les repas francais

I've definitely fallen behind on posting, but I'm trying to stop doing that.

This weekend was an EXPLOSION of eating. Ugggh. On Tuesday, Jackie and Valerie and I decided to have a pastry lunch, so we tried a new place ten minutes away from campus, which was definitely worth the walk in the cold.

Best lunch ever: Cherry Grumble and a Cafe Au Lait

Valerie's Himalaya (I think) and some macaroons.

Jackie's AMAZING chocolate fondant.

On Friday we went to this quasi-chain called the Ed Wood Cafe for a friend's birthday. The best way to describe it is a stereotype of an "American" restaurant. It's sort of decorated like a diner, except everything is hot pink, and there were life-sized statues of Marilyn Monroe and Elvis, with big video screens playing Scooby Doo and other cartoons in the background. But it was better than it sounds, considering that we're currently in FRANCE. Anyway, Valerie and I shared the most AMAZING milkshake ever:

(Mint Chocolate Chip)

Then on Sunday, a bunch of us met up at the Jardin Publique to have a picnic in the cold. It was really fun, and I'm glad we actually did it after talking about having a picnic for two months. Except that the wires definitely got crossed, so we ended up with six people and four baguettes, in addition to our sandwiches. But too many baguettes are never a bad thing, I guess.

This is a bad picture, but I also ate half of a (really amazing) Cannele.

There's always something going on at Quinconces, in Centre Ville (downtown), and for the next whole MONTH it's a fair, so of course we went over there next. It was pretty much like your average American fair with the same type of rides and games, except the normal fair food was a little bit more French (I guess). There weren't any funnel cakes.

But there were oversized waffles covered in whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles!

And they DEFINITELY had oversized Beignets (Mascottes?) covered in sugar and Nutella! I know from experience.

Yeah, so....I pretty much wasn't hungry at ALL today, for obvious reasons.

In semi-unrelated news, my host mom is turning into my parents. The other day she was serving me vegetable soup, and she definitely said, but in French, "I won't give you any carrots because I know you hate them" (which is what my dad says to me OFTEN because I could eat carrots day and night).

In addition, I had a bizarre but apparently authentic food lesson at dinner the other night. I'm excited because this is authentic knowledge that I can bring back to the States with me. Except that I don't know if I actually will. In addition to our other food, there was a bowl of small radishes, each one smaller than the size of a Quarter. I was just eating them by popping the radishes into my mouth, like how normal people eat radishes. Joanna and Ynel were surprised, though, because they asked me if that was how I always ate them, and then Ynel proceeded to give me a lesson on the real way to do so, while Joanna looked on and added her own advice. Apparently, in France, you cut the radish in half. Then you take a chunk of butter and stick it on one half of the radish. Then you put some salt on that, and then you put the other half of the radish on top. So you have a mini radish & butter sandwich! I definitely did NOT expect that. But I need to stop being surprised at the amount of butter that we eat on a daily basis: "Amelia, some butter for your soup?" "Amelia, are you sure you don't want butter on your rice?" and etc.