas. They would spin the umbrella and make a ball or a ring or a porcelain cup spin around on top. It made a cool noise.

Before the juggling, they had played some traditional music and done the Lion Dance for good luck. The big lion head came around and sort of kissed audience members.

Then after the juggling, they did several incredible balancing acts. I was afraid to clap loudly because I thought everything was going to fall. They would assemble pyramids of stuff on top of a stick in their mouths, all the while keeping it balanced. Then they'd disassemble it. It was amazing. They balanced water, or put water into a bowl on top of a stick, then balanced the stick on a string. Then they spun the string around the stick and made the water come out like a sprinkler. Anyway, I don't know if you can imagine this, but it was great.

Then we had the film. For those of you who liked Amélie, you would probably like Tampopo. It has the same sense of nonsense and whimsy. The main story is about a noodle cook named Tampopo (Dandelion) who, with the help of her friends, builds up her restaurant into the best in town. A lot of it is sort of like Rocky being trained by John Wayne and aided by Mr Miyagi. Ha ha! But the theme of the movie is the joy of food and there are all kinds of side-stories relating to that subject. There's the Japanese woman trying to teach her students how to eat spaghetti properly in the Western way, while a Western man across the room is slurping away at his noodles. There's the woman who sneaks into the supermarket to squeeze all of the produce. There's the pipsqueak underling who embarrasses all of his bosses by being the only one in the room who really understands the menu in the French restaurant. There's the epicurean vagabonds in the park, the kid who's not supposed to have sweets, and the couple whose sexual exploits always seem to be food-related. We had just stuffed ourselves and we still left the movie hungry and searching for a Japanese noodle restaurant in Battle Creek. It's an excellent, fun movie and you should all check it out.

Something I learned: Ramen is the Japanese word for noodles - so if you say "ramen noodles" you're being redundant.

I am eating ramen noodles with chopsticks.

This is unusual and extraordinary on several levels.

First of all, I don't usually like ramen noodles but I sort of bought them on a whim when I went to Felpausch last night.

Second of all, I am eating them with chopsticks. Unusual. Laura and Rachel brought us all chopsticks when they went to Vietnam over Winter Break so I thought I would put them to some use.

Third of all, I am eating them with chopsticks, as opposed to attempting to eat them with chopsticks and instead dropping noodles back into the bowl and splashing ramen-juice in my face. This is thrilling for me.

Ketchup may have "natural mellowing agents to help you relax and enjoy life", but I don't like it. I find my mellowing agents in tea and ice cream. If I don't get any ice cream or tea, I start to go crazy.

Do you prefer ketchup or catsup? (You can blahblah when it comes back online...)

Deeeeeeelish. This is what I want, when I am grown up and have things like food preparation accessories and have to entertain guests with more than a room temperature Cherry Coke and some popcorn.

Raclette is one of my favorite foods. I have an excessive number of favorites, though.

Poutine, anyone?

Blogstickers are fun.

I've never had poutine, but it sounds like something I'd like to try sometime. Something to do with french fries, gravy, and cottage cheese. Mmmm. Good foods, why not put them together?

I just had one of the worst cups of tea I have ever had in my life.

I made it myself.

I am so proud.

*gack gack gack*

On a happier note, someone brought pistachios to the library today. They were big and very yummy. If they're small, it's hardly worth all the trouble to get them out of the shell.

Are pistachios nuts? Or are they legumes, like peanuts are?

I like chocolate-covered cherries. Not the echhy kind with white creme in the middle, but the kind with some thick red cherry-flavored liquid. Mmmmmm. Cella's makes good ones, as do (I think) Whitman's. But mostly you see the white-creme ones around.

I'm just sayin'... if some good chocolate-covered cherries found their way under my Christmas tree, I wouldnae be complaining...

While Tostitos Mild salsa is pretty good, their Medium salsa seems pretty gross. I decommend it.

I think I prefer fountain Pepsi and canned Coke.
I don't like ice in my drinks. I would rather suffer warm beverages than diluted ones.

In addition to marshmallow Peeps, Twizzlers are also best when they are stale.

There are few things in life as pleasurable as a crunchy, stale marshmallow Peep. It's the only way to eat them.

They make Peeps for all holidays now. I haven't seen any little turkeys, but I bought roommate both jack o' lanterns and now snowmen. They have Xmas trees, but those aren't quite as satisfying because they have no heads to bite off. MNEARGH. I can pretend I am a praying mantis.

Carrots have a texture that's sort of like wood.

Try not to think about it.

Last night Alex and I watched Star Wars: A New Hope and I fell asleep. Shame on me. The Special Edition definitely has better sound quality, although you have to put up with a lot of silly additions for it. Watching the first scene with the ship appearing from the top of the screen made me think that Star Wars movies belong in a theatre. I miss Norris 101 movies.

Jillian and I are drinking all of the Earl Grey in Baldwin. Mwah ha! Another convert to the World Of Tea Addiction!

Marian needs to get his own AIM account because one of these days Yen is going to IM me for real and I'm going to be mean to her.

I am playing with penguins!

Whoever heard of cherry pie with chocolate sauce on it? Baldwin, you suck.

New vocabulary addition - the one I forgot was not a word, but a phrase:

way aller - an exclamation of encouragement, meaning 'way to go' - "Way aller, you got some thé au lait."

I love CKane. I have a good time with her.

I have an English Language test tomorrow. Eventually, I should start studying. Blogging is fun.