french meal : quiche for everyone!

the beginning of our cooking adventure.

la pâte

about to go in our little four

just so you know what we're working with here.

de.lish.

we had left over crust...

so we got creative.

with some emmental, epinards, and tapenade.

cheese, spinach, and olive tapenade.

wrapped up in a little surprise.

our little cuties!

we made three quiches

quiche lorraine

spinach quiche

mushroom quiche

what is your latest cooking adventure?  

life list: trip to Kenya

one day I want to go to Kenya.

somewhere so different from anything that i've visited.

i want to feel the fierce African sun.

take shade under an acacia tree.

play with the kids, run through the tall grass.

listen to the stories.

the lilt of the local language.

i want to traipse along the tanzanian border.

tiptoeing close to lake victoria.

cross over and gaze at mt. kilimanjaro.

the wildlife.

life in the bush.

the mosquitoes bigger and fiercer than small animals.

i want to experience all that.

and, as an add-on to my trip,

i would consider myself so lucky to stop here

The Shepherd's Home 

if i'm going to continue down this road of becoming a teacher,

i want to see kids all over the world.

i'd love to visit schools in all different countries.

spend time in classrooms.

write on chalkboards deep in Africa.

talk with kids in Japan.

maybe in South America one day.

Here's the site for an organization that supports The Shepherd's Home.

Quarters for Kenya

one day hopefully i'll be lucky enough to visit.

just an ordinary wednesday morning of daydreaming!

have you started your life list yet?

a+

alli

photos via here here here

i've got other cats to flog.

How's that for a title to draw you in?

Let's have a little chat.  About French.  And English.  And idiomatic phrases.

Every language has them.  We use them every day, sometimes without even noticing.

'he really just has a green thumb'

'we'll cross that bridge when we come to it'

'i've got ants in my pants'

The funny part comes when you try to translate those phrases into another language.

I'm 99% certain that if I told a french person...

'j'ai des fourmis dans mes pantalons'

I wouldn't be invited to lunch next time.

I've been collecting some good ones...

'je parle comme une vache espagnol'

translation: 'i speak like a spanish cow'

real translation: 'i'm trying to speak french/spanish/german, but I'm completely butchering it'

'j'ai d'autres chats à fouetter'

translation: 'i've got other cats to flog/whip'

real translation/US translation: 'i've got other fish to fry'

'système D'

translation: system D

real translation: plan B.  As in, that's not going to work, we need a plan B.

'il avait un chat dans la gorge'

translation: 'he had a cat in his throat'

real translation: cat's got your tongue

'chanter comme une casserole'

translation: sing like a saucepan

real translation: you sing horribly

and maybe one of my favorites:

'occupe-toi de tes oignons'

translation: take care of your onions

real translation: mind your own business!

Don't you ever wonder where all these come from?

We should start our own idioms!

What would you say?

a+

alli

photo via here.

le weekend.

french bowling.  seems i'm just as bad as i am at american bowling.

which is bad.

a visit to a town called dole.

and one of the luminous airy basilicas i've seen.

altar.

dole.

cool lamp in a cafe.  red effect on the camera.

the part of town they call 'little venice'.

sun trying to poke out.

a birthday dinner of scrumptious make-your-own pizza.

my new favorite australian dessert: lamingtons.

complete with sparklers!

wish i could take credit for all the photos here. they're all credited to mr. s!

I had a lovely weekend that seemed to tiptoe by.  We decided to visit a close by city on Saturday, Dole.  Besides being under the clouds like the rest of Bourgogne at the moment, it was a charming little city.

We stopped at an art nouveau sort of café for sandwiches and then munched on some pain au raisins et sablé au beurre afterwards.

Wandered along the canals in the 'petite venise' part of town.

Even stopped to visit Louis Pasteur's birthplace!

Sunday we tried a trout recipe with roasted almonds, which was delicious.

The almonds were a tad over roasted, and more like chunks than slivers, but it was yummy.

Our now traditional drive was particularly Sleepy-Hollowish, with the thick fog that had been hanging around all day.

Sunday night we celebrated the German assistant's bday.  With design-it-yourself pizzas

and a traditional Australian dessert, a new favorite of mine.

White cake with a thick cover of chocolate and coconut sprinkled on top.

Yum.

And now I find myself on a Monday morning, preparing my things for the week.

It's still a bit slow to get started, but I should be giving most of my classes this week.

I've scooted my chair to the very corner of my desk,

where I can sit in the sun that is shyly peeking in my window.

I'm almost afraid to write that, since last week

two hours after I praised the wonderful sunny day

a fog crawled in, so thick that it lasted the whole weekend.

please stay sun!  we all love it when you're here.

where does monday morning find you?

wishing you a wonderful start to the week!

a+

alli

licking windows.

Yesterday afternoon I was enjoying an espresso and a book in one of my favorite cafés in Beaune.  I was nibbling on a lunette framboise, a cookie with a light raspberry filling and powered sugar sprinkled on top.

As I was enjoying delicious bites, les piétons walked lazily down the street, meandering from window to window, finding various treasures.  A woman bundled up in a wool coat and big mittens, walking her little dog buttoned up in a toutou sized windbreaker.  She moved in a zigzag pattern from store to store, admiring the pulls, sweaters, draped in a window, or the chaussures, shoes, sitting neatly in rows.  Two lycéens walked by playing music on their cell phones and sweeping the hair from in front of their eyes in one cool collected flip.  They stopped to admire the newest Samsung phone at the Orange store.  An elderly man paused in front of the pastry shop, eyes wide as a young boy's.

I must admit, this French hobby has definitely rubbed off on me.  You haven't walked down a street the right way in France until you've learned to stop and lick the windows.

Well no, not literally.

That's how we would translate their definition of window shopping.

Lèche-vitrine.

Besides being a great way to catch the la grippe A, the flu, I think it gives a fun quirky image.

A little girl with a lollipop, enjoying a treat.

Or maybe they were going more for the 'drooling over a new pair of boots' effect.

Stores are organized perfectly to accommodate all these window lickers.

They put new merchandise, their classics, their sale items,

right up front.

They even write all the prices next to the items, so customers know what they're in for when they enter the store.

And if you've ever been to Paris during Christmas,

you may have heard of the tremendous

Galeries Layfayettes

window displays.

Animated mannequins, robot dogs, feathers, upside-down children.

They get crazier. every. year.

I've already spent many weekend afternoons walking slowly down the streets

no schedule or agenda

stopping by my favorite places

to see what's new.

No pressure, no fuss.

And when finally a French woman or man decides to enter the store

(after discerning the windows to see if the store was worth an entrance)

I think there's a certain pride in the purchase.

The shopper was just as involved in the sale as the store owner.

One spent hours preparing the windows.

One spent hours deciding where and when to buy.

Both left feeling a sense of accomplishment.

'Regardez, look at this wonderful gâteau that I picked out at the patisserie'

'Voilà, the fantastic chaussures I found at the shoe store'

I think it's a wonderful method, to select and buy only what you would brag about!

And the process is kinda fun too : )

Have you licked any windows recently?

a+

alli

photos found here here 

waterproof.

i feel like i need to be waterproofed.  or cloudy-day-proofed.  like most of the world in january i guess.

seems all we're hearing about it all over the world at the moment.

and although this is a charming picture, i feel like that lady there.  perpetually trapped in a gray day.

i'll take some sunshine on my cobblestone streets please!

still waiting to get going at my new school.  things seem to be moving in slow motion.

we'll see if they speed up any.

how was your wednesday where you are?

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alli

wisdom?

today is a two post tuesday!

just because I stumbled along a great list of 41 quirky sayings, pieces of wisdom, things to remember when you're having a crappy day, etc...

you can see the list at one of my favorite blogs, yes and yes, so hop on over there!

photo via yes and yes. 

le weekend.

Hello friends!

I know you've been seeing a little less of me lately- last week I took a little break to avoid getting sick again.  Together with some homeopathic flu meds, a couple liters of orange juice, and curling up in my bed next to the radiator, I tried my hardest to ward off all the germs my kids decided to share with me.  It worked mostly, this week I'm feeling a lot better.

I'm also back on my bike!  All the snow from last week melted, and we even had two GLORIOUS days of sunshine before we got back to the foggy cloudy days that I woke up to this morning.

Last week I finished up at the first middle school where I started teaching.  I wish I could say I finished on a really great note, but that would be exaggerating.  Teacher/colleague-wise, it was really nice.  I lunched with several teachers and really felt like I could open up with them and talk about everything.  It was a nice way to leave things.  As far as the kids go, I got my first (and only) going away present, a colored picture from two 6ième students that I had.  It was so cute, with an English and French flag colored and a big 'Thank you!' between the two.  I didn't have the heart to tell them I wasn't British :)

This week has been getting off to a slow start.  I'm giving myself daily reminders to stay patient.  But when a teacher at the new school told me he wasn't aware that I was coming until last Thursday, the frustration started to edge in.  I met him in September, and I'm pretty sure we left things with a 'see you in january' mentality.  I know these schools have done this before, so I'm wondering if it's been the same every year.  If I wouldn't have come to the school yesterday and this morning to push things along a bit, I don't think they would have been bothered at all.  Even things such as a key for the classrooms, codes for the computers, and email addresses for the teachers I'll be working with were impossible to come by.  It certainly was a bit different from my last school, where they threw everything in my hands on day 1 and expected me to have lesson plans before I'd even met the kids or teachers.

I've taken the down time as an opportunity to write a bit more, and catch up on some of my reading.  Currently on my desk:

It's a narrative about a man jumping head first into the project of building his own house.  It has some pretty intriguing commentary about what should go into choosing a location for your house, how it's made, and what it serves for.

Also thought I'd share a bit of sunshine from my desktop.

Because when there's no sun outside, it helps to have some inside!

How is your Tuesday going?

a+

alli

polyvore tuesday.

I was feeling creative this afternoon, so I decided to play around with Polyvore.  

Have you ever tried it?

Untitled by ahapp featuring J Brand jeans

Untitled by ahapp featuring Forever21

Beautiful Abandon by ahapp featuring J Crew

Ruffles by ahapp featuring Arden B

This is the one I did this afternoon. I guess I'm in a ruffles sort of mood.

If you Polyvore, I'd love to see your stuff! It's so fun to see what you can come up with.

Oh!! And some WONDERFUL news!

I saw the sun yesterday! For the first time since I left Utah!

I was overjoyed to get some Vitamin D from something besides my daily vitamin.

Never mind that it was back to overcast today with rumors of snow tonight....

What was the best part of your day?

a+

alli

le weekend.

Some of my favorite moments from the weekend...

Our Sens visitors who came to keep the apartment a little warmer.

Café hopping with scrumptious cappuccinos, strong espresso, and mini macaroons.

A crèpe party for 8, with guacamole thrown in for good measure.

A winter snow storm leaving everything calm and white.

Buttoning coats on top of coats, twirling scarves around my neck, pulling on thick gloves and zipping up boots to go play in the snow.

Snow angels and a bonhomme de neige named Jerry.

An awesome Féderation Française de Rugby polo, a gift from a wonderful someone.

Great music, fun dancing, and most of all

wonderful company.

What were your favorite parts from the weekend?

wishing you a happy sunday, wherever it finds you!

a+

alli

dusty friday.

There's a growing list of things I have, of things I took advantage of before living in Europe.

a laundry room in your house or apartment.

ovens.

cars

(for transportation to work. and grocery shopping)

centralized heating.

soft water.

And today there's a new one added to the list.

vacuum cleaners.

Because when you clean the apartment with a vacuum cleaner, you're spared that visual of how dirty your floors were before you decided to finally get out the broom.

But when you sweep, it's suddenly startling clear just how dusty things get.

yuck.

I think what I should really put on my wishlist though, is this awesomeness right here:

that's where it all is really.

who the hell thought something like that even needed to exist?

All the cleaning was motivated by weekend visitors that are coming in a few hours.

My roomate's birthday was Wednesday, and we've prolonged it into a sort of week long bday extravaganza.

I'm thinking there will be pizza, wine, and many crèpes this weekend.

And lots of bundling up before braving the blustery cold snow out there.

What are your weekend plans?

a+

alli

photo.  

snowy mornings.

Ok, so I might be overexaggerating just a little bit when I say that this was me this morning. 

I certainly was a little more nervous than he looks. 

When I woke up at waay too early o'clock and saw snow falling down in huge thick flakes, I was a little apprehensive about my ride to school.  In the end, ça s'est passé sans problèmes.  Thankfully no problems.

And it continues to fall!  So the ride home will also be interesting.

The students have been ok this week- I was either expecting them to be extremely calm and shell-shocked after coming back from vacation, ou bien l'invers, totally wild and stubborn. 

I'll settle with a happy medium.

Excluding....

yesterday morning when I experienced the worst student yet at the collège.

The teacher told me before the class that she could maybe be a little rowdy.

If I had any problems, I was to send her back right away.

I've only had to do that on rare occasions, and was hoping not to have to...

I could hear her even before she came into the classroom.  A shrill cry and whistle heading down the hallway.

Which didn't stop when she got into the classroom.

I told her in English and then in French, 'that's enough of that thank you, ça suffit'.

'But madame, that wasn't me' 

Soon to become her favorite phrase.

It wasn't her who talked with her neighbors, chomped on her gum, threw her bag on the floor, kept talking sans arrêt when I was explaining or writing on the board.

Oh really.

I don't like to send students out of the class, because sometimes I don't think it solves anything.  Sometimes is just seems like a perpetual cycle without any real solutions.

But I have noticed, the few times I've had to do it, that the rest of the class usually works really well after that certain troublemaker is gone. 

So when this girl had me at my nerve's end, and slapped down her ruler SO hard on the table that I thought someone threw something at the chalkboard and broke it, I knew what had to be done.

So I asked her to gather her things and leave.

Except she refused.

'It wasn't me madame'

Even though she was the only one with a ruler on the table, right in front of her. 

After at least 5 minutes of telling her again and again that,

no this was not a discussion anymore,

no I'm not kidding,

get your butt out the door,

she gathered her things in a huff, said plenty of things that I think I'm glad I didn't understand,

and tried to slam the door on the way out.

Ah, the less than charming moments of teaching middle schoolers.

I remind myself that for every bad moment like that, there's a good one.

And that sometimes, we really have no idea what exactly is going on at home.

How exactly it is in someone else's shoes.

Important to remember,

but certainly not so easy at times.

How is your Thursday so far?  Braving the snow on a bike like me?

Happy almost-weekend folks!

a+

alli

photo.

11 year old hopers. and the bike fairy.

Call it Karma.  Call it a champagne-included bday celebration in the teacher's lounge at lunch.  Heck, call it a Tuesday.  All I know is, I had a fantastic afternoon. 

Which was an uplift from 7:00am this morning when I woke up thinking, 

are you SURE it's not 11pm right now?  

I'm really in France and not in Utah anymore?

Want to hear about my afternoon? 

It started with (gasp, I'm really saying this) my kids- my favorite class.  They're a group of contagiously enthusiastic sixièmes, which puts them at about 11 years old. 

I've had them twice before, and both times I was smiling as they gathered up their huge backpacks and scurried out of class afterwards.  

Today, appropriately enough, we talked about the holidays- Christmas, traveling, New Years and such.  I had a handy worksheet for them to talk about New Years Resolutions.

They had to write 4 things they would promise to do in 2010 (starting with the example, 'I promise to listen to the teacher' of course).  

'I promise to...'

Then they had to write two examples of that they hoped for this year.

'I hope to...'

After I put them to work and walked around the class answering vocab questions for awhile, I asked a couple of them to go up to the board and read their responses to the class.  They were nearly jumping out of their seats to come up and share their answers 

(small note to self. and to all readers. 

remind me of this example when I'm on here wondering out loud 

why the bleep I decided to try my hand at teaching)

They came up two by two and read to the class, with mistakes here and there.  My favorite response though....

'I hope to be tall'

It was just so innocent and matter of fact and perfect.  

Not, I hope to grow, I hope to be tall. 

I laughed a bit, and he looked at me questioningly,

'de quoi?' 

yes. and?

'rien, ça c'est un très bon but pour 2010'

absolutely nothing, I think that's a great goal for 2010.

Then it was his partner's turn to read his answers.  

'I promise to encourage the world'

Can we just pause a moment folks.   Maybe I'm putting more meaning into a sentence from an 11 year old English learner than there should be. 

But have you ever thought about 'encouraging the world'? 

Usually I think about how the world won't stop discouraging certain days. 

Does it work the opposite way?

A sort of 'kill 'em with kindness' sort of mentality? 

I was so delighted with his response.  It made my afternoon.  

And it got better after that. 

For those of you who read about my bike-dragging affair yesterday, 

read on.

After arriving yesterday in front of the bike shop, completely exhausted and exasperated that it was closed, I left my bike locked across the street.  

There really wasn't anything else I could do... I certainly wasn't going to drag it back another mile and a half back to work. 

After work today, I walked straight there, hoping against hope that no one had decided to snag it 

(even though they wouldn't have gotten very far considering the back wheel WOULDN'T TURN).

I was SO relieved to see it sitting there when I turned the corner. 

As I walked up to it though, I noticed a yellow piece of paper stapled around the frame.

The first thing I thought was, great.  It's a ticket.  Bum bike and now I have to pay a fine. 

So I was a little surprised to open it up and find 

'velo ok.  roues. pneus.' and a couple other illegible scrawlings. 

'bike ok. wheels. tires'?

Whatever.  I crumpled the note and put it in the front basket, and unlocked my bike to take it across the street into the store.

I lifted up the back wheel like I had to do to drag it 109384098 blocks yesterday, and set it in the street.

Except.

When I set down the back tire, it didn't skid against the pavement in protest.

It rolled.

IT ROLLED!

The bike fairy!

I was totally shocked.  And was until I got across the street, came through the door, and found the infamous bike guy.  

'Monsieur, vous avez repairé mon vélo?!!'

Um hello dude, did you fix my bike?

To which he responded, 'um oui, bien sur.  and I also filled up the tires for you and replaced

two bolts that wouldn't stay put'

To which I thought, where the HECK am I?  The country so thoroughly reputed for closing pile à l'heure for their 2 hour lunch break.  So concerned with their coffee breaks

to care about customer service.

I was in shock.  

He seemed not at all put out, and wouldn't even let me pay.

'Allez, sauve toi.  A plus tard!' he said as he held the door for me

a friendly, 'get outta here, we'll see ya later.'

So I rode my bike home.  Both wheels rolling.

France, I stand corrected.  

So tell me your Tuesday story!

a+

alli

post-vacation mondays.

Hello friends !

Hoping you had a wonderful happy and merry season.

And that getting back to things isn't too tough.

If you were followers of my blog last year, senscerely yours, you already know that at times I have an uncanny knack for talking to the wrong phone guy, searching everywhere except the most obvious place, and battling with French Photomaton machines.

Well, dear readers, I'd like to add a new character building experience to the list.  Even though this one has less to do with French bureaucracy, and more to do with the sheer bad vibes of the first Monday back to work après vacances.

It all started the Thursday before vacation.  My suitcases were packed, my classes were planned, I was pumped for the holidays.  Should have known then, letting my guard down was dangerous.  I was enjoying my afternoon bike ride back to work when a run in with the sidewalk edge seriously cramped my style.  You see, there's this little part of my ride where I have to cross two crosswalks, connected in the middle by a concrete barrier-ish thing and a lampost.  To avoid the lampost, you have to weave in a sort of S, from bottom to top.  Imagine your little bike writing out an 'S' on the sidewalk.  The S passed uneventfully, but then got squished at the end, quite inconveniently.  My back tire rammed into one of the edges of the sidewalk, and halfway across the crosswalk my bike stopped rolling completely.  The front tire was intact, but the back was wedged against the wheel cover, preventing any movement whatsoever. 

It left me only one option- rolling my bike the rest of the way to school.  Except since the back tire would no longer BUDGE, I had to steer the front wheel and pick up the back wheel by the bike seat.  And continue in that way for the next quarter mile.  Did I mention I was in the middle of a blizzard?  Well that's because I wasn't.  But just IMAGINE how bad that would have been : )

It was soon extremely clear that I would have to leave my bike at the middle school during the holidays.  There was no way I would have the time to WALK my bike all the way back to my apartment, retrieve my suitcase, and then walk ALL the way back to the train station.  Thankfully, I found an angel of an art teacher that gave me a ride to my apartment and then to the station.  Seriously wouldn't have made it without her. 

So this morning I walked to class, and was immensely relieved to find my bike sitting in the same place as I left it that lonely Friday afternoon.  Slightly frostbitten, but untouched.  I got to school early, knowing that I would have to brave the walk to the bike store to see if I can get it repaired.  So I somewhat gracefully (read: probably not in the least bit) did that awkward bike drag about a mile and a half to the bike store.  Every so often I would have to pause and let my fingers gain back some feeling (thanks to both grandmas for contributing to the project, by the way.  The leopard print gloves from Grandma Lou and earmuffs from Grandma Happ were a HUGE help) or switch my steering and dragging arm.  All the while adjusting the pedals so they wouldn't ram into my shins.  A mile and a half.

And it really wouldn't be a French ending to the story unless I throw in that last detail that yes, the bike store was closed when I got there.  Wouldn't you FREAKING know it.  Expect it.  You probably knew even before I started that first paragraph.  It was such a wonderful addition to my Monday morning, I could have cried tears of joy.  Except they certainly wouldn't have been joyous.  So I locked up my bike, said the second prayer that it would be there when I returned, and hustled back to work. 

So that was my first lundi back from vacation.  How is yours going so far ?

a+

alli