The French lifestyle myth

The view from PA's apartment balcony--
the building in the center is part of the University of Rennes 2 where PA studies

For those of you who imagine me sitting at a cafe every afternoon with an espresso and a croissant, I will have to disappoint you. If I go out, it is for Subway, McDonalds, Chinese food, or maybe crepes if I’m hankering for some traditional French food. You can also have pizza delivered, just like at home. Otherwise, Pierre-Antoine and I just cook simple meals of pasta or rice, meat, veggies. He does insist on putting cream sauce and/or cheese on most things, which takes some getting used to. It can be delicious, yes, but also very heavy on an American stomach accustomed to sandwiches and salads for meals. And for breakfast, everyone here eats bread! Brioche (loaf of sweet bread, often with Nutella spread), croissants (not from the boulangerie bakery but bought in bulk bags from the supermarket), pain au chocolat (same as the croissants). Lots of carbs and fat, but I guess the walking (and the 80 stairs to the fifth floor where PA’s apartment is) help keep one in shape.

I miss the varieties of foods in the US—Mexican the most, cheap Asian cuisine, even American-style café foods would be nice. The spices are just not the same and are usually more bland. Hopefully, I will be able to piece together and French-ify my recipes to work here. I think cooking is my best way of de-stressing and feeling comfortable here; I can have total control of the kitchen for a few minutes, and I can do something productive, as opposed to sitting around the apartment all day.

For example, yesterday I tried to make my famous oreo cupcake recipe, but I had to convert the measurements and reduce the quantities from 24 cakes to only 6… I forgot baking powder and they came out as short, super-dense cakes of an almost flan-like consistency. PA reassured me that they tasted just fine, but they could not in all honesty be called cupcakes :/ Trial and error with ingredients and figuring out the little table-top oven I have. At least my buttercream icing tasted the same, even though I had to stir it by hand for 10 minutes for lack of an electric mixer!

The Oreo Cupcake attempt

I’m still waiting for work to pick up… So I’m still trying to listen to French tv and the conversations of my hosts to learn more French. Last night was spent comparing childhood cartoon theme songs in English and French (Pokemon, Digimon, Denver, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), listening to music (French and American), laughing over youtube videos, assembling shelves for PA’s room, seeing Alexandre and Wajd have a boxing/slapfight, and watching Wajd burn himself, the table and the carpet by dropping a hookah coal. No baguettes or berets in sight! ;)

Cultural note: Have you seen those Windows 7 commercials where the person tries to convince you that Windows 7 was their idea? They have them here too, and the premise is that a French exchange student is at a barbecue in Texas and created Windows 7 to show them what good food was… snails! Haha!

I'm only updating because I'm bored and pensive at the moment. Enjoy all my attention while you can ;)

Bisous!
L