The Triumphant Return

My, it's been a long and crazy couple of months. 

Here's a bit of what you missed:

(OK, maybe more than a bit.)

 Our joint Christmas presents

 Christmas presents to one another

 A Christmas dinner of truffle-stuffed chicken (a.k.a. poulet demi-deuil or chicken in half-mourning)

And a statue cat watching over the feast

 A long trip home to visit the [kitty] grandparents

 A fun-filled visit with family

 And friends

 And Roman!

 The hanging of a vintage Peruvian tapestry (Thanks, D&K!)

 My recent obsession with knitting socks

 Finally finishing some Pinterest Christmas ornaments

 "The best hot chocolate in the world"...not really, but it was decent

(With my dear foodie-friend Lucy)

 A pâte à choux stealing (1-year-old!!!) kitten

 Some amazing Japanese beer, sake

And sushi

 St Louis' first (and maybe last) snow of the season

 Being social at Plush

The beginning of an epic knitted quilt

(which will be documented as it progresses over the next 20 or so years)

And more socializing for Kevin's Birthday at Diablitos

Along with the crazyness of the past few months there has been a trend of eating to much bad food. I know it comes with the territory of traveling home and celebrating the holidays but we need to get our eating habits back on track. 

To kick-start the change, we've made a plan to spend at least the next month eating a pescetarian (mostly vegetarian) diet. We already have some favorite veggie-centric meals in our repertoire but I'm planning to seek out lots of new recipes. I'll be sharing our favorites, new and old on here in case anyone else is feeling the post-holiday sluggishness as well. 

And along with this already exciting plan for the near future of the blog, we'll also be detailing our first splash into the real estate market here in Saint Louis. Eek!

A Very Pinterest Christmas

 My Mom and Grandma made a surprise visit out to see us a few weeks ago and wouldn't you know it, we put them right to work.

 Without my dad's master tie-down skills or a roof rack, we decided we felt more comfortable in my car. Yes, transported a 7' Christmas tree in my little Saab. It's really amazing how much interior room there is in such a little car. All I can say is the Swedes are great engineers!

Oh, and my Grandma is somewhere behind the tree.

After picking up the tree, and since we were already in the right part of town, we stopped of at JoAnn fabrics for lots of crafting supplies and then at Lucky Sushi House (which was Amazing! Far better than I expected from a tiny, strip-mall sushi joint) for some yummy Japanese offerings.

After the requisite grunting and groaning, and cutting of lower limbs, the tree was finally up and the resident perfectionists (Mom and Michael) took to covering the tree in our new LED, warm white tree lights.

Our first project was this beautiful tree-skirt. (Please excuse the cat hair.) We used this online tutorial and made it out of a pretty gray linen on top, silver edging (which was much more difficult to work with than I had anticipated, thank goodness for mom's amazing sewing skills) and a bottom weight red cotton for the bottom, which has the added benefit of making the whole thing reversible. (I excel at run-on sentences)

Here's a view of the back. And more cat hair.

Pepin has unfortunately decided that the tree-skirt is his new play thing. He jumps and slides all over on it. Some mornings we were finding it half-way across the living room. Thankfully that has mostly stopped now that we have some presents under the tree to weigh it down. And in the coming year I'm planning to make some ties for the back opening.

And now we come to the Pinterest section of the Christmas tree. (For those of you unfamiliar with Pinterest, I would go ahead and define is as a virtual cork board. You know all of those times when you are just perusing the internet and think to yourself "Wow, I need to remember that!), well with Pinterest, you are now very easily able to click a little button that you've installed on your web-browser, be in Explorer, Safari, Firefox, etc. that says "Pin It", put it into one your personalized catergories, and bam! It's there on your Pinterest board whenever you think to look back and remember all those things you mean to make or do.)

(Also, the site is still invite only, so if you would like an invite, leave a comment with your e-mail address and I will be happy to send one along.)

These citrus slices seemed the easiest and really turned out beautiful. I love how the light shines through if you get them positioned just right in front of a bulb.

And although this tree-topper had no tutorial attached to it, with a little hot glue, yarn and styrofoam, we were able to figure this one out (Well, Mom was able to figure it out).

There are quite a few more half-finished projects sitting on the dining room table but they will have to wait until family Christmas presents are finished. I am excited for the ornaments to come but on the whole, I am very happy with our half-finished product:

It's Beginning to Look...

 You guessed it: A lot like Christmas!

Since the French don't have that pesky Thanksgiving holding back Christmas decorations, we got an early start (this coincided with the Thanksgiving decorating) on bringing that festive spirit to the GTL lounge. Michael, Katrina and Peter make sure the tree was sparkling and blinking (much to my chagrin, lights are never static over here, always blinking).

These XL handmade snowflakes that Amanda is holding eventually hung from the ceiling mostly thanks to Francis, the GTL maintenance man and his XL ladder.

 As is customary this time of year, we have been hitting up the local Christmas markets in town, soaking in all the festive smells and sights but mostly, the food and vin chaud (hot, mulled wine).

 The indoor decoration stand was jam-packed with festive folks looking to spruce up their homes.

And much to our surprise, Place de la République, which was largely under construction last year has been miraculously transformed with a veritable winter wonderland complete with a rotating tree ride (which was present last year but placed in the middle of a street during the construction) a giant ferris wheel and an ice skating rink.

Warm and sugary churros and hot wine. Can life be any better?

The next week it snowed like mad, quite literally shutting down all operations in Metz. I have sadly come to realize now that I have a car here in this weather that not only are sidewalks never shoveled, but only main roads are ever plowed, leading to a slippery trip to teach English on Tuesday.

 What else to do but go to the markets again?

 Oops...forgot to rotate this picture! Here I am though, cracking open one of the most expensive confections we've found here: 8 candied chestnuts (marrons glacés) for a whopping 10.99€ (~ $15)! Mostly though, I liked the tin and totally plan to bring it back. I'll take a picture of it sometime soon.

Mmmm, glorious, scrumptious, candied goodness

I'm gonna miss Christmas in France.

Thanksgiving, Extended Edition

The wonderfully welcomed view that we woke up to on Thanksgiving morning

I heard that Wellsboro woke up to the same view, it made me feel closer to home which is also a good thing on Thanksgiving day. 

 Thanksgiving Day, American-style fun at GTL

Full on tackle football

Thankfully it was too muddy and slippery for many big hits, mostly people were just sliding into each other and the snow and mud made for a softer landing. 

I can't wait to do that laundry!

I was unaware that Michael had been home until I walked into the bathroom to find this. He was kind enough to rinse it all out and hang it to dry at least.

 We enjoyed an excellent, as usual, meal at GTL complete with plenty of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes along with many, many interesting dishes from any number of cuisines. After dinner was the "talent" segment. The blurry picture above is of Katrina and Jessie (hope I'm spelling that right) during their "GTL Ballad: 21 going on 22". It was a hysterical re-mix of the ever popular "16 going on 17" from the The Sound of Music that confronted the trials and tribulations of being a GTL scholar. 

After their little ditty...we performed. Well, not Michael and I; any of you that know Michael know that he wouldn't be caught dead on a stage performing. No, the day before the dinner our friend Peter asked me if I would be willing to do a song with him and I agreed...reluctantly. We practiced all that afternoon and ran through the song a few times with the mic that day. I would be lying if I didn't tell you that I was incredibly nervous, but that's what happens when you haven't been on a stage in nearly 7 years I suppose. I'm even nervous about posting this...my hands are sweating. But, here you have it. Peter and I singing "Baby, It's Cold Outside".

Oh, and if anyone with any power at GTL is reading this, please do not hold the performance portion after dinner, I thought I was going to explode. Oh, and a big thanks to Michael for putting up with hearing this song on constant repeat for 24 hours and for recording the song.

On Saturday we got a little out of order (you'll see why later); we made ourselves some yummy eggnog (for the record, eggnog with cognac=amazing!) and lit up our little palm tree thing.

Since we'll be leaving in a mere 2.5 weeks, it'll have to suffice until we can get home to enjoy our parents' full-sized Christmas trees.  

We struggled for a long time that night to come up with something to make for dinner. We ended up settling on an epicurious recipe for Veal Cacciatore mainly because we have a lot of polenta in our pantry to use up in the next few weeks. On top of everything else, I feel like our time in France has opened up my eyes to new meats that I never really considered eating in the states and veal is certainly at the top. Veal has always had a bad rep in the stated because of some particular farms that were confining and abusing the animals and the market has never really returned. Here in Europe however, people care about their food in a way I have never seen before (OK, the Culinary Institute of America did have a high respect for food). There are very strict regulations in place for animal treatment and food safety and everywhere you look, there are these incredible looking, incredible tasting meats readily available in the supermarket (rabbit, quail, guinea fowl, lamb, veal, horse even?) and you know that it didn't live in the horrible conditions that we see in US factory farms. Sorry to get up on my soapbox but in short, if you have access to humanely kept veal, it is a delicious, lean, and tender meat, and it was oh so yummy in this particular dish.

Despite our wonderful Thanksgiving meal at GTL, I felt that I had missed out. I missed stuffing myself with stuffing and potatoes and lots of gravy. I missed the leftovers. So, Michael being the wonderful husband that he is, agreed to help me make a second Thanksgiving feast just for the two of us. 

And because there was only two of us, and because I frequent the food section of the New York Times all too often, we decided to try a new turkey breast method and recipe. The turkey breast is first brined overnight then it is tightly wrapped in seran wrap and tin foil before being effectively steamed in a low oven until the internal temperature is 135°.

I can't even being to describe how strange the turkey breast looked and felt after coming out of the oven. 

 

Seriously, it was gross!

The turkey turned out to be delicious although we weren't too sure about the honey and roasted garlic glaze that went on at the very end, it never really set and although it tasted delicious it was just kind of slimey. On the whole though, we loved the steaming  method and plan to use it again but perhaps with a different glaze at the end.

The meal was rounded out with a green bean casserole and stuffing (both from The Pioneer Woman blog, her food always looks amazing), basic mashed potatoes, gravy and my family's uncooked cranberry relish kicked up a notch (1 bag cranberries, 1 entire orange (skin and all), 1-1" piece of ginger and 3/4 c sugar blended in the food processor until finely chopped). Oh, and we drank one last bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau for the year with the meal. Really, everything turned out perfectly and even though we've done our first "married" Thanksgivings at GTL, it was really nice to have a night and the dinner just to ourselves.

Less than 3 weeks people...!

One Year France-iversary

"Long day of travel from Dublin to Brussles then on train from Brussles. Arrived by taxi at 4:30, got oriented and went to Cora, bought makings for tuna sandwiches (HORRIBLE!)."

My Pittsburgh bff and soul-sister, Adrienne (and her finace Shannon) got us a cute little diary as a wedding present before we shipped off to Europe last year. That text above is what I wrote (ignore the poor grammer, or absense of grammer, really...the diary only has a small space for writing and I was dang tired by this point in the evening) in the August 10th, 2009 slot.

Michael and I have spent the past few days reminiscing on what it was like only one year ago for us. At the time I had been to Europe once in the past, at 16, with my Mommy, on very planned, structure, and guided choir tour. Michael had never been farther out of the USA than the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. We were completely unprepared for what actually happened on that first day of travel through Europe. There were plane delays galore, three train transfers (in an unfamiliar language) and one of our trains actually split in half at one stop, half going to our destination and the other half (the half we were on) going to an entirely different destination. We had no idea whatsoever what was going on. One thing we were sure of though was that we would soon be eating well, but after that horrible tuna sandwich (full of unidentified crunchy things), we weren't even sure of that anymore. If we hadn't had the comfort of one another, if either one of us had gone it alone, I'm pretty sure that both of us, independently, would have been ready to hitch a ride back to Brussles and fly back home.

Thankfully, the tides soon turned and we have embraced this once-in-a-lifetime chance to eat, sleep, drink, travel, and live in Europe.

And to recap, here are some favorite moments (in no particular order) from the past year:

 Arriving in Brussles

 Curing our own olives (which we are still eating)

 Constructing Snow Ogres

 Buying our first car together

 Drinking our first Sauternes

 Car camping in Austria in the dead of winter

 Acting out The Sound of Music

 Exploring the remarkable city of Venice

 Growing herbs

 Exploring southern France

 Eating many a fabulous picnic

Swimming in rivers

 Drinking free Champagne with friends

 Eating authentic Chinese food 

 Picnicking with more friends

 Game nights at Janice and Jeramy's place

 Making stovetop pizza

 And our first pizza in our tiny oven

 Re-visiting Prague with my best friend

 Experiencing Christmas Markets in Rheims

 In Strasbourg

And in Metz

 Celebrating my 23rd

And Michael's 24th Birthdays (funny that we both chose steak)

 Making our first Christmas Eve Smorgasbord

 Celebrating our first Christmas together

 Welcoming our wonderful family to our quaint city

And going with them on a grand Catalonian adventure

 Experiencing Paris with Harry and Camille

Drinking beer in Brugges

 Witnessing a beautiful light show in our very own city

 Traveling with friends

 Eating Kebabs in Metz

 And sausages in Germany

 And Dunkin' Donuts in Berlin

And visiting the Little Mermaid herself in Copenhagen

It's been a wonderful year indeed! We only have 4 months left in this wonderful country and it will be flying by. Michael begins his last semester of school (ever!) very soon, before we know it my parents will be visiting, and after they leave we will have just over a month to get ready to jet home. Time surely flies when you're having fun!