French Macarons

Not too long ago I discovered the truly amazing, delicious French pastries called Macarons. So, when I made the decision to move to France, one of my "must do's" was to learn to make authentic French macarons. And finally, six months into this adventure it happened! A friend of mine is a pastry chef, and she has a friend who gives classes so, she arranged a private class. Five of us spent two hours learning all of the tips and tricks to make the perfect macarons.

This was "the real deal" -  the class was taught in French, and of course the recipe was in French too! I was too busy having fun to take pictures, but thanks to our great teacher we had a delightful time and ended up with some beautiful and delicious macarons.

They look and taste as good as those from a fancy patisserie

 

The next weekend we decided to try out our new skills and make our own batch of macarons. There are a LOT of details to remember, but we managed to put together some pretty good macarons.



Placing the dough on the sheet for baking



Almost as good as the professionals


 

I am thrilled that I finally got to try my hand at making these delicacies, and look forward to perfecting my skills and developing some fun and interesting flavors.



 

The French Office of Immigration and Integration

As an international living in France for more than three months, I had to visit l'Office Francais de l'immigration et de l'ntegration (affectionately known as OFII - pronounced OhFee) last week. This is a mandatory, two-step process including a medical exam and an interview, and if both steps are successfully completed, then a stamp is added to your visa to allow you to legally stay in France. I had heard several horror stories from colleagues and students about their experiences, so I was rather apprehensive as I boarded the train to Paris for this adventure.


 

I arrived 25 minutes early for my appointment only to find a sign on the door indicating that they were closed until 1pm (my appointment time).  Now that I knew where to find the office, I went for a little walk and enjoyed the sun that had made an appearance, and then returned at 12:55pm, only to find nearly 10 people loitering around the doors. When the security guard came to open the doors, he only let one person in at a time, and it was simply a matter of whomever was pushing their way closest to the door as to who got in first. Now, we all know how much I love crowds and people pushing into my space, so I was not the first one in, but there did become some sense of order and I finally made it in. Once inside, but still in the breezeway between the two sets of doors, I had to have my bags examined.  Typically this is not a big deal; however, this is the French government (who are very particular), and... I had two bags packed for a long holiday weekend, for which I was leaving immediately after my appointment.  Therefore, when I opened my bags for the guard to check, he saw layers of neatly folded clothes, which he insisted that I remove. Now mind you, I'm in the breezeway, and everyone outside can see what's happening. So, as I begin to unpack my bag, I'm trying to be discreet about what I pull out and he keeps telling me to remove more. As I hesitate, he gets impatient and asks which country I am from, and when I tell him I'm American he immediately says it's not a problem and motions for me to repack my bags and go through.



Proud of packing light - two small bags for 5 days!

Immediately inside the doors I check in at the front desk and am directed to a waiting room where I join the others who entered before me.  We wait there for maybe 30 minutes, until every chair in the room is occupied (nearly 30 seats), and then they call seven names - one of which was mine - and we all follow a nurse into another waiting room where we sit down and wait again. When my name is called, I talk with a nurse at a little counter in the waiting room where she confirms the accuracy of my paperwork and sends me on to the next stage, which is a urine sample - although there thankfully was a private stall for this, once finished you just carry your sample out to the next nurses station and set it on the counter! Ugh! I was weighed and measured (Surprisingly, I haven't gained any weight... yet!) and then was sent to another room to do an eye exam. Next I was pointed to a changing room type stall which had two doors (one that I entered through and one on the back side). This is the prep room for the chest x-ray, and for whatever reason, they don't provide you with any sort of cover up, they simply make you undress from the waist up and tell you to wait.  Suddenly the back door opens and the doctor tells me to come out into this big x-ray room. He pushes me up against the x-ray machine, takes the picture and then sends me back to the stall to get dressed.  I exit through the front door and am once again in the waiting room.  The people ahead of me continue through the process and then leave, and I'm still waiting. Eventually a nurse comes to tell me that the x-ray machine is blocked and we have to wait a little bit longer (or at least I think that's what she said, since it was all in French). More time passes and them I'm told to go back into the changing room, where I go through the whole x-ray process again and then wait some more. There's more talk amongst the nurses about the machine being blocked, and they decide to move the next group of people through the rest of the process without an x-ray. This leaves me stuck in the middle - not part of the next group, and still without an x-ray.  Finally the nurse calls my name and sends me back into the changing room. I tell her this is my third time and ask if I really have to do it again or if they just overlooked my second one.  She tells me that the second one didn't work and so yes, I have to do yet another x-ray. Thankfully, this one works and I continue through the process.  Through all of this, I must say that everyone was surprisingly kind - we were even laughing a few times!

At this point I'm sent into yet another changing room with two doors. On the other side of this door there is a small office where the nurse makes me remove my shirt yet again, simply to take my blood pressure. Once I'm re-clothed, she asks for my medical history. This is the first part of the process where I resort to English because I simply don't have the French vocabulary for this. All goes well and I'm sent back out to the front lobby where they issue me an official form stating that I'm healthy, and then I'm directed to yet another waiting room where yet another person calls my name.... which I must say is not easy to recognize because in French it sounds like Ezeure Taileurre, and I end up in a tiny office to complete the interview.  I was really anxious about this part because of my level of French, but it was really quite simple, just some basic questions about why I'm in France and how long I intend to stay, and she was gracious enough to use some English...... and then she issued my visa stamp, three hours after I started!!!

I was exhausted but thankful to be finished with that process and excited to board the train headed down to Aix-en-Provence for a vacation in the south of France. More to come on that in the near future.

"Normal" Life in France

It's hard to believe that I have already been here THREE months! Thankfully, I feel much more comfortable here as I begin to settle into some sense of normalcy (which I hesitate to even type, knowing that things are always unpredictable and changing). So, here's a little random glimpse into my "normal" life: 

I can now order an afternoon treat for myself, in French, and have been checking out all of the local patisseries and boulangeries to see who has the best pastries.



Chocolat chaud et un macaron a la framboise

....and at the farmer's market this weekend I wasn't terrified that somebody would speak to me, but instead was eager to practice my French and chatted (very briefly) with one of the vendors after I ordered my pastry. 



A beautiful day at the market

The Farmer's Market/Swap Meet/Flea Market

This week I had the pleasure of dining with some new friends in their home. A very kind couple who are a host family for our students.  They cooked a beautiful, organic dinner - pumpkin/carrot soup and a leek quiche, all made with veggies they grew themselves. But the best part is that the majority of the evening the conversation was in French, and I understood it!! They were very gracious and patient to repeat and explain things slowly, and then to occasionally clarify in English, and I was even able to respond in French (very broken and heavily accented, but still French). It was a pleasant, but exhausting evening for which I am truly thankful.

Last week I got to go to an open mic jam session - I wasn't playing, just listening. It was rather chaotic, but fun to watch the various musicians put their names on the board and then assemble other musicians to play songs. No rehearsal, just live music. Some of it was surprisingly good, none of it was awful, and all of it was interesting. The venue is an old hat factory that has been converted into a community center, this provided some interesting things to look at during the music.

The first round of musicians

Les chapeaux

We finally got snow this week! Just enough to make everything pretty, and then the sun came out and made everything even more beautiful.

 



Unique ice formations on a car windshield

Beautiful sunshine after the snow

I Might Be a Foodie....

As I reflect on my recent vacation, I think of time with friends, beautiful architecture, and FOOD! I have kept a personal journal for many years, and when I don't have time to journal my thoughts and experiences in detail, I take a few minutes to jot down the food I've been eating, and with these notes my senses are stirred, and I can recall my thoughts and emotions at various points in time based on the food. Food done right touches my soul, and it not only evokes emotions, but it also captures emotions that I can share through my baking experiments.

Disclaimer: For those who don't really care about food, you can stop reading now because you just won't understand or appreciate this post, but for my fellow foodies out there, here's the highlights of my vacation:

Christmas Eve dinner was with a French colleague and her family - brothers, sisters, significant others, parents, grandmother - a tiny French apartment filled with kind people, much laughter, and delicious food.  The evening started with smoked marlin, a Spanish salami, bellini with herbed cream cheese topped with smoked salmon, and homemade froie gras. These appetizers were accompanied by the best white wine I've ever had. I didn't catch the name, but it was bottled in 1989. The entrée was confit du canard accompanied by a 1995 red wine that was the perfect compliment. We had homemade macaroons that melted in your mouth, and miniature rum cakes that were perfect as leftovers on Christmas morning with a cup of tea. And, in traditional French fashion, we finished the meal with a cheese plate.

I spent Christmas day with a couple of my American colleagues. They made a pot of chili that was surprisingly good - surprising because we bought the ingredients at a little Arabic store that was open on Christmas day, so we weren't sure what sort of spices we were actually getting. While the chili simmered, I made a pie - pear, cranberry, pistachio. In my family we have a pie bake-off at Christmastime each year, and so this was my long-distance entry.



A few days after Christmas I took a 6 hour bus ride from Paris to Antwerp and met up with a friend from Denver that was visiting her family in the area. We spent the day sightseeing and eating our way around the city.

 

 

I learned that there are several types of Belgium waffles - all of which are good! And there are more than 700 types of Belgium beer, none of which I tried, but I am still enjoying my various samples of Belgium chocolate! 

 

That evening my friend and her sister made me a traditional Japanese dinner that was perfectly delicious and satisfying after a day of sweets. A big bowl of sushi and some wonderful soup - which I learned how to eat with chopsticks!

 

 

The next day we took the train to Utrecht (near Amsterdam) where I met up with a longtime friend who I hadn't seen in many years. We spent the day exploring the town, stopping to warm up with a cup of rich hot chocolate that was served with a beautiful tower of whipped cream.  For dinner we went to a restaurant down on one of the canals. It felt like we had stepped into the 1920's. The atmosphere was swanky but comfortable, the service was pleasant, and the food was worth lingering over. The menu was a prix fixe, three-course meal. I had a creamy mushroom soup, tortellini with spinach and mushrooms, and crème brulee... although due to the French influence I nearly ordered the cheese plate for dessert instead!

New Year's Eve day we went to visit some friends who live on a true Dutch farm. They were smoking salmon out in the barnyard and we were invited in to one of the barns, where walking through the door felt like I was stepping into a movie set...... The room was maybe 6'x10' with a 7' ceiling and a large bar built right down the middle. There were about 12 people packed around the bar, some dressed in traditional Dutch outfits and others wearing oversized wooden clogs, music was playing and smoke was wafting around the room. I was handed a drink and welcomed into the circle, and then the hostess made me a smoked salmon sandwich, which was a soft Dutch roll split open and filled with hot, fresh smoked salmon.  I've often said I don't like smoked meat, but this didn't even have a hint of ashtray taste - it was just moist and full of flavor. I wasn't able to take a picture, but all of my senses were so involved that I have a strong mental imprint to savor the experience.

 

Over the next few days I had the pleasure of trying many traditional Dutch foods - mustard soup (for which I'm hoping to get the recipe), olliebollen (kind of like large donut holes), apple beignets, homemade apple flappen (apple turnovers), Stamppot (Dutch mashed potatoes mixed with endive and ham), and a Dutch sandwich - a roll slathered with butter and slices of a creamy white cheese, which was reminiscent of the sandwiches I used to get at a little Dutch bakery in Washington. And for the 5 hour car ride home, a bag of salted black licorice and a package of Stroopwafles. I think of my mom every time I eat black licorice (one of her favorite treats) and I realize this post is for her - because wherever I was living or traveling she would always ask about what I'd been eating, and patiently listen to me describe in detail all of my food experiences.

 

Many thanks to the friends who were part of this adventure. I appreciate your willingness to introduce me to your culture through food, and your patience as I lingered over a meal and savored each bite.