laura krantz

follow me to here...

2009-10-20T17:08:00.003-04:00

Follow me to Boston while I continue to learn about farming...

ghost farm

2009-06-23T14:19:00.012-04:00

Today I finally found a farm, but it reminded me of those facade villages in old western movie sets. There was a quiet sprinkler running, a few plants growing, freshly tilled soil, but no people, and no vegetables. The greenhouses were empty, the tractors were lined up neatly in their shed, and the CSA vegetable list was still chalked onto a blackboard.

I like farms because you never see people hurrying around, and often you can't even see the people working, because they are scattered throughout the fields, but you can always sense that things are moving, people working, things growing. At this place, however, it was like the heat had squashed all that motion. It was just still. A Florida farm in the summertime.

Sweetwater Organic Community Farm is the only organic farm in Tampa, since this is an urban area, and it is located off of Hillsborough Ave. and Hanley Ave. I knew harvest season was already over, but I wanted to find the farm and check it out anyway. I actually did encounter two people briefly, who both ducked inside, away from the heat, and never reemerged as i wandered through the herb gardens and citrus trees. I was dissapointed because I had lots of questions, like "when are you going to start planting again??" But I think I know the answer: when the weather gets cooler! Peeking around on my own, I saw a patch of over-grown pepper plants, a flourishing herb garden being watered by a sprinkler, and several empty fields where it looks like they are getting the soil ready to replant. They also have citrus trees and across the street there were more fields with things growing, but the gates were locked.

In the market area, there are many wooden tables outdoors under the oak trees, and a little concert venue where they host musical performances. The barn was cool and shady, too, used for storing tools and for CSA distribution. I learned all of this from a brochure, because no one ever came around to talk. I guess I am used to La Ferme in France, where everyone came out to say hello to every car that pulled up. Little farms need all the friends they can get - friends equal business. Someone who seeks out a hole-in-the-wall farm, North Of Kennedy, for that matter, is someone interested in what is (not) going on there. Oh well, next time I will grab them before they slip inside again.

The brochure told me that the farm was started in 1995 and sells its produce through CSAs and the weekly Sunday market at the farm. The market features other vendors and artists as well, and The Corner Store in Plant City also sells their produce in season.

I'm already sad that I will be leaving Tampa the end of August, just when things start back up again in farms here. And when I get back to Boston, all those CSAs will be ending and farms closing up for the winter. Then again, I will have no need for fresh vegetables, since i will not have a kitchen. Well, actually, today at Goodwill I saw a microwave rice cooker. Maybe I don't need a kitchen in order to cook. The rice cooker wouldn't be against the rules in the dorm, but i don't know what kind of example other contraband electrical appliances, like breadmakers, would set for the freshmen. On the other hand, perhaps it would set a good one: you can be more creative than dining hall pizza!! But only if they happen to live on laura's floor, cause I won't turn them in.

The following is a really interesting article, with lots of pictures, about organic farmers on small farms all over America. They all do something to help their communities. Although there are only 8 featured in this article, every small organic farm I have ever been to or read about does something to help their community.

Farmers Helping the Community

cowpeas

2009-06-22T10:42:00.002-04:00

These are the seeds of the first thing I planted in my 4-container garden. They are vigna unguiculata, commonly known as cowpeas. Native to equatorial Africa, this legume makes a good crop to be planted in hot, humid Florida during the summer. According to what the man who gave me the seeds said, it will grow into a 6'-8' vine, of which you can eat the raw flowers, new leaves, vine tips, and eventually the pods and peas within. The University of Perdue website, says there should be leaves on the plant in 3 weeks, but removal of too many young leaves will impare seed yield. Good thing I am not starving.

a cactus you can eat

2009-06-20T23:49:00.004-04:00

thornless opuntia cactus

This is a picture of a thornless cactus in the organic garden of John Stearns, a Tampa man who has transformed his backyard into an organic garden, growing fruits, vegetables, and herbs. When you break off the tender "leaves" of the cactus and take a bite, it pops in your mouth, and has a citrusy, cool taste. It was really good, actually. Stearns also keeps chickens for eggs and meat, enabling him to buy almost nothing at supermarkets. Stearns gives tours of his gardens and offers advice on organic gardening. The largest problem in Florida, he says, is the acidity of the soil. I learned from him many techniques for how to rectify this problem, like adding the mineral dolamite to the soil. He also taught many techniques for creating healthy soil by covering a patch of yard with layers of dogfood, dolamite, cardboard, then mulch, and letting it sit for 6 months.

Unfortunately, all his advice is too complex for me, since I don't have 6 months of time, nor an area with adequate sunlight. So instead, I found 3 pots and some already-healthy dirt so I can have my own, petite version of an organic farm. Today I planted seads for a bean vine that is native to Africa. The climate in Africa is similar to Florida, for better or for worse, so the vine will hopefully grow "wild," according to Stearns, who gave me the seeds.

They are small and look like red versions of a black-eyed pea.

tomato dilemmas

2009-06-18T15:00:00.004-04:00

To start, I googled organic farms around Tampa, and the pickings were slim. Hehehe, that was a bad joke. There is apparently a farm called Sweetwater Organic Community Farm that is IN the city of Tampa, near the airport. I am going to visit that next week, and will let you know if you can still see the sky-scrapers from the fields.

The problem with farms in Florida in the summer, I am learning, is that because the summer temperatures are so hot, the growing season is shifted. While at the Farm St Louis in France they are just starting to harvest the first vegetables now in mid-June, the season is practically finished in Florida already. Basically all that is left is watermelons and tomatoes. I never asked this question before, but I wonder if they harvest the fall pumpkins in August and refrigerate them until Halloween. If I had to guess, they are probably shipped in from somewhere else.

I learned about the watermelons and tomatoes because I found the one farm stand in all of South Tampa. When I was little we used to have another one, which closed years ago. This one just opened in a converted gas station, and I went to visit it the other day. When I went at 8am, I was already sweating. I understand why farms are closed. They had produce from california and South America, but the Ruskin tomatoes were there, along with Florida watermelons and blueberry jam from Plant City. But the California tomatoes were bigger, shinier, and a lot less bruised.

Grocery shopping at numerous Tampa supermarkets yielded the same results, and also a dilemma. The Florida produce is about the same price as the out-of-state produce, but not nearly as attractive, and not organic. The organic produce is more expensive, but not local. So I can have a expensive, chemical-free tomato from California, a cheaper chemical-sprayed tomato from Florida, or a cheapest, chemical-sprayed tomato from Mexico. This never used to be a dilemma. The cheapest tomato was always just fine. Maybe I am causing myself unnecessary stress.

laura has gone crazy

2009-06-18T14:32:00.003-04:00

Flying home from France, I was making lists the whole way of things I wanted to do when I got back to Tampa. I am on a farm craze right now, determined to make the best of my decision to come home, and not just do things like sleep late and go to the mall once I get back to Tampa. Especially because I have two months at home - longer that I have ever been home since I started college. That is weird.

So I have brought my farm enthusiasm home, and I am going to learn about the farms and farmers in Florida. After working on an organic farm, I am really convinced the food tastes better, and I think organic farming is an important way to protect the planet, and to help change people's bad eating habits. Equally important as being organic, local food is important, because of all the ways that food transportation hurts the environment. Chemicals pollute the food, and then the transportation pollutes the environment, giving us tasteless tomatoes from exploited workers in Peru when we could have delicious tomatoes from several miles down the road, while also supporting the local economy.

But the problem is the same in France as in America - organic, local food is usually more expensive and people, myself having been included, don't see a good enough reason to pay that much for an apple that looks not as pretty as the regular one. Three-quarters of me really believes the efforts for organic and local food is really important, and the other quarter of myself still thinks I am absolutely crazy and still a little off-my-rocker from being in France. Traveling is dangerous, it makes you wacky.

It is strange because I left for France without an interest in organic food or farms, but after developing the interest there and coming back all gung-ho about it, it is strange to come home and start re-discovering things about the place I have lived for all my life. I had a hunch that turns out to be correct - organic farms and markets exist about 50 times less here than they do in France. And the baguettes here are really bad.

But still, I have started discovering the few and far-between efforts to eat local and organic in Florida.

and then i came home

2009-06-18T13:37:00.003-04:00

Long story short, I am in America now. The details are long and complicated, but basically, after going to the neurologist in France, getting needles and electricity shot through my legs, and obtaining a beautiful leg brace, I decided to take the earlier flight and come back to the US early. On the farm with the foot brace, I couldn't do many of the things I had been doing every day. No more harvesting vegetables, loading the refrigerated truck for market, driving the tractor... I didn't want to leave, but neither did I want 4 weeks of wandering around doing nothing while everyone felt sorry for me. But neither did I want to become the laundry-washer or dish-dryer girl.

So I decided, sad though I was, that this made a pretty good excuse to cut the visit short and come back to the US. I was incredibly sad to leave the farm, however, and everyone there continued to be unbelievably nice. Never mind any of my notions that French people are cold or unfriendly. I would still be thinking that if my 3 weeks in Bretagne hadn't changed everything I thought I knew about the French from the first 3 months in Grenoble.

We had the Cherokee healing ceremony, which was very fun, if a little anticlimactic. No miracles happened, but we had a lovely evening at Jullien's magical cabbin in the woods. Doris, the next-door neighbor at the farm who took me to the neurologist and to get my foot brace drove us out to where he lives. We sadly didn't get to meet his family, because they were on vacation. He has two young kids named Feather and Snow (translated) that I have been wanting to meet since I got there. But his house is absolutely gorgeous. It is a wood and stone cabin by an old water mill, so the sound of running water is always present and it is cool and humid because the house is down in a little gully. The living room walls and ceiling are glass so you can see the forest and stars all at once, and he has a huge fireplace in the middle of the room with a long chimeny going up two storeys and through the roof. The house is decorated with native american artwork and musical instruments. It is so cool.

He warmed his drum by the fire while Doris did her healing, then he played his drum and a long, low horn that vibrated the whole room. I felt tingling all over my numb leg. He lit a bundle of dried herbs - i swear it was just dried herbs - and an candle, and we listened to the drum and looked up at the stars and tried to discover our "spirit animal." I think my spirit animal is a bird, but really, I have no idea. I was mostly thinking about whether or not I should have decided to come home.

The next day I took the train to Paris, after a photoshoot with the tractor at the farm. Dominique had left the tractor out in a field somewhere, so he had to go get it and drive it over next to the house. I climbed in it and everyone else gathered around, including Biquette, our pet goat. You all will see pictures soon. They got me a giant cake before I left, so we all had cake together, and they gave me all sorts of presents and messages that I am supposed to relay to Americans. Little do they know that they are all being written about on this blog right now.

I was especially sad that I never got to say bye to Fred, because she and her family had left for a wedding in Normandy before I had decided whether or not I was going to leave. But I had to promise them all that I am coming back to visit, and I really want to.

So now I am in America, so since I have no farm here, I have decided to make the best with what I learned in France combined with what I can find to do in Florida. So thus begins the next set of blog entries: Laura Tries to Find Farms in South Tampa.

cold, slimy, sandy, and very salty.

2009-06-11T15:26:00.003-04:00

so like i mentioned earlier, since i am (maybe) about to leave the farm, because of my bum foot, everyone here has started proposing ideas of things that i should do before i leave.

yesterday me and my best friend (that was sarcastic) roman and dominique and his daughter went on an all-afternoon adventure around Bretagne. Dominique is the tractor-driving friend with whom i sewed the grain two weeks ago. before we left for our afternoon adventure, we drove by the field, where the grain has sprouted at least two or three inches. the first two leaves are gone now and the real leaves are coming out. that is incredibly satisfying.

Dominique used to work harvesting oysters and mussels in the ocean, very near to here, so we went to see where they harvest them. the beaches are beautiful here. there are often rocks, and the water sprays up in giant waves. attached to all the rocks are shells and shells and shells, full of mussels and oysters. he picked 4 oysters off a rock at the beach, cracked them open with his knife, and we ate them, just like that! it was cold, slimy, sandy, and very very salty. i can't say i enjoyed it, but i can say i ate an oyster from the ocean.

after that, we saw something spectacular. we went to where they harvest salt, and saw the "fields" where they collect salt water, and filter it through many many stages until the water becomes very very concentrated with salt, then evaporates, leaving behind the salt. it is hard to explain, but the fields are beautiful. dominique also used to work harvesting salt, so he explained to us how it works. his daughter was bored the whole time, because i think she has heard him explain this too many times.

it is very serene, looking out at the fields with the ocean and tiny boats in the background. the salt fields are flat with tiny walls of grass in between, and we saw these really cool black and white birds with long black, upwardly turned beaks that they used for fishing. the salt is piled in white pyramids at the sides of each basin, but there was no one there yesterday because it has been raining for 4 days straight. the salt collectors need 6 good weeks of no rain to collect the salt, but if it ever rains, they have to start all over and clean out the basins, so that algae doesn't grow. they don't use any chemicals because of a certain mineral in the soil that allows the basins to be very very clean. i still don't understand the process completely, but it is really an art.
side note: we sell the salt from where i am right now at williams-sonoma. when i return, i will be a hero for having visited this place.)

anyway, tomorrow i go to see the neurologist for my foot, and get a foot brace. all that is really dommage. in the meantime, it is amazing what everyone at the farm is doing for me. numerous people have already driven me to numerous doctor visits, and everyone is trying to find ways for me to stay. tomorrow they are going to perform a Cherokee healing ceremony, so that i can realize my inner animal spirit and cure myself of the bad energy. Why not?

since all that was about yesterday, a quick note about today: Today i wound tomato plants around strings, so they grow straight. then i helped Wilfred, who is a boy, and reminds me a lot of Meredith, for those who are blessed to know our dear friend, plant gourds. at least, i think they were gourds. the word for zucchini is the word for "little gourd" so i always forget if they are gourds or zucchinis. after that me and cecile and roman and jullien (cherokee medicine man) all planted about 5000 lettuce plants together. it was really fun, just sitting in the dirt talking, and planting salads with soup spoons. and it was finally sunny after 4 days of rain. why am i so happy when i am covered in dirt and planting baby lettuces? :) explain-me that.

this is a link to a bad picture of a salt marsh, just so you can have an idea. i am going to take pictures of my farm soon, but i don't have a way here to put them on the computer.

cripples play drums

2009-06-08T18:21:00.004-04:00

so apparently there is some nerve in my foot that is not working right, and so my foot is kind of just limp and floppy. not very attractive, but at least i am out here in the middle of nowhere where i can walk like a chicken and no one will care. in fact, i fit right in.

everyone at the farm is super concerned about what is wrong. no matter how hard i try, the chicken strut is hard to hide. if things get too complicated, i will go back to america soon to work it out there, which is what i told everyone at the farm, who were all waiting with wide eyes for me to get back.

when i arrived, they all had their theories and suggestions. this really old guy named Francois launched into a story about an accident he had in '93 when he had shoulder-legnth hair, where he lost the memory of ten years of his life. that was comforting. i don't know whether i would lose the first ten or the second ten.

another guy told me something about getting better, but his mustashe was so long i had a hard time understanding him.

bertrand and dominique, the crazy farmer and my tractor friend were in the greenhouse making dirt squares. they are called muttes, or something like that, but basically there is a giant conveyerbelt and you poor wet dirt into one side and out the other side comes wet dirt formed into little squares that you plant seeds in, which grow in trays before going into the ground.

they, not really sure what to do, launched into a detailed explanation about how the dirt turns and how important it is not to add to much water. meanwhile, they added too much water, and mud started coming out of the other end, and fell in chunks into a giant trashcan. lovely.

like i am about to die or something, they have all started listing the things we are going to do this week, before i leave. apparently there is some sort of french version of stonehinge nearby, that i can go to on thursday with one woman, and on wednesday we are going to the place where they cultivate salt with dominique, who used to work there. the list goes on and on. 100 things the american has to do before she dies, or returns to america, that is.

but the truth is, i have no idea what i am going to do, and i don't think i will decide till the last minute. i guess that depends on how much of a climax this week becomes. if we do all 100 things i guess it would be a let down for them if i decided to stay. all that fun for nothing.

the best way to get all that out of my head was what i ended up doing this evening. i went with fred and vincent to their african dance class, where fred is the instructor and vincent is the lead drummer. believe it or not, i actually played a musical instrument. i actually played two. the first was a cowbell, which i hit in rhythm to the song, and the second was a drum, which i hit with one stick while hitting the cowbell with the other. it was cool because the dancers moved their feet to the rhythm of my cowbell, while the drums did other things, so i felt important. it was loud and cool and i didn't think about floppy feet.

anyway, tomorrow i am going to see my grain, which has apparently sprouted, and then maybe do a little work to earn my dinner.

things change

2009-06-07T12:38:00.004-04:00

today was a good day at the farm. the person of the day is Cècile, a tiny 26 year old who works on the farm with growing and harvesting the vegetables. she did her university work in agriculture but also in organizing cultural events. i didn't know that existed, but it is very cool. she knows of a lot of musical and cultural events that we hopefully will go to soon.

so today she took me and Roman, of whom my opinion has changed a little, to another farm an hour away, where they were having an open-house sort of thing all day long, with demonstrations, and a little market, and exhibits of what they do there. they don't grow vegetables, but have cows for dairy products and they grow grains and make bread.

i find it the hardest to hang out with french people of my own age, because i often can't keep up with the way they talk, and they often don't stop to explain things. but it is actually good that Roman is here, because she can speak normally to him, and i can at the least just listen, and join in when i can. i am getting better at understanding slang, and they are getting to know me better, and after the farm we went to Cècile's house and had a long discussion about the farm. The political views of the farmer are so extreme that he has turned many people away from buying from our market stands, and Cecile and Roman agree with that. We all agreed that Bertrand, the farmer, has some good ideas, but if he expresses them so forcefully, he will turn people away from the farm.

Bertrand insists people are "against" organic agriculture, but i disagree. i think they are turned off by agressivity and in an area as small as this one, where everyone knows everyone, word travels fast. he insists that if people here are too passive to act on what they believe is important, he will go sell his products elsewhere. i find that too bad, because selling local is also important. he is adamently against compromise, however, and would rather drive an hour away to sell the vegetables than find a solution with the people here.

but as far as i can tell, the only person with such a political motivation behind his actions is Bertrand. the rest of the people here are just here for the agricultural aspects, or the job. if i wasn't just kind of passing through i don't know what i would do. stay and work because it is a job, or leave because i disagree with the way bertrand conducts his business.

but anyway, today cecile and roman and i bonded. tomorrow i go to the doctor to see about my foot. i just might very well be going crazy from the left foot up.

oh, and the knife is awesome.

2009-06-06T17:43:00.002-04:00

this is a short post for jonliu, who was sad to read about my emotions when i promised him i would write about my knife.

i was bequeathed a no. 8 Opinel by my tractor-driving teacher, seeing as though i am offical now, and know how to plow and sew with it. it is now always carried in my right pocket, and i use it for everything from peeling onions to harvesting salads to pruning tomato plants, to fixing tractors, to cutting my bread at lunch time. it is excellent, i am proud of it, and if i have any more problems, watch out, i am armed!

yay for really sharp French knives. Jonliu, i will take a picture of it, don't you worry.

oui nous pouvons!

2009-06-06T17:26:00.003-04:00

there is so much at this farm to write about. i have decided, for a little while, to write about the different people who work here, and who i am getting to know quite well. they are all very different, but i am impressed how the variety of personalities here complement each other well.

first, i start with Fred. Fred is a girl, in fact, or rather a woman. She is 33 years old, but her mother is the same age as mine. See how old i could be? She does the markets on the weekends and i have gotten to know her pretty well from last weekend and this one.

she lives with her two young kids and husband in a gorgeous, home-made wooden house not far from the farm, and i have ended up there many times in the past weeks, for meals, for naps after exhausting markets, and to just hang out and get away from the farm.

she traveled a lot when she was younger, in south america, by herself, and so she kind of understands where i am coming from a bit. today i went back to her house with her after the market, to see her husband, a physical therapist. apparently my foot is a serious problem.

she has many jobs, one of which is teaching french to german students, who come to france for two-week vacations and learn french during that time. things like that are common in europe, sort of mini study-abroad programs for highschool and middle schoolers. but because of that, she corrects my french, which i like, and she explains things in a way that i understand them.

every day here i am learning more about this farm, this area, these people, and the things that actually go on at the farm. it turns out, the farmer holds some pretty extreme political ideas, about which he is very passionate. he is extremely anti-capitalist, and has jumped pretty far of the cliff in the leftward direction.

as a result, because this is a small-town atmosphere and everything is connected, there are a lot of people who are against his ideas, and thus do not support his farm, which he claims has political reasons in its foundation. it is the opinion of Fred my friend, that because of that, less and less people are buying from us at the markets. apparently when the markets started last year and the beginning of this summer, the farm could make between 700 and 500 euros per market. now we are lucky to make 200. the market where we sell the least is also where the farmer enraged a lot of people at an open forum event several weeks ago. i don't know if these things are all connected or not, because i haven't been here long enough, and i don't know the people here that well. that market is also full of tourists who don't have interest in buying expensive organic vegetables when there are crepes and galettes and cheap, non-organic ones next door. so we shall see, but Fred is of the opinion that all that is related.

her friends ask her why she works at that farm, with the crazy farmer, and she says because it is important that people eat good food. i am okay with that. beyond that, i don't know.

so that was really long, but that is a little bit about Fred.

On a side note, Obama was in France today! It was the anniversary of D-Day. Apparently Sarko didn't invite the queen of england, and she got a little mad. but omama was there, so tout va bien.

oh the farm

2009-06-04T13:34:00.002-04:00

so, on the day that marks a week of being on the farm, i hit kind a low point. not to dive into a pit of mushy emotions, but sometimes it happens a little bit.

first of all, a weird thing happened to my foot. the other day i was collecting spinich in a field (my idea of excitement) kind of crouched over, and all of the sudden, my left food gave way under me. it wasn't anything really bad, though, and so i just got up and kept going. i was sore the next day, but granted, i don't have the habitde of collecting spinich.

the weird thing is, after that point, the left side of my left leg from the knee down has felt kind of numb. i can't feel it very much, and when i walk, i have to kind of pick it up and put it back down, so i look pretty silly and it makes a bit of a louder noise than regular walking. but it doesn't hurt, and i am not sore.

the second thing is, good old Roman is here. he apparently is an expert at farms, and at tractors, at cooking, at goats, at irrigation, at building tables, and has the same philisophical ideas as the farmer. and he speaks french.

so, that puts me in a wierd position, because i am a girl, the youngest on the farm, i am american, and i don't speak perfect french. that bothers me, because i am sure there are things that fly way high over my head of which i have no idea, and i am sure that sometimes it is penible to explain things to me, or to listen to the way i talk. granted, i have learned a lot, including some lovely "sailor" words.

so yesterday it kind of it a low, when i had nothing to do because i need people to show me how to do stuff, and i spent the whole afternoon just walking around doing nothing, kind of surveying what others were doing. i got really discouraged, and fed up,and the farmer came around and asked me if i wasn't too bored.

i told him i was not bored, but i would really like something to do. he replied, "but with your foot and everything, i didn't want to give you anything to do." i had already explained that my foot was fine. he suggested that i go to the beach or ride the bike around, but i wanted to work. granted, i am not from here, and so i should profit from everything i can and see lots of things, but at the same time i wanted to work, and not be the "girl," or the "american." this i explained later to my tractor buddy, who understands, i think. but when the farmer told me to go ride the bike to the beach and relax, i got angry and when he told me i could weed the onions, i went and weeded, just to get away and get my agression out on some "mauvaise herbs," as they call them.

this was a pointless blog entry, because i did not express myself well. maybe i have communicated a bit of my frustration, and i am going to post it anyway, because i don't have the time to fix it. anyway, i took a nap after doing the market this morning, so things are much better. maybe i need to just go to the beach.

confiture, here i come!

2009-06-02T09:06:00.002-04:00

hello!
this is a short entry, because i happen to be at the computer, and that is rare. today i planted grain! it was awesome. backing up a tractor and lowering a seed-sewing machine while moving is hard work.

we ate our lunch outside today, because the weather is nice and we have created a large table using an old door. in my mind, that is just as stereotypical as you can get. and we ate farm vegetables and rice, like usual. and cheese - mmm!

now i am in the process of researching how to make strawberry jam - correctly. we shall see. i don't want roman getting in the way. he will NOT be my ticket into france, and i have decided i liked it better when he wasn't here. at least i don't have to sleep in the barn like him.

this morning i got up at 4am, to go with him and the farmer to this place an hour away in Nantes, the biggest city nearby, where they sell vegetables and fruits and meat and everything in bulk, and trucks come and buy it. we got ourselves up at 4am, but all we bought was some carrots, leeks, and potatoes. womp womp. c'est pas la peine, in my opinion. and that cost 300euros! hmmm.

anyway, here i go to try and make strawberry jelly. if i am going to do girly things like that (i also did the dishes after lunch) at least i drove my tractor today. oh, and soon i will be getting a knife.

more tractors, and imposters

2009-06-01T16:55:00.002-04:00

hi everyone!
i am so excited to write on this blog now, because i am doing the craziest things, and i am just a little bit proud to report them.
first, i had the most fun weekend i have had in a long time. it started very early both saturday and sunday nights, because i helped do the markets for the farm, and i had to get up really early for both. but the people at the farm are really hospitable, and they have become my good friends very fast. everyone here has been really eager to take me around visiting different parts of the countryside around here. I went to the beach with the wife of the farmer and her daughter, which is called Gold Mines, because there are giant cliffs that are red in color. So the name doesn't make a lot of sense, but it is really pretty. I also went with the neighbors across the street to a concert and to see the sunset at the end of the river who runs into the sea, which was beautiful. And I spent sunday after the market at the home of the woman who did the market with me that morning. I like playing with french kids, because i learn lots of words, like "will you jump on the trampoline with meeeee?"

second, the most important news for the day, i drove the tractor today. we went weeding a giant field, and well, you can't really run into anything, so it was my chance to learn. what is more imortant than that, is that the tractor is not automatic, thus i had to learn how to drive a stick shift at the same time. so, i am pretty satisfied with myself, for learning how to drive a stick shift, in a tractor, in french, when i didn't really know the names for the pedals or all that. so now i can back up a tractor with a giant de-weeder thing on the back, and drive it all over the fields! and tomorrow i am going to plant grain! i am sure that my excitement baffles some of you.

third, there is an imposter. i am no longer the only woofer on the farm. this morning, or last night, a young french person arrived who has come to work on the farm too. he is from the south of france, and he arrived on bicycle. i am not sure this makes me very happy. he didn't think i knew where the south of france was,and the first thing he told me when he met me was that if i wanted to stay in france, i need to find a husband fast. he wears strange clothes and has wild hair, and his name is Roman. And today, i started a project making strawberry jam, and he proceeded to correct everything i tried to do. Hmm. We shall see, Roman, who makes the jam.

So for now, that will suffice for an update. It is always a bit sad when i write these things because there is so much more that happens in a day than i can tell in a blog. But in short, i am learning a lot about farms and about other things, and i hope my excitement about things like driving tractors carries through the internet, and you can imagine me on top of a huuuge piece of machinery, covered in red dust and tons of weeds flying up behind me.

tractors!

2009-05-28T15:50:00.003-04:00

day 2!

today i rode on a tractor and planted a field of grain. and it was super!
and i realized also today that i know nothing about what i am doing. my one claim to fame, suddently, is that my grandfather grew orange trees. the other people at the farm ask me what experience i have, and when i say i have none, they are a little curious. i don't think there are many americans who arrive in france to work in vegetable fields. but then they ask me if my family has a history of agriculture. acutally, kind of. so tout va bien.

so i am drawing on that and on my knowledge of our little gardens in the front yard, and the beans we planted in tiny planters in the window. homeschooling always comes in handy. so basically what i did today, though, was ride on a big tractor and at the end of every row, jump off and go see if there was any dirt caught in the metal things that distribute the grain. i was the helper. and tomorrow i get a knife all of my own.

i also rode a bike to the little town (actually the second little town, since this one only has 800 people, and no pharmacy) because i am looking for contact solution. i have none, and neither does any of the towns here, and before my eyes are completely dry, i need to get some. they ordered it for me, so i have to ride there again tomorrow to get it. i also found the library, where there were no english books, except for one for kids with english and french side by side, so i rented that and some cook books with vegetable recepies. i have to find something to do with the inordinate amounts of legumes here. i also have lots of flour, so maybe i can put the boulanger out of business.

the french comes more and more each day. being around only french helps a lot and i am starting to speak more and more. i am learning words for things like how deep the seeds have to be in the soil, and about the french system of regulating agriculture, and giving money to the farms. and i typed this post from a french keyboard sans problème!

i am already excited for what is going to happen soon. the grain that we planted today should start to appear in 4 days, and today i saw the leaves of a potato plant. tomorrow i am going to see a lentil plant, and soon the potato plants will have flowers! who can say they have smelled a potato flower? not many people, i think. so for the moment, things are going well.

la ferme arrive!

2009-05-27T15:50:00.002-04:00

And we are back!
After a month of travel, exhausting and exciting, I am writing this blog after my first day working on la Ferme Saint Louis. I arrived yesterday in Bretagne, also known as Britany, in the northwest corner of France.

My suitcase and most of my things got left behind in Paris, so I have with me a few clothes and a pair of tennis shoes. I sleep in a little building which is the staff "hang out" building, which has a kitchen, a table, and a futon. I have been given free range already over the kitchen and all the products of the farm, thus I am already happy.

Today I harvested zucchini, radishes, fava beans, and lettuces. We cut the stems off onions, and my hands still smell. The farm has a farm-share program where people pay a certain amount and come each week to collect a basket of whatever has been harvested, so after a long lunch in what is now my bedroom, we prepared the baskets, and the people came to pick them up.

After that I had the exciting job of putting flour - they make their own here, from the grains they grow - into bags and putting labels on it. I was worried that they looked like a 6-year-old did them, but apparently they were beautiful, and everyone was happy.

There is a goat that lives on this farm, but besides that, it is only vegetables and grains. They have a big stone building with a little store inside, where they sell all their products as well as other local products that people bring to sell, including bread, cheese, eggs, and fruit. And like I said, I have been given free range.

Already I like being here. We will see if it gets boring, but I don't think it will. It is fun speaking French all the time, and although I stayed pretty quiet today, I think I will learn a lot very quickly - even if it is just the names for different vegetables.

So, now I feel better. Yesterday I was asking myself what in the world I was thinking, coming out here to the middle of nowhere, but now I think it will be a good adventure. So hopefully the blogs start to flow a little more freaquently and smoothly, as I graduate to bigger and better things on the farm. Maybe one day soon they will even let me drive the tractor.

explanation

2009-05-06T17:07:00.001-04:00

the last post was missing something.

in turkey, we learned two words. the first was teshekulah, which means thank you. the second was a phrase, actually, afu tosen (no idea how to spell that) and it's what turkish people say to mean "i hope you enjoy your meal," or basically, "bon apetit." but it's only having to do with food, so you wouldn't say afu tosen if you just sold someone a pair of new shoes.

anyway, we think it sounds kind of like "i hope it's awesome," so that has become the theme of this trip.

now i still have about two and a half weeks left of traveling. afu tosen!

hope it's awesome!

2009-05-06T16:55:00.002-04:00

hi everyone!
i have not mastered the technique of blogging on the road. i have been gone for a week now, and eaten many amazing things, but have neglected to write about them. granted my internet comes in tiny, punctuated spurts, when i pay for an hour here or there in a cafe, or snag it in a hotel, if we get lucky enough to have a hotel with internet...
right now we are staying in Santorini, Greece, an island in the middle of the water that is floating and was transformed by a volcanic eruption a long time ago. Today we saw the volcano, swam in hot springs, and rode donkeys up a cliff!

As far as food goes, i have experienced so many different cultures and ways of eating since being away for a week. A few highlights:

1. tea in turkey: our first stop was istanbul, and from the minute we arrived, tea was pretty much as common as starbucks is in america, but in a very different fashion. all the carpet salesmen in the bazaar, all the fishermen on the bridge, all the corn-on-the-cob salesmen on the street, drink tea out of little glass cups, delivered by other men who walk around with gold trays of teacups. the people must open accounts with these guys, cause they just walk around distributing tea, at least five times a day, and no money is exchanged.

2. fish sandwiches! every day in istanbul giant boats pull up next to the dock, and men jump out and set up tents with little stools and tiny tables, and on each boat is a giant pile of fish, and a giant stove to cook them. they filet (a loose term, because the bones and sometimes a fin or two, are still attached) the fish and shove them into a piece of turkish bread with some lettuce, then as the boat rocks violently back and forth, they pass the sandwich to a guy on the dock, who hands it to the next customer. then you squat on a tiny stool and enjoy an excellent lunch! but they can only pass the sandwich when the boat rocks towards the dock, because otherwise it's too far to reach.

3. aussi barbeque! we stayed with some australian friends in istanbul, and while we were there we had a barbeque australian style, but in the rain, and using a tiny grill on their balcony, which we brought up soaking wet from outside. it was make-shift, but excellent, and we grilled some turkish cheese that got really burnt but tasted really good. never thought i'd have an australian barbeque in turkey! they are mostly all english teachers in istanbul at local schools, which was really cool to hear about, while we munched grilled vegetables and chicken.

when we arrived in greece, we realized we had less money than we thought, so from then up until now we've been eating as cheaply as possible, caving in every once in a while for things like sesame- and caramel-covered peanuts in santorini, sold by a man on the street. that was a dinner, however, so good thing it was tasty.

4. pesto pasta for 5 euros! tonight we cooked on a hotpot stove in our hotel room in greece, and made pesto pasta with cheese and vegetables, which added up to only 5 euros total. it was excellent, and we had spekuloos (sp?) cookies for dessert. anyone who does not know what spekuloos needs to find out right now!

alright, this is not a post that i like very much, but until i master this technique of writing when i only have little bits of time, it's going to have to do. miss you all!

and, she's off!

2009-04-28T09:31:00.002-04:00

This has nothing to do with food.
This is a post to wrap up the last month or so of my semester in Grenoble. I leave tonight (in a few hours) to go to Istanbul, then to Greece (by way of a few islands) then to Croatia (to visit two friends from my summer in Maine) and then to Belgium, to visit Caitlin, also a friend from Maine, who will be accompanying me to Croatia. After that, I'm headed to Bretagne, where I will work on a farm until Bastille day (July 14th) at which time I will celebrate the French Revolution.

After that, I will fly to England, where I'm going to visit Rebecca (those of you who know who she is, be jealous) and I'm coming to Tampa the 20th of July, flying from Manchester, of all places.

My flight home got screwed up, so actually I also have a flight to Tampa on June 15th from Paris, so if the farm turns out to be run by slave-drivers, I will flee.

This is all very scary, and very surreal. I'm fixing (yes, I said fixing) to be roaming around for about a month, then work on a farm, in a place I've never been. I'm sure it feels much more scary now than it will when I'm actually doing it all. It's always like that.

But I'm mostly sad right now to leave Grenoble. What an amazing city. However I found my way here, it was the right place. I regret that my blog kind of dwindled towards the end, but suddenly I found myself struggling to finish all of my work at the last minute (whoever's fault that might be) and then saying goodbye to people who have suddenly become very close friends. We've all survived another country, and another language together, so that tends to expedite friendships, I think. When I see them all in Boston, that will be weird.

The last month was filled with many types of final diners, with Marie-Eve, with the French friends (yes, that included fois gras...), with the Elliott's-house-diner-club, and at all our favorite picnic spots and Grenoble restaurants. There was not a final diner with my host family, however, due to a series of unfortunate events that I won't extrapolate on right now.

We also went to Marseille, but it rained the whole time, and despite one cool trip to some steep cliffs, I prefer the oceanside in Florida to that in France. I'm very excited to come home.

Anyway, the blog hopefully won't stop here, and I'm sure I'll have many new culinary adventures throughout the travels and of course on the farm, where apparently my job will be a lot of...cooking!! So i'll try my best to keep this thing updated. It's important.

The Turkey and Greece trip will consist of the game "How Little Money Can We Spend on Food?" so that ought to yield some good stories.

So, I hope you all read this because right now I just miss everyone and hope you're all doing well. So don't think I'm insane and want to leave you all and never come back. It's just that the opportunity has presented itself, and we never know if I'll ever have any money again!

Peace, love, good baguettes,

Laura

i found a farm!

2009-04-19T09:05:00.001-04:00

check it out

farms farms farms

2009-04-09T15:04:00.003-04:00

so currently what i spend a lot of time doing is clicking on farm descriptions. i click and click and click. my french friend helped me draft a (really super) email to send to the farms, which i sent yesterday and now i'm getting all sorts of interesting responses. i think the letter gave a false impression of my french ability, because it was corrected by a french person. they probably have an over-inflated idea of how i speak!

anyway, the first person said they'd love to have me, but only for two weeks.

the second sent me an email the size of three novels, with about 157 rules of who they will allow to work on their farm, and demanded a picture. only pretty people, please.

the third said they'd love to have me, except that their son, who is currently doing a tour du monde in his sailboat, crashed in Cuba. they have to go rescue him.

the fourth, where i really wanted to work, says they already have someone.

so, i wait, i keep sending emails, and i told the sailboat family that i hope they recover their son!

this is a picture from the farm that says they can have me for two weeks. can't you just see me picking lettuce all day? oh the life!

french sundays are the best days

2009-04-06T05:43:00.002-04:00

Mmm! Yesterday my host family invited me to come with them to the house of their friends in the countryside. The daughter of the family I know, because she comes to dinner at my house often. The mother is Lebanese, and while the family did appologize for not having ketchup and Coca-Cola, they did it in an ever-so-polite manner.

We had an African barbeque at their house, because the parents lived a long time in Ghana. The father is Scottish, and speaks French like I do. The children speak French better than the father, and they speak English, too. The mother speaks Arabic as well as English and French. An American can just never keep up!

They asked me if I could identify the flavor of the meat, which they said, was flavored with "the most favorite thing of all Americans." Hmmm. I couldn't guess it, but turns out, it was peanut butter. Another stereotype, but that one might be slightly true, seeing as though a jar of it is coming to me from America as I write this.

We had a super-French meal that lasted around 3 hours, with a mixture of Lebannese, Ghanan, and French foods. Despite their comments, which were not meant to offend, they are a super nice family, and the children, who are my age, took me to the lake in their car where we sat at a cafe and drank fruit juice!

french fries, extra sugar

2009-04-02T15:35:00.008-04:00

Tonight I learned that good meals are ruined by bad company. My host mother fixed an excellent meal but I spent the whole night dispelling a firing squad of the American stereotypes that I spend my life here trying to squash. The girl is Lebanese, but doing a doctorate in France now, and knows my host parents through their Lebannese-French cultural society. Since she is not actually French, she criticized things near and dear to French hearts as well.

She started the meal by observing my host father's bottle of Coca-Cola on the table, and remarking that, "Oh, that's right, Americans only drink Coca, right?"
Well, I said, politely, some people like it, but there are many people who do not. I did not drink it.

She then proceded to tell me that what we were eating must be really different for me, since Americans eat mostly steaks and french fries.

My host father proceeded to squeeze the contents of half a lemon onto my rice (he thinks it tastes better that way) and I said actually, I don't really like lemon that much. "Oh," she said, "yes. The Americans prefer sugar on their food, right?" And while I certainly prefer sprinkling a healthy dose of sugar on my steak and french fries, I rarely put it on my rice. She moved the Coke bottle out from in front of her. "That stuff is practically poison, she said."

I asked what kind of vegetable was in the rice, and she remarked, "Well, you wouldn't know, I guess, because Americans don't really eat vegetables" They proceeded to make me describe the things I eat at home, and I did the best I could to convince her that really, I know what green things are. Black beans, however, she'd never heard of, and she jumped when I said the name, like they were something the devil eats.

When Monique offered her seconds, she refused, saying at home, she rarely eats dinner.

After that, she started talking about gratin dauphinois, a potato/cream dish local to this region, I said I'd eaten it the night before with my French friends.

"Ohhhh," she moaned. "I can't staaaand that!" Monique, my host mother who grew up in this region, and makes the best gratin dauphinois I've ever tasted, sat silently beside the girl, who continued.

"Ohhh," she moaned again, "even when I begin to smell the scent of potatoes, and milk, and cream, I get sick to my stomach and can't eat anymore. In fact, if I walk into a house where someone is cooking it, I just leave."

Monique replied that she was going to fix it for tonight, but since I'd eaten it last night, she'd decided to make something else.

"Good thing," I said, "cause otherwise you'd have to have left."

"Yes, because, ohhhh, how sick it makes me!" she wouldn't stop.

Somehow the subject came up about in which hand people hold their forks. I had had enough.

"Oh well," I said, "Actually the Americans eat with their hands."

"REALLY?" she replied, shocked. "Wow..."

When the cheese course came out, she proceeded to have the same problem with cheese that she has with gratin dauphinois, and could barely stay in her chair when the cheese was put in front of her, "because of it's smell."

We proceeded to other subjects besides the food, which didn't fare much better. Yussef mentioned that I have learned a few words in Arabic, and I said yes, I had.

"Oh," she cooed, that being her first language, "Pronounce them for me!"

I went ahead and said them, like I say them every day, and she regarded me with a little smile full of pity. You try, it seemed to say.

Twice during the diner, her phone rang, which she answered both times, leaving the table and the dining room and talking loudly in the hallway.

At another point, her and Yussef began to talk about a statue, apparently "very famous," in Boston, of a short Lebanese man. "Ohhh, yes! It's soooo famous," she said. I had no idea. I know of zero statues in Boston of short Lebanese men.

"Well!" she said, "That's too bad, because it's very famous, and pretty much everyone knows it."

Good grief. She insulted America, French food, my Arabic accent, AND my knowledge of my own city. Then again, what do I know? I drink poison and add sugar.

In contrast, so as not to cast the French as totally irretrievable, last night me and Caity and Radhika ate with Jeremie and Phillippe, our two very good French friends, who fed us duck, gratin dauphinois (that smelled HYPER BON! Mmmm) and an excellent salad. For dessert, we'd brought ice cream (our humble American gesture that couldn't compete with the French expertise) and he added bananas flambe. There is hope for this country.

i'm official, as of now

2009-03-31T16:15:00.009-04:00

So, I signed up for wwoof. World wide opportunities on organic farms. You can do it anywhere in the world, practically, surtout in Europe. You work (minimum of 4 hrs/day) on an organic farm and receive food and housing. You can literally farm your way around Europe.

My goal is not to farm my way around the whole continent, nor the whole France, but to find a nice farm, in a nice area not too far from here, where they don't speak English, and hang out for a couple months. The ultimate test of my language skills, not to mention my farming ones. Here are some examples of the farm descriptions:

Nous sommes installés depuis peu dans une ferme que nous rénovons. L’activité agricole consiste pour l’instant à la culture de céréales pour transformation en pain et vente directe. En projet : atelier meunerie, poulailler, troupeau de brebis, production de légumes. Notre ferme est située entre Vercors, vallée du Rhône et Val de Drôme, sur une colline un peu à l’écart d’un village de 1000 habitants. Français, anglais, danois et espagnol parlés.

Le Petit Ane Bleu est une ferme bio perdue dans une forêt de pins située dans les contreforts des Cévennes Ardéchoises. Nos activités sont diverses et variées : maraîchage bio (légumes de saison, petits fruits rouges...), châtaignes, confection de confitures, organisation de randonnées avec des ânes, accueil à la ferme sous tipis et chalet, table d'hôte (cuisine saine du terroir avec nos produis). De nombreux animaux vivent avec nous : ânes, poules, moutons, chèvres, cochons, chiens, chats... Possibilité de pêche et randonnées. Français et anglais parlés.

Organic fruit farm in the Mediterranean Pyrenees. 9 km from Amélie les Bains, one hour from Perpignan. 260 hectares of lands of which 5 is worked on. We are next to a river and surrounded by stunning mountains and wild nature. Work with fruit (pruning and harvesting) fencing, horses, donkeys, chickens, vegetable garden and building. We also make products for the local market jams, chutneys, bread and cakes. We ask only enthusiasm. Français, anglais et hollandais parlés.

So now that I'm a "member," I can search all of the farms in France, and look for one that I want to work on. Then I contact them, and figure out whether I could work there, and make sure the people aren't absolutely insane. How do I always get started on these bizarre projects? On verra!
More updates to come. On other notes, I just bought a one-way ticket to Istanbul.

tiens, merci

2009-03-31T14:34:00.001-04:00

This is my CUEF class from March. With probably the best French professor the world will ever have.

i found matt!

2009-03-31T03:36:00.005-04:00

Short entry, to show how cool it is to learn French.

I take classes at the French university here, but my classes are full of international students, because obviously the French ones don't need to learn their own language. My classes change each month, and this month I have a really diverse group of friends in my class. One girl is from India, one from Russia (but she now lives in South Carolina), one girl is Irish, and there is a guy from China. Usually we just see each other in class, and hang out at the coffee machine during our "pause," but lately we've started hanging out.

Last week we went roller skating, but not actually roller skating, cause it turned out to be an ice skating rink, which was closed. Instead, we went to a park and met a French baby, who knew how to break dance at the age of 2! The Chinese kid played music on his iphone, and the kid gave us a demonstration.

Last night was the Irish girl's last day in France before going home to Ireland, so we had dinner together at a kebab restaurant, one of probably about 100 in Grenoble. Pharmacies and kebab restaurants are as numerous here as CVS and Starbucks in France.

Anyway, the kebab men were probably looking at us pretty funny, because 5 people with totally different, all foreign, French accents were babbling along in French in an otherwise deserted restaurant. It at least gives me one reason to be glad I study this language, to be able to communicate in kebab restaurants with Irish, Chinese, Indian, and Russian people.

On the way home, we watched this video on the iphone. It's a guy named Matt who travels the world and does his dance everywhere he goes.

nimes, and nature

2009-03-28T01:02:00.000-04:00

Also in my grand absense, I went to Nimes. Abandoned by my (good) friend at the last minute, I completed the weekend tout-seule, while meeting many French people along the way, including a nice bus driver whose accent was so strong that I missed the bus cause I misunderstood him, a friend of my tandem who is in the French marines stationed in Nimes, a high-school senior who rides the bus with the thick-accent driver, who gave me an out-the-window tour of the countryside, as well as 3 Anglophones who ran the bed and breakfast that I stayed at in the tiny village of Congenies. Oh, and an Australian environmental scientist halfway through his trip around the world, freshly returned from Egypt. It was a colorful weekend, full of many bus mishaps, and one point where I literally almost fell off a cliff. How's that for an adventure?

I spent the majority of the weekend hiking, which I think resulted in a renewal of shinsplints. My legs seriously hate me. Along the paths, I found olives, vineyards, and an almond tree. I was pretty proud of myself for identifying the almond tree. The flowers looked like cherry blossoms, and the seed pods looked like the picture on the yogurt containers at school. They have muesli yogurt in France- in the snack machine - its so good!

Here is an olive tree.

Here is the almond tree, and the almond that I smashed open on a rock. I didn't eat it, cause what if it was actually the poisonous cousin of an almond?

On Sunday, I went on a hike to the next little village, where they supposedly had a huge, really good market, with a lot of southern things we don't have in Grenoble. My host family had requested special olives that they said could only be found in that region, called Ronce and Lucqueis. I asked and asked, and made a fool out of myself, but apparently such things don't exist. I got some other kind of green olive instead, which turned out to be "just what they were looking for!"

It was raining that day, and the town was entirely empty, until I came around the corner of a big church, and found the whole town, at the market.

After that, I actually bought the first bad thing I've ever bought at a market. It was some sort of cheese bread stuff, cooked on a grill that was the shape of a ball, so the dough kind of runs down the sides. It looked and smelled good, but it tasted like Wal-Mart food or something. Hmmm. So bad I didn't even bother to take a picture.

What I did buy was the best olive bread I've ever eaten, and really good goat cheese. I've gotten better at buying cheese, and I talk to the people at the stand about which kinds they make locally. Then I tell them how much money I want to spend, so they don't cut me a huge chunk and charge me 10 euros.

The next day I rented a bike and rode to a mideaval village not far away. I had the bread and cheese for lunch. Wow my life sounds pain-free. Really, right now, it is.

wild geese are rampant in france

2009-03-25T18:23:00.005-04:00

False. But what IS rampant is wild goose chases that I go on for my host family.

It all started with the olives. Since I was going to Nimes, they requested two types of special southern olives, called Ronce and Lucques. They forgot to write down the names, so I called them when I was in the market, and tried to get my host mother to spell them for me. This is much more difficult than it sounds, and we did a bunch of "R, as in Robert," "o, as in ostrich," except that's hard, when you might not know the French words they use as references! And if I wanted to say "N like Nancy," well, not many people here are named Nancy, so that wouldn't have been much help.

Anyway, the olives, I was assured by three olives salesmen, didn't exist.

Then, when I went to Lyon, they asked me to get them a cheese, named Jesus. What? Yes, a cheese, "qui s'appelle Jesus." Hmm, I thought, this sounds kind of like the olive situation. But I braved the cheese man at the market (one of the many, many paradise-like Lyonnaise markets) and asked for the cheese. He was very confused for a while, but then proceeded to tell me that Jesus was the name of a sausage, not a cheese. Oh, of course, why didn't I think of that.

Sure enough, across the isle where he pointed was a sausage stand with big red chunks of sausage hanging from the ceiling, with a sign that said "Jesus." Hmmm.

I called my host family.

She was confused, I was confused, she Googled it, and found that it could be also called maison fume, or something like that. So I went around asking for maison fume, and the cheese men just thought I wanted the cheese of the house, which was different at each stand. As a result, I got lots of samples, but I didn't find Jesus.

Finally, after calling my host mother again, sacrificing my precious phone minutes for the Jesus cheese, I gave up. And she still hasn't been able to find out what kind of cheese it is. She told me later that an American told her about it. Figures...

Third time's the charm. Last weekend our whole BU program went on a trip to Burgundy, to see vineyards, taste wine, and see how it's made. Of course, my host family put in their order before I left. Two bottles of the "best wine of Burgundy," Yussef told me, and handed me 20 euros. He said he had already spoken to Marie Eve, our directrice, because he wanted her advice to choose the best kind of wine, in order to bring him back the best of burgundy. She knew everything, he said.

When we got there, I asked Marie Eve which kind of wine Yussef wanted. "Yussef?" she said, "He didn't tell me anything..."
So there we were, in a wine cave with this guide leading us around, telling us about all these kinds of wine, and I was busy scanning all the shelves, trying to find the "best" two bottles, for 10 euros each. The problem is, all the wines there cost at least 50 euros each! "Now I know from personal experience about $50 bottles of wine," I thought, "but where are the $10 bottles?" From my personal history, I clearly don't know anything about buying the cheap stuff.

Finally, the guide happened to open a little room on the side of the wine shop, and said we could go in there, kind of the sale bin, where they keep the odds and ends that no one has bought. So I stuck my head into this room, dusty and freezing, and started dusting off lables. Sure enough, these bottles were more in my price range - 9 euros, 12 euros, 15 euros... I picked up two, (kind of at random...shh), and showed them to Marie Eve. She said she knew one of the kinds, and that the other one looked fine. I told her that Yussef never drinks wine, and we've never once had it at dinner. Definitely fine, she said.

So, I bought my wines, carefully transported them through the rest of the trip, to Dijon where the mustard tasting was much more fun than the wine tasting, and brought them safely back to Yussef. "Oh shukran shukran!" he said, ça veut dire "thank you," in Arabic. He was completely delighted and knodded knowingly as he examined the labels. "These will make really great gifts," he said. "Now tell me, which one was more expensive, cause I'm going to give it to my better friend," he said.

lyon: where to go when you're hungry, but not when you're poor

2009-03-25T17:14:00.006-04:00

So during my long absense, I've been discoverning France.

The first place to talk about is Lyon. It is the capital of food, and thus, it is first on my list. It's not too big, so as to feel impersonal like New York, or dare I say, Paris, but rather feels more like Boston, with an every-bit-counts atmosphere of just the right size.
Bouchons are little, traditional Lyonnaise restaurants, where they serve traditional things like Salade Lyonaise, a salad with a poached egg on it, as well as chopped up pieces of ham and croutons, with a mustardy dressing. It's not a salad for someone on a diet, and thus it is excellent.

Quenelle are the other specialty of Lyon, which I can't say much for, unfortunately. I wish I had a picture. They're big, fluffy things that look like a little cloud on your plate, but actually inflate in your stomach to make you incredibly full when you least expect it. Notably, just as you're trying to eat your fondant chocolat for dessert. Quenelle are like eggs, flour, butter, cream, and sometimes white fish, beaten all together and bakend in the oven. In Lyon they are really puffy and fluffy, and basically taste like whatever sauce you put on them. My host mother made them, however, and they came out of the oven fluffy, but deflated into flat mushy white stuff within a matter of seconds. That was intertaining.

So, I've tried the traditional stuff in Lyon, but below are pictures of the 3 things I've enjoyed the most.

The second time I went to Lyon with my friend Caitlin, we ate at a more modern bouchon, where the chef was literally feet away from our table, and there was only one waitress and about 8 tables. The food is never fancy, the napkins are always paper, but the food is always really good.

The dessert was a tarte au pralines, which I discovered are really just almonds covered with a pink sticky candy coating. My host mother makes a cake with them, too.

Then, the third time I went to Lyon (I keep going back, yes), I ate French onion soup, which is all I ever wanted to do in the first place! The wine of Lyon, which is served at all the bouchons, is Beaujolais, a young, light wine that is grown in this region, and is cheap and good.

really catchy song

2009-03-05T10:10:00.004-05:00

Sinsemilia: Tout le Bonheur du Monde
Vidéo envoyée par cvera

This video has absolutely nothing to do with food, but it sings really happy stuff, and utilizes the subjonctif! Catchy!

Refrain:
On vous souhaite tout le bonheur du monde
Et que quelqu'un vous tende la main
Que votre chemin évite les bombes
Qu'il mène vers de calmes jardins.

On vous souhaite tout le bonheur du monde
Pour aujourd'hui comme pour demain
Que votre soleil éclaircisse l'ombre
Qu'il brille d'amour au quotidien.

Puisque l'avenir vous appartient
Puisqu'on ne contrôle pas votre destin
Que votre envol est pour demain
Comme tout ce qu'on a à vous offrir
Ne saurait toujours vous suffire
Dans cette liberté à venir
Puisque on sera pas toujours là
Comme on le fut aux premiers pas.

au Refrain

Toute une vie s'offre devant vous
Tant de rêves a vivre jusqu'au bout
Sûrement plein de joie au rendez-vous
Libre de faire vos propres choix
De choisir quelle sera votre voie
Et où celle-ci vous emmènera
J'espère juste que vous prendrez le temps
De profiter de chaque instant.

au Refrain

Je ne sais pas quel monde on vous laissera
On fait de notre mieux, seulement parfois,
J'ose espérer que cela suffira
Pas à sauver votre insoucience
Mais à apaiser notre conscience
Aurais-je le droit de vous faire confiance...

au Refrain

pulled pork does exist, thank god

2009-02-24T16:17:00.000-05:00

I am sometimes very glad to be American. Today in French class we were talking about the verb for "to shred," something, namely carrots. In France, people eat a lot of salads which consist of solely one vegetable. The salads usually have some sort of (really excellent) simple dressing, but are usually either lettuce, carrots, or (yeoww!) raw onions. The carrots are always shredded.

So anyway, she asked what foods, in our home countries, we shred. My friend Bryn and I said pork, for barbeque.

No, responded the professor, absolutely not. Pork is never shredded. She didn't know what barbeque was! Pork here is either bits of ham (called lardons, as appetizing as that sounds), prosciutto, or pork chops.

We assured her that it was very possible to shred pork, not with the same device as for carrots, but by cooking it until very tender and shredding it by hand. She didn't believe us for along time, but after we insisted that we were both from the South and had personal experience, she conceded, and said she'd search it on the internet.

So, while I rave about French food, I want to state for the record that I'm still thankful for barbeque. :)

les paysans do it best

2009-02-19T18:10:00.003-05:00

My theory is that the best food is poor people food. I'm pretty sure good cooking was invented by paysan farmers, who had only really simple, but really fresh, ingredients. French food is like this. The things that are really satisfying are simple dishes that use minimal, common ingredients. The trick is the method of preparation, and the quality of the ingredients. It's true.

Tonight I went, with two other students, to have a lesson in French cooking. They are held weekly for the BU students at the house of a really great woman who also houses 2 BU students. This week it was my turn. All the other students are on vacation because all the French schools are off this week, but since I'm in the intensive program, I get to stay. (yay?)

We made simple french recipes that utilized minimal ingredients. The salad had a mustard/olive oil dressing, and consisted of some sort of lettuce thing, sausage, and shredded celery root. The meat was just pork cooked in a pan with a mustard dressing, and the potatoes were au gratin with crème fraîche. The dessert was a "cake," in the French sense of the word. We chopped up apples and mixed them with 3 eggs, sugar, and baking soda, cooked it, and served it chilled and topped with apricot jelly mixed with rum.

It was all really simple, but a little labor intensive. We rubbed the au gratin dish with garlic before putting in the potatoes, but didn't put any garlic in with them. Just potatoes, salt, pepper, and creme. There was another trick about turning off the oven before taking it out, and letting it sit for the correct amount of time afterwards. We cooked the apples on the stove for a few minutes before putting them in the oven to cook. We mixed the mustard sauce up far in advance so it could sit for long enough.

The secret to all of it was timing, combinations, and the quality of the ingredients. Unfortunately, the freshness wasn't the best (she bought the stuff at a big supermarket, rather than an open-air market, and the difference is vast and noticeable), but in theory, the food would have been exceptional.

Other cultures are like this too. The best Cuban food is simple: rice, beans, bread, plantains. The best Southern food is country food: ham, beans, vegetables, corn bread, grits. All traditional cuisines stem from the foods that poor, agrarian folk can afford to have on hand. But they find ways to make it taste really good. Pork fat helps with that, usually.

This is also why we have a problem, right now, because paysan food tastes really good, and it's really healthy, but it was also created when people used to work all day outside, and needed a lot of energy. Now many people sit inside all day for their jobs, but continue to eat the same food, and lots of it. So we eat a farmer's diet, without expending a farmer's amount of energy.

But, not to get too down on ourselves. The French evening was complete with aperatifs, a cheese course, and a bottle of really good, really local, red wine. I am continuously trying to figure out how I'm going to transport this lifestyle back to Boston. Bon appétit!

gmo? non, merci.

2009-02-19T09:00:00.000-05:00

I think this is really interesting. France thinks a lot more about what kinds of foods are grown here, and what types of things they allow into (and out of) their country. They don't let hormone-treated beef into France, nor this corn that is genetically modified. Nor do they practice the American habit of treating chicken with a chlorine wash. The French eat better because they think more carefully about what they eat and how they grow it. For my class on French Civilization, we have to do an ethnographic research project, and I'm going to do mine on just that: why and how much do the French (vs. Americans) know and care about what they eat. It's a huge cultural difference and I'm very curious.

The following article is in French, but discusses the recall of American corn that has been genetically modified, while the health risk of the corn is discussed.

OGM : la France maintient sa position face à l'UE

LEMONDE.FR avec AFP | 16.02.09 | 17h45 • Mis à jour le 17.02.09 | 08h49

La Commission européenne a échoué, lundi 16 février, dans sa tentative pour forcer la France et la Grèce à autoriser la reprise de la culture d'un maïs génétiquement modifié de la firme américaine Monsanto. Malgré la publication d'un rapport de l'Agence française de sécurité sanitaire des aliments (Afssa), jeudi 12 février, assurant que cette plante ne présente aucun risque pour la santé, la culture du maïs MON 810 est toujours suspendue en France.

Les experts des pays de l'Union européenne réunis à Bruxelles au sein du Comité permanent de la chaîne alimentaire et de la santé animale "ne sont pas parvenus à trouver une majorité qualifiée en faveur ou contre les demandes faites à la France et à la Grèce de lever les mesures d'urgence" empêchant la culture de ce maïs OGM, a confirmé la Commission dans un communiqué.
Au cours de la réunion, l'Autorité européenne de sécurité des aliments a dit "avoir des interrogations" sur les risques de la culture du MON 810 pour l'environnement. Elle a demandé des éclaircissements à la société américaine.

"Nous sommes excédés de ce manque de courage politique. La frilosité européenne, et surtout française, risque d'avoir de lourdes conséquences dans les années à venir", a déclaré dans un communiqué Philippe Gracien, porte-parole des professionnels des semences et de la protection des plantes.

La suspension de la culture en France a été décidée à cause des "inquiétudes sur la question de la dissémination" et de ses effets sur la faune, la flore et les écosystèmes, a rappelé jeudi dernier le premier ministre français, François Fillon. La clause de sauvegarde française ne concerne que la culture, pas la commercialisation du MON 810.

mmm, cake.

2009-02-19T03:00:00.000-05:00

I don't know if I've mentioned it or not in the blog, but my host father is Lebanese. He loves to cook and each week cooks a special kind of cheese he buys fromt he market. He puts the cheese in a sauce pan, cooks it on the stove, then strains out the extra water through a dish cloth. It turns into thick, yogurty cheese that reminds me of Fage. It's great with olive oil, salt and pepper, and dried mint. If any of you reading this haven't tried Fage, go to the store right now and buy it. It's Greek strained yogurt with tons of protein that's really good for you. It's great with evoo and salt, or with honey, or with fruit.

Yussef, my host father, especially likes to make desserts. Sadly, however, I can say now from experience, that I'm not a huge fan of Lebanese desserts. He frequently makes one that is the consistency of Jello, more or less, but is opaque and white. It has pine nuts on top, and some sort of yellow dust, and tastes kind of like the smell of lemon-scented cleaning fluid. Mmmm. It has hardly any sugar, but there's a clear sugary syrup that one is supposed to put on top. That just makes the whole thing more slimy, howevery, so I usually don't use it.

One bad thing about living with a host family is having to be polite all the time. When they give me things, I am obliged to try them at least once before I figure out a polite way to refuse them. But it's really hard to refuse his desserts, because he's really proud of them, and gets really sad when I refuse them.

The other day, before I went to Geneva, he made a cake. It, too, had pine nuts on top, and inside was the color of a tennis ball. Kind of greeny-yellow. The consistency was like corn bread, but the taste was a pungent licorice, with barely any sugar. He packed it for me to take along to Geneva, and me and my two friends sampled it there. Most things fall short of Swiss chocolate, but this green cake especially did.

I learned my lesson, however, because when I returned I thanked him for the cake and complimented it. Mistake. That night, I smelled a scent wafting up to my bedroom from the kitchen. It smelled savory, like someone was making dinner at 11pm, but actually it was another one of the cakes! "I was inspired, since you said you liked it," he told me, "so I made another one!"

Ohh, thanks. So, the next day I was given the cake for breakfast, I was packed the cake for lunch, and I was offered the cake for an afternoon snack. After dinner we forewent the cheese in lieu of the cake. Mmm, this time he had chosen to make it with even less sugar, which didn't help the heavy flavor of black licorice. It was anise, actually, because I noticed a giant jar of it.

This morning, however, I supplemented the cake with a healthy spoonful of French flower honey. Honey here is thick, opaque, and really really good. It cures just about anything, from a sore throat, to tennis ball cake. Thankfully, I think tonight he finished off the last of it, but the big jar of anise remains on the shelf, so I think that means there's more where that came from.

moral of the story: ask the price

2009-02-17T15:30:00.004-05:00

This posting recounts the (mis)adventures of three hungry girls one night in Geneva, Switzerland. Me and my two friends went to Geneva for the weekend, anxious to get out of Grenoble for the first time since arriving. Geneva is beautiful and we saw a lot, but the weather was frigid, so we also saw the inside of lots of Genevan coffee shops, because periodically we had to thaw out our frozen toes before continuing outside. The tourism season still has yet to begin, really, but we were tired of being cooped up in Grenoble.

Before we left, we researched things to do in Geneva, and had been recommended a jazz club called Le Chat Noir. We asked at the tourism office how to get there, and the polite man behind the counter told us it was in the artsy district, which was pretty far away. He recommended taking the tram.

"Well," we thought, "it's only 6, we're not hungry, and all the museums are closed." So we decided to walk there. We had a map (Apparently all the people in Geneva have exceptional eye sight, because the map was printed in a font size appropriate for mice.) and knew that the district was called Carouge, and that it was across a river.

There are lots of rivers in Geneva, however, and it was very dark. The streets don't really follow the map, either, and I don't have the eyesight of a mouse. So, we wandered, wandered, wandered, found some cool playgrounds, a funny looking statue, and finally the correct district. Sooner or later, we even found the jazz club, but it was only dinner time, so we went searching for a good restaurant.

By then, we were freezing cold and very hungry, and my friend had a fondu craving. We habitually prefer to survey all the restaurants, however, before choosing, in hopes of finding the "perfect" one. So, after doing a couple laps around the block, we decided on an Italian restaurant, because there were no fondu places to be found.

Alors! The hostess told us it was full if we didn't have a reservation, and kind of pulled a curtain in front of a whole row of empty tables. Hmmm...

Cold, hungry, discouraged, we went back out onto the street and suddenly, a fondu restaurant appeared across the street! I swear it wasn't there before, but there it was, tiny, really cute, and hardly crowded. It served just fondu, so the menu was a chalk board with 4 choices: a cheese mixture, tomatoes, mushrooms, or champagne. We chose two tomato fondus, one champagne, and some red wine. We were freezing, and the warm cheese, which came with potatoes and bread, with the red wine was magnificent.

In fact, the wine was more than magnificent, it was the BEST wine I've ever drank, and I hope I never drink any better than it, because when we got the bill, we discovered that it cost $50! (They use Swiss Francs, which roughly equal the dollar.) I'm not sure if the price tag made that wine taste better or worse, after the fact.

After dinner (sans dessert, thanks to that lovely, lovely wine) we went to the Chat Noir, which had a cover charge, and no live jazz after all. We settled on a different pub, with a bartender dressed as an angel with giant white wings (it was Valentines Day, randomly) who sang along to every American love song on their mix.

To finish off the night, I ordered a gin and tonic from the other bartender, dressed in all black as a devil. I handed her a 20 swiss-frank bill and received back 8CHF. Eight? She thought I had given her a 10CHF, probably.

But no, Geneva has a lot of banks for one reason: stuff is really expensive! The gin and tonic cost a grand 12CHF, and boy was it good, too.

Thus, it was a weekend of enjoying the best of life, every swiss cent of it.

kitchen therapy

2009-02-04T19:00:00.003-05:00

Tonight, to remedy my lack of kitchen, I cooked with two of my friend's at one of their houses.

We made leek fondu. Fondu here means anything melted, so it was leeks in butter and white wine. We have to work on the presentation, but it tasted great.

Then we made couscous with a bunch of vegetables from the market. Fennel, bokchoy, carrots, potatoes, celery, and little orange turnip things.

We had bread and cheese, of course.

And for dessert, pear clafoutis a custardy pudding which was amazing, accompanied by tawny port. The dessert is going to be really good for breakfast tomorrow.

It's great to cook and eat with friends. :)

just thought this was funny

2009-02-04T18:53:00.003-05:00

The French have a love-hate relationship with America.

Note the paintball place in the background, p.s.

kitchenless (in the promised land)

2009-02-02T18:49:00.005-05:00

My slow realization that cooking is my primary creative outlet reached a smashing finale tonight, when I finally worked up the courage to ask my host mother, in French, if I would be able to use the kitchen one night per week. The answer was no.

In the past three weeks, I have been swept up in a whirlwind of new experiences, food-related and otherwise. I have been exposed to the absolute best foods I have ever eaten, and I have looked forward to each day containing some new eating adventure.

However, now that things are settling down, now that I know my way around town, and now that I know how much free time I have, I'm beginning to miss my kitchen. No matter how many restaurants I visit, how many three-hour meals we eat with our program (I forgot to mention those, I think), how many second servings my Lebanese-French host-family laddles onto my plate (against my wishes), there is nothing like doing it on my own. I need to cook.

I am a little stranded now, in a foreign country without a rhythm or a real home. I love living with my host family, but I am used to having a kitchen of my own, having an excuse to go to the grocery store, having the creative outlet and the necessity of eating.

Until tonight, when my host mother politely told me I am not permitted to use the kitchen, I didn't realize how much of my previous life that leaves to be desired. No researching recipes, no making lists, no shopping for food - no excuse to go to the markets, no baking for friends, no experimenting over flaming gas, no feasting on my success or throwing out my mistakes. The thought of three more months - at least - without my hands chopping, stirring, tasting, spreading, makes me anxious.

Is this what studying abroad is about? New experiences, adaptation, learning new languages? I express myself, no doubt, through the things I cook, and now I will have to turn to new endeavors. On the desk next to me sits my Nikon D40. But somehow I find myself always taking pictures of - food.

The saddest part is that I am living in a country full of amazing ingredients. The markets are daily, fresh, and local. The options are endless and there are ingredients I'd never have access to or money for in the United States. And while I probably can't faire un crêpe quite like the French, all I want to do is try.

On the brighter side, what am I talking about? This is an excuse to sit back, relax, and feast to my heart's content while somebody else does the dishes.

clémentines

2009-02-02T18:04:00.002-05:00

This is a small note, posted by a born-and-raised Floridian, commenting on how amazing, and readily available clémentines are in France. Each one is tiny and sold with the stem and leaves still attached. They are packed with sweetness, and each tastes slightly different, some like candy, others like really fresh orange juice, others just like liquid sunlight in your mouth.

So before I get too poetic about the fruit, I just want to say that while Florida knows a thing or two about good citrus, southern Europe gives the Sunshine State a run for it's money.

Photo above is a blood orange, during our picnic in the Alpes before snowshoeing. A picture of snowshoeing is also included, to prove I actually did it.

sketchy, cheesy, so much fun

2009-01-25T11:23:00.001-05:00

My second encounter with real Frenchies totally trumps my first one.

There is a program, through our university here, that sets up tandem partners - people who want to learn each other's language. Most people from BU have one, and meet weekly in the cafeteria for conversation. After signing up, I promptly received an email from the school, followed immediately by two from my new conversation partener, Arnaud. "I present myself," it said. "I have 24 years old and hope we us can meet." (This will only be funny for those who are familiar with French syntax.) The second email was an elated Arnaud: "I read your blog and learned about you! I see you like French cooking? Do you like cheese? Do you want to eat cheese Saturday night? And have a drink with my friends?"

Sketched out, my first thought was, "No!" This is not a dating service, it's education! But. I really want to learn French. And Arnaud speaks french. So for the sake of education...?

Long story short, Arnaud texted me three or four or five or six times. Everyone texts because calling is expensive. We went back between English and French.

"Where do you live?" he asked, "I will pick you up and we will go eat with my sister."

Sisters are good, I thought, but everyone knows what they say about riding in cars with boys. Without anyone who wanted to accompany me (I tried that idea) I agreed to meet Arnaud in centre ville, on foot. It was raining, but I found him, a short, jovial, and dressed for a hike, rather than dinner on the town.

"My sister is there," he said. Ah, his sister lives nearby, I thought.

But no. His sister was in their car, the driver. Really, I thought? Is this a good idea? A new city, a new language, night, rain, texts. Hiking clothes, sisters.

I got in the car.

"I'm a little scared," I said, "because I have never met you. I don't feel comfortable. How am I going to get home?" I now understood that we were going to their friends' house to eat. Cheese, apparently.

"I think I understand," Arnaud said. Oh language barriers are fun.

We drove for a while, stopped at a building and Arnaud got out. I thought we were there.

"No," said his sister, "he's just getting his things, then we're going to our friends' house."

"His things," were a six-pack, half of a 24 pack, and several bags that rattled and clanked. Oh boy, I thought. What have I gotten myself into? I started looking out the window, noting the street names in the dark, rainy fog. How could I get home from this crazy party that we were going to?

We arrived at a tall, dark appartement building, and they handed me the six-pack. Beer mixed with tequila, mmm.

The building was dark, but we wrang their bell. It buzzed, we entered, and packed into a tiny French elevator.

But to my surprise, we entered not a wild hoo-ha but a small, neat appartement, where lived a couple, the man a hulking rugby player, the girl a quiet blonde.

Awkward.

We sat around, tried to speak. I fumbled French, they fumbled English. What was I doing here? Why was I not at the movies with everyone else? Why wasn't my tandem partener someone who wanted to meet on campus at a coffee shop for an hour with 30 min in French and 30 in English?

All the while, whistling and popping noises were coming from the kitchen. Caroline, the quiet blonde, emerged, her face read from steam. I had no idea what was going on there. We ate some sort of sausage while each of them took turns in the kitchen, always emerging with a glowing face. At one point they opened the window in the kitchen. Woah boy.

The coversation turned to Obama, and things picked up. Then we talked about music, about Carla Bruni, and U2, and rap, and Coldplay.

Then it was time to eat. I had no idea what I was in for. They moved the table into the middle of the room, rearrainged the chairs, and brought out a box with a metal contraption inside. They plugged it in. At first I thought it was a George Forman grill, but George Forman wouldn't know what to do with this thing. They brought out plates, knives, forks, white wine, and a jar of tiny pickles. Next came a tray full of thinly sliced meats, a giant bowl of potates, and a bowl of thick slices of extremely pungent cheese.

As ususal with eating in this country, I had no idea what to do, so I followed suit. We stabbed a potato with a fork, and pealed it with our knife. The bowl of potatoes simmered on the top of the heating machine. Meanwhile on the bottom level of the machine, we heated our slabs of cheese in tiny trays.

On our plates, we cut up our potato, and our miniature pickles, and spread pieces of meat on top. When the cheese was finished, we poured it over everything and voila! It was fabulous. Conversation picked up and they laughed at my amazement over the food. The machine was amazing! While eating one potato, the next cheese melted, and our assembly line functioned efficiently. With white wine it was delicious.

After, Arnaud brought out a loaf of "bio" bread, and two other types of cheese. Also, some strange liquor made in the mountains of France, that was green and incredibly, incredibly strong. I could handle one tiny drop and no more. With the cheese, though, it was superb.

Arnaud had gone to the market that morning to get all the ingredients for our cheese-filled dinner, because he read my blog about food. Heh, this thing pays off.

During dinner we talked about skiing, about accents, and about differences between France and the United States. They asked me if it was weird in France to kiss strangers on the cheeks. I said no because they warned us in the States before we left. I showed them the video on youtube. They showed me other videos. We talked in French, and in English, switching in midsentance. I am bad, but getting better. They are good but think they're awful.

After dinner, they drove me back to the centre ville and I met my study abroad friends at the pub. We spoke in English and there definitely wasn't any cheese or Alpes moonshine.

So moral of the story: Its bad to do sketchy things, but fondu is awesome, and now I have 4 new French friends!

will walk for food

2009-01-24T20:15:00.011-05:00

So the way not to get fat in France, is, well, to be French. They do it, its a miracle, and I cannot compete. However, for as much bread, pastry, rich and creamy food, and nutella as I eat, I'm surprised I haven't blown up like a balloon. Yet. I have several theories why.

First, French food is fresh. It is usually straight from the market, which is straight from the farm, and people buy each day what they will cook that night. It is the same in restaurants. You can taste the freshness of everything.

Second, they focus on digestion. Meals are legnthy, the portions are small, and cheese typically follows the main course, which all help the food to be digested easily and quickly. It's biologically savvy.

Third, and most importantly, I think, the French walk everywhere. If you walk to and from the boulanger for your bread, you work up the apetite to eat it.

So today, in the spirit of the French, I took a walking journey through my neighborhood to see what I could find to see, to photograph, and to eat.

I went first to Place Ste. Bruno, where there is a daily market. It was about to close but I surveyed the fruits and vegetables as well as clothing and knick-knack stands. The place is like a combination of NYC faux-kley stands, and Haymarket, for all you Bosto-NYers. But of course, not like Haymarket, because the vendors are friendly and the produce is a hundred times more delicious. Above is a picture of one stand.

After the market, which had not much good because I arrived around noon - I learned that the goods go fast, and it's necessary to get there early to get the best stuff - I explored a street nearby. I found a cheap (2.80 E) egg/lettuce/vinagrette sandwich (now in the top of my blog) that was phenomenal.

French food is unexplainably good. I want to know how a Frenchman can put a fried egg in a baguette with a piece of lettuce and make it taste so good. I think its because of attention to detail. Fresh bread, baked free of preservatives, cage-free eggs, lettuce fresh out of the soil, vinagrette with vinegar from the oh-so-famous french wine. Altogether it yields a product greater than the sum of its parts. For sure.

After my sandwich, and a good deal bit more of walking, I came across a "bio" grocery store, what we in the Etats Unis would call organic. Biologique, here. Here, however, stores like this are tiny (not like Greenwise or Whole Foods) and sell mostly bottles of dietary supplements. No one gets their fruits or vegetables from these stores. That would be silly - they go to the market! Anyway, I bought three organic dates (my absolute favorite) and ate one before I took this picture.

Then I found myself back in the centre ville of Grenoble, where another market was just closing up. I couldn't resist the crepe stand, and walked away with a Nutella crepe oozing from its cardboard holder. Eating crepes while walking is almost as difficult a feat as cooking one on the large flat griddle, with a wooden paddle to spread the drippy batter.

Unable to finish the steamy, gooey mass, I deposited the last slimy, bit (with a tiny bit of regret) into the garbage. I wandered through parks, next to the Stade des Alpes, the futbol stadium of Grenoble, and I found a garden with a stream (not frozen!) and statues. On my way home, satisfied with my exercise, my photos, and my food, I happened to glance in a store window. Nutella was smeared all over my cheak. Alors! I try to be French...

That night I had an altogether different French food adventure, which demands its own post for sure.

more coffee, more french, good company

2009-01-17T12:52:00.004-05:00

Today I had my first encounter with "real" French people, involving again, petit cups of coffee. This is why I love food, it brings people together. I am now in Grenoble, and yesterday I moved in with my host family, the Mortadas, an older couple who live close to the center of town.

Today there was a manifestation in Grenoble, about the war in Gaza. Yusef, the husband, is Lebanese, and highly involved with the Lebanese association here. He went to the manifestation today while Monique, the wife, and I went shopping. She helped me look for a coat and boots, and after, we went to a Lebanese cafe where Yusef and his friends, a couple doctors, a younger woman who had kids, and some others. They had falafel and shawarma (my camera isn't up and running yet, so pardon again the lack of pictures) and we had coffee. I listened to them joke about being old, joke to Monique, who holds her ground very well, and talk about the tragic deaths of people in Palestine. They spoke in Arabic and French, and it was hard for me to know when they changed languages.

At first I felt very out of place, sitting in a cafe full of French Palestinians, mostly old men, me clearly the only American. Then I realized I am lucky to have been given a host family welcoming enough to take me to things like this, allowing me to experience French culture more real than anything I would experience on my own. This is what these people do on any given Saturday afternoon, even though this Saturday was special because of the manifestation. And as different as they seemed at first, eating falafel, drinking beer from tiny glasses, offering me more coffee, listening to the Arabic tv station playing in the background, they were just like any other group of old friends anywhere else in the world.

So they asked me how to pronounce "Obama" correctly. Not o-ba-MAAA, as they say, and they asked me questions about my university, where I'm from, how long I will be in Grenoble, and they spoke slowly to accomodate my poor french. "You speak well," they told me, when I said I'd only been learning French for a year and a half. And even if it's a lie, I need encouragement. They asked me about the new coat I had bought, and joked about my age, a fact that French people discuss openly and often. And when I proudly displayed my new French cell phone, they warned me not to give my number to any eager French guys.

No one was in a hurry and we sat there for at least an hour. It's amazing how it's possible to draw out one tiny cup of coffee for a such long time. When we left, I "faire la bise" just like everyone else. It is the French version of a hug, with a kiss on each cheek. They asked if I like their friends and I assured them yes, that they were very welcoming. "It's because of the sun," Yusef said. "The Lebanese love the sun, and the Floridians love the sun, and that's why we're friendly people."

Pictures to follow soon, I promise!

un petit café?

2009-01-14T10:07:00.006-05:00

The theme for my first day in France is coffee. Not the giant cups that I somehow always picture in Emily Drevets' hand, but tiny little ones that resemble the Sesame Street cups I learned to gargle and spit with at the dentist. Forgive the lack of pictures - my camera is still packed away in the luggage I've been dragging all day.

My first petit cup of coffee came on my flight from Detroit to Amsterdam. Normally I would want to pass out for the duration of the 8 hour flight, but I still had 250 pages of Gone With The Wind to finish, which I had cut apart from the first 700 to avoid extra weight. The more I read that book the more I think I resemble Scarlett 0'Hara, an idea that scares me. I didn't finish the book but I still have a 3-hour train ride tomorrow. And that coffee was horrible.

The second tiny cup came on my 50-minute flight from Amsterdam to Paris. I was famished but pleasantly surprised by the most unique in-flight meal I've ever had, eaten while surrounded by businessmen reading newspapers that sound like Beaker, the Muppet, talking. (Dutch) Two rolls, baked together, but one filled with goat cheese and fig jam and the other with raspberry jam and chocolate chips! The tiny coffee accompanying them was best.

I had my third tiny cup at a slightly touristy crepe cafè outside Montmartre, as I stalled for time waiting for Camille and Jorge. I am writing this now from the BU center in Paris, where I finally ended up after roaming, quite aimlessly, all day. I almost got scammed a couple times, made a few French people mad, but also carried on several decent conversations in French.

I think I can get used to this. There's something about knowing the cup is tiny that makes you savor each drop that much more.

map of grenoble

2009-01-06T00:53:00.005-05:00

Here is a map of Grenoble, where I will be:

there's a first time for everything

2009-01-05T23:42:00.003-05:00

Here goes. The first post of my euro-culinary blog. In one week I'll be in Europe and I don't have a clue yet what that really - really - means. Let's hope this turns out good!

And, yes, I made the ravioli. :)