I made the best stew ever for dinner last night, if I do say so myself. {^_^}
Backstory: there's an event coming up next month, Family Night, where each of the students makes a dish to bring to a potluck dinner. A discussion I had with my host mother earlier made me think of making stew -- serves lots, is interesting, isn't all that hard, is delicious -- and I asked if I could try making it this Thursday (yesterday) as a trial run.
WOW did it turn out well! Despite the difference in ingredients, it's almost identical to the stuff we make at home. That made me happy. {^_^} The only thing wrong with it was that I put in a little too much rice -- it somehow slipped my mind that 450g of uncooked rice does not turn into 450g of cooked rice. Heh heh heh. So there was an extra cup of rice or so in there. Oh well!
I had the darnedest time finding the ingredients, though! Ah, the stuff we take for granted . . . .
The first grocery store I went to had no cheddar cheese, no onions, no sauce, and no Worcestershire (sp?) sauce, although I was expecting that to be a difficult one to find. So with ten minutes until closing time, I booked it to Monoprix, and spent most of the remaining ten minutes hunting down a tiny bottle of W. sauce and trying, unsuccessfully, to find cheddar cheese. I ended up having to use little slices of cheddar/emmenthal mix designed to go on burgers. {^_^}
And it turned out fantastically! My host mother was very pleased, and I thought at first she was just humoring me -- you know, when you cook something, you can't really taste it properly? I thought, at dinner, that it hadn't turned out too well, but I had some for lunch and it's pretty close to perfect. {^_^}
If you can’t tell, I’m in a very good mood today. It was a perfect day, except I dressed too warmly – one would think it’s June already here! The crocuses are in full bloom, the sun is hot, the clouds are high, and it smells like flowers everywhere – although that could just be because there’s a florist every other shop near my house. Okay, I exaggerate – but not by much. It was too nice a day to stay indoors for long, so as soon as school was out, I went wandering in the centre ville and Petite France for a couple of hours. The light was gorgeous, and the air was wonderful. According to Mme Hardenberg, it was hotter today in Strasbourg than it was in Barcelona.
I went to the open-air market in Place Broglie this afternoon, looking for a backpack large enough for my schoolbooks but smaller than my computer-backpack, and came away with a really pretty soft woolen shawl, very dressy, very classy, in a dark rusty color – and for only 20 euro. Oh yes – and a backpack. {^_^} Which cost twice as much as the shawl, I kid you not! Or, well, it would have, had it not been 50% off. *phew* Who knew a simple backpack could cost 40 euro?! I saw a couple marked at 70. That’s ridiculous.
Have I mentioned lately how grateful I am that I know how to sew? The only thing that makes my new backpack not-quite-perfect is the ugly logo stitched on the front, but I know how to take care of that! {^_^}
I also replaced the headphones for my iPod, which broke the other day when I dropped them in the tram, with these awesome little squishy earbuds that cancel almost as much outside noise as Dad’s fancy noise-canceling headset – and without the pressure headache those things give me. They actually fit inside the ear, like earplugs, which took some getting used to, but at least they’re the right size; the ones that came with the iPod were just a little too big, which was REALLY uncomfortable if I wanted to wear them for more than two minutes at a time.
We played a game in one of my English classes today (at my internship, which I promise to relate in more detail later) – any of my high school friends who come across this journal will recognize it, and maybe Meg too – you had Mme Bree for a while. She had this game where we’d have to try to think of as many words in a certain category (verbs, animals, jobs, etc) starting with a certain letter, and any word you had that another group didn’t won your group a point. That’s a little complicated. And I can’t think of any better way to say it. Oh well. I introduced it in the English class this afternoon, and they loved it – prof and all! I made a bit of a faux pas though – the teacher had asked me not to let on that I speak French, to make the students speak English to me. At one point, I got the impression that neither the kids nor the teacher really understood the point of the game, and as they were all speaking French, I put in a comment in French, automatically. Wow. Sudden silence descended, and all the students looked at each other with their mouths open, and a few of them said, in unison, “Mais elle parle français!” in the same tone of awe you would use if a statue started reciting Molière. {^_^} It was a fun reaction, but the teacher was kind of annoyed. Oops. I didn’t mean to. Mais tant pis – I enjoyed it!
So, all in all, a very good day indeed. Tonight, I think Nancy and I are going to try to go see a movie after dinner; unfortunately, I seem to have missed L’Isle aux Tresors – it’s not playing anywhere. No pirates for Claire today.
Bisous!
Current Mood: 
ecstatic
ecstatic