Bonjour, Kelly!

health nut

Want to know what I've eaten today? For breakfast, I had some cereal and a piece of flan that I bought yesterday. Note that flan here is different than the caramel custardwe are used to -- it's custard, but thicker, more vanilla flavored, baked in a tart crust, and my number-one-best-buddy-high-five favorite thing to eat here.
I bought it yesterday from the little confection shop - the only one open on sunday. Their flan is good, but it's not the best.
When I was at the *good* bakery this morning, picking up fresh bread, I saw that today they made flan, too. Their flan is great and they make it seldom. Having already eaten a piece for breakfast, I rationalized that I could buy another piece and have it tomorrow!

....Or, I could buy another piece, and have it with coffee for lunch! So, for lunch, I ate a second piece of flan and a banana. I'm telling myself that it's not that terribly unhealthy, since I didn't eat anything else. It really would have been a shame to wait, anyway, as the perfect crumb of the pate sable crust would have been ruined after sitting for so long.

Speaking of health nuts, I'm in good company here in France. You know how we talk about America being a real meat-and-potatoes kind of place? America is a PETA activist compared to the Jura. I'm not sure why they sell other vegetables, as all I've been served at French people's homes has been meat and potatoes in some combination.

In fact, here are the three regional speciality dishes:
1. Fondue - made with comte cheese, a cote du Jura wine, and bread. Period.
2. Raclette - melted slices of cheese poured over potatoes and sausage - usually with another vegetable, which I've completely hogged every time I've eaten it, since I'm not too heartily down with the saus.
3. Tartiflette - chopped up thick-cut bacon, layered with potatoes, covered in cream and [comte, duh] cheese and baked.

Finish it off with a slice of cake and some whiskey, chain smoke for an hour, and you can call yourself francais.

These pictures are from last tuesday, Mardi Gras, when a student had me over for crepes.








Somehow, the evening usually turns into a drinking games -- either song-based or, as shown here, a variation of 'quarters.' They never do these games with beer, like any good American would, but with sparkling wine, different mixed drinks, schnapps-like (gag) beverages.


I don't know how they're not all dead by the age of 28. Seriously.

posted by kelly @ 12:02 PM