Pancake Dinner

This past week I've finally started noticing improvements in my French. I realized it the other day when I could go in a store, ask the worker something, and get what I needed easily without having to rehearse the dialogue in my head beforehand.This whole time I've felt like my French hasn't really been going anywhere, but I'm finally starting to notice that daily interactions have been much easier for me lately and fewer people respond in English when I ask for help, directions, etc. Woohoo!

Adorable French twins with their adorable scarves

Today was another abundantly sunny day and it just so happened that nobody in our program had class, so a handful of us went to Places des Vosges for une pique-nique. Katie, our Paris by Site professor, keeps talking about this "sexy cheese" that we all need to try, so I decided to go to the fromagier and buy some. The fromagier was quite possibly the stinkiest place I've ever  been. I really don't like the taste of strong cheese (or the smell of it), so I was happy to see that there wasn't anybody in front of me in the store. I could walk in, hold my breath, get my sexy cheese, and be out without being gassed to death. Fromagiers are so stinky that even when the doors are closed, you can still smell them from a few shops down. Yuck. The cheese is actually called Brillat Savarin and it's kind-of a mix between brie, swiss, and cream cheese. It's creamy and has a bit of a tang to it- I'd never had anything like it before, but it was good! We spent the majority of the afternoon in the park just soaking up the sun and goofing around. We also spent a decent amount of time staring at the cutest little French baby twins that were dressed so adorably and wearing scarves. How precious!

For dinner tonight, I decided to make my host family scrambled eggs and pancakes from the mix that my parents sent me last week. I'm used to making them on a griddle, so it was a little difficult and time-consuming for me to make pancakes for 7 people using only one pan on the stove, but they didn't mind; they were just happy to have an American meal (and Madame was thrilled that she didn't have to cook). Before they opened the syrup, they asked me if it was sweet or savory and when I replied sweet, they got confused, put their pancakes back, and said "oh, it's for dessert?" They were perplexed when I described that even though it's sweet, we have it for breakfast (and sometimes dinner). They were asking me how to properly eat pancakes, which I couldn't help but find a little entertaining since it's so inherent to us. It was nice being on the other side of things for once! I made half of them blueberry and half plain and every last one was eaten. The kids even scraped the bowl of batter so they could each try and flip their own individual mini-pancakes. Geoffroy loved them so much that he couldn't stop smiling. At the end of the meal, he even poured some maple syrup and ate it right from his spoon. Kind of gross if you ask me, but I expect nothing less from a 13 year old boy. Madame said that I had won him over and she asked me for the recipe so that she could make them for Geoffroy more often. I also got a kick out of them pronouncing Aunt Jemima like "ow-nt jay-MEE-mah" :)

Affectueusement,

Katie

Our pique-nique