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.

25 Ways to Wear a Scarf

When in France, don't forget to wear a scarf!

Here's a fun video to perfect your scarf tying. I find I tend to the Bunny Ear and the European Loop. But I want to remember to try the Infinity!

Quick Foie Gras Burger

Perhaps all I really need to do for this post is translate the text of the ad. The rest of it sorta speaks for itself...

The Quick Foie Gras burger

Quick'n Foie Gras
Block of Foie Gras from France

GOOD RESOLUTIONS CAN WAIT

With the Quick'n Foie Gras good resolutions can wait!
A real slab of French foie gras delicately pan fried on a pure beef burger with onion sauce and lettuce on a whole wheat bun with split wheat. Here is a good way to prolong the pleasure of the holidays, at a low price!

Indeed 2€90 converts today to $3.86. I would worry about any steak and foie gras that cheap.

Checking things off the list

My New Year's resolution is to have a more positive attitude about life, and specifically this adventure in France. I know that things are what we make of them, and I know I don't want to look back on this time with regret. So I just have to buckle down and do the things I'd hoped to do. Easier said than done but here's a start.

One thing I've wanted to do for a while is make another set of Clotilde's Napkins. I say 'another' because I made an orange-themed set and immediately gave them away to Michele, the mother of Eric's best guy-friend Malo. So I ordered some more fabric and my sister brought it when she visited in September and then it sat for four months. Let's say it was marinating.

The finished product

What finally brought the project to fruition was an antiques market in the Marais. I always hunt down the antique linen stall and continue my quest for white-on-white bed linens with my own monogram (have to keep it challenging or I'd bring home too many beautiful pillowcases and linen sheets...) In that stall was an alphabetical box of labels that had been manufactured to mark one's clothes back when garments were sent to a communal laundry. Here is my set of "CT" initials:

Antique garment labels

They just happen to be the perfect size to 'label' my napkins. It makes me happy to mark them as my work, since Anonymous was a Woman. (note, I do not consider these to be masterpieces of American art, just my own pretty napkins).

Napkin labels are sewn into the existing seam. Doubled over there is no raw edge.

To add to our lovely tablescape we have these pretty napkin rings. They should be redundant since the point of the mismatched napkins is to ensure that each person has his or her own print, but since we already had 'Madame' and 'Monsieur' rings I include them in the photo.

The labels came in a gross (144 labels, what was happening with the metric system back then?) so I have plenty more for plenty more napkins. But that will be a much later project.

Plenty more labels!

While I was sitting here sewing these, on Sunday January 13, 2013, I got a text message from my sister. Her water had broken and she was sitting in a hospital bed awaiting the arrival of my nephew Edward. I finished the sewing thinking of her labor and chatting with her when she was available. Now I can't look at these napkins without thinking of him. Edward's birthday napkins. I suspect this is another set I will be giving away....

Happy Halloween!

Eric's nanny told me on no uncertain terms that she is NOT a fan of Halloween and will not be celebrating it at her house. As an American I thought that was a spoil-sport position but didn't tell her so, just tried to tell her about why I personally like the holiday.

Then we saw how it is celebrated in France and came to understand her position a bit better. We went for a walk and saw a few groups of children out trick or treating. They seemed happy and it seemed just like home. We got home and had one pair of trick or treaters, a witch and Spiderman. When we opened the door these two 6 year olds exclaimed

"Bonbons ou le souffle de la mort!"

Wait, what??? They translate 'trick or treat' as "Candy or the breath of Death"??? I see why she thinks it's morbid.

The next morning I took Eric over to her house as usual. There was a lot of vandalism in this tiny town of few inhabitants. I have just looked and can't find a good link but in the time we've been here (before and this sojourn) we have noticed that it does seem like there is more vandalism and car burning in France than we're accustomed to in America. It seems that Halloween is simply used as an excuse for even more vandalism, which is really too bad because for me it was never that, it was always dressing up and eating candy and bobbing for apples and carving pumpkins and hay rides and autumn fun.

Some of the joy of our holiday was lost in its translation across the Atlantic, and that's really too bad.

A Sign

This is a Pedestrian Crossing sign warning drivers to be aware of pedestrians exiting the train station. After getting the photo home and really looking at it I guess that figure has an identifiable gender but just glancing at it I got some very conflicting gender cues. I'm not sure why a pedestrian sign needs a gender at all?

Jargon

Daddy just forwarded me an email I could hardly decipher, having something to do with the astounding mountain of paperwork he has to complete.

I responded that it looked like a TPS report to me.

His response: "Not at all. This is a TIS of my EdT for L2 in the SFA of the UFR. Not kidding."