Wednesday 17 October 2012

a birthday and the best of lunches



It was my friend's birthday yesterday (Happy post-birthday day Becca!) and we all decided that the best way to celebrate was with TAPAS! Eating out still feels like the role play exercises we did for our school exams and I was so proud of myself when ordering the platter "la petite faim" only to realize from the waiter's puzzled expression I had actually ordered "la petite femm,e s'il vous plait!" Clearly I have a long way to go.
Loving food in a different country forces you to get out there and talk to people. Granted I know mainly food terms now and most of the conversations I have initiated with my corridor friends here have started with "THAT SMELLS SO GOOD." but it still counts!

Anyway, at the meal the we picked out a couple of sharing platters and this one was my favorite because it had PRAWNS.


The meat just fell away from the stick and the weird circle things are called panisses. We all still have no idea what they were, only that they were delicious and that there weren't enough of them. After, we decided to copy the French and go out for a quiet drink, all choosing the frenchiest drink we could think of, pastis. For anyone who actually reads this and doesn't know what pastis is, it tastes like gaviscon cough medicine. I tried really hard to drink it but took photos instead so anyone else can AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS.
As with all birthdays, there was cake. And goodness did we did have cake. Niamh is the genius who picked out this lovely...
All of us stared in awed silence for about 10 minutes until I was brave enough to cut up the most beautiful cake any of us have ever seen. It felt wrong to destroy it but I will do anything in the name of  pear and chocolate creamy cakey goodness. mmmm.

Today was a good day. Can days which kick off with muesli, applesauce, yoghurt, kiwi and cinammon be anything but? I am breakfast mad - I even plan it just before going to sleep and it's the best motivation I have for waking up so early in the morning for class. I had lunch with Niamh who is equally food obsessed. After talking about our mutual love of english muffins, she told me about her dad's alternative to McDonald's  egg mcmuffins and we decided that we had to give it a go. IT WAS AMAZING. Wholegrain english muffin with dijon mustard, ham, egg fried with comt
é cheese, spinach, tomato. We had a simple salad on the side with raspberry vinaigrette, heaven. The egg with melted cheese on top looked so good in the pan it almost didn't even make it too the plate.


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