How cold is your apartment?

This sounds like a 'Yo Mama' game. How cold is our apartment? The olive oil went solid in the pantry...

Primroses are the only organisms happy at this temperature

Rave of the Day: Pre-made garlic and herbs in butter

Today's rave is for a convenience food I never knew I was missing. What you see here is a log of pretty good butter, already infused with a healthy dose of garlic and parsley.

My cell phone photo was terrible so why not add a filter?

This product is meant to live in your freezer. You take it out and cut off a slice whenever you need to sauté something, for grilling, or prepare a few snails as Escargot de Bourgogne. Certainly, it is something you could make yourself, but that defeats a little bit of the purpose here. This is a convenience to make daily life more tasty. If I'm spending an afternoon cooking up something special I don't mind peeling garlic and chopping herbs. It's when I'm rushing to make some kind of food item after a day of work and with a toddler commanding one arm and hip, that is when this product rocks my world.

And we're back...

It's the "rentrée" here in France, or well, technically Tuesday will be. It's the time when everyone, young and old, comes back from 1,000 weeks of summer holiday and gets back to work. There's still a festive feeling to it, as people greet friends and neighbors they haven't seen in a very long time. Think 'Back to School' with all the outfit planning and excitement, except everyone goes back on the same day and the grownups are doing it all too.

It's particularly nice for me now because the nannies and shopkeepers are back. Living in the countryside is often delightful, but when the only real grocery store within 10 miles is closed and you don't have a car, well, it starts to get complicated. Today I was finally able to pick up some food easily. It was light and wonderful, the new spring in my step makes me feel like I've lost 5 pounds. Actually, come to think of it, I probably have.

A "Triple"

French apartments come unfurnished. And by 'unfurnished' I mean there is NOTHING there, I think that even the door knobs are optional. We used to wonder why all the apartment listings had photos of the toilet. Now we know - that is, sadly, an optional feature! Our current apartment has no lights, and certainly no appliances (but it does have a toilet). 

I have gotten a fridge, and a washing machine, but we're still living without a stove or oven. That's ok, it's summer, right? Time to eat lots of salads.... It's amazing how often one actually uses the stove.

So I'm shopping for stoves and discovered this crazy contraption - a stove, oven, and dishwasher all-in-one. They are never cheap, even second-hand, so I don't think I'm going to live my new dream of washing my dishes in the compartment underneath my oven, but I do think that would be a crazy-Euro brand of awesome.