La Commune

A few Saturdays ago I volunteered at a Slow Food fundraiser at La Commune Cafe. Most of you living in New York have heard of the Slow Food movement, as it is quite the culinary trend at the moment. But for those of you who don't know slow food is according to their website "Slow Food is a global, grassroots organization with supporters in 150 countries around the world who are linking the pleasure of good food with a commitment to their community and the environment. A non-profit member-supported association, Slow Food was founded in 1989 to counter the rise of fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world. Today, there are over 100,000 members, in 1,300 convivia – local chapters – worldwide, as well as a network of 2,000 food communities who practice small-scale and sustainable production of quality foods." I find it to be a very impressive and important organization. 

La Commune Cafe is a comunity kitchen and part of the commune libre d'Aligre association that is heavily supported by voulenteers and is a meeting space for many Slow Food volunteers. The association aims to aid  community leadership, cultural and sporting Quarter Aligre (a part of the 12th arrondissement). "The defense of its environment and its living environment, promotion of mutual assistance and solidarity among its people."

Commune libre d'Aligre (CLA) was founded in 1955 by Mr. Jeanson, Beauvau merchant market, in  solidarity and in an effort to aid people who needed assistance post-war. The CLA began in 1978 to celebrate the Aligre market and with many festivals, and local food and drink. The CLA is open to all, and is in fact dedicated to the life of the city in a spirit of conviviality and solidarity. I know this is sounding very hippy-dippy of me but ot me food is a way o connect people and land. I find that food and shared meals is a universal language. 

Since 2004, the CLA also hosts the Aligresse, a small garden where people, young and old, grow together. And in 2007 the CLA opened a coffee associative 3 rue Aligre, high place of conviviality in the neighborhood.

 

I find the CLA an amazing orgainzation and was happy to volunteer to help them and the Slow Food Movement. It was a long 13 hour day that finshed in the rain but I learned so much about produce that I had never seen before. We made Moroccan couscous, Peruvian cousa, sardine croustinis, and even a San Francisco cioppino.


We bought all the items we need at the local market. 

The mis-match crew making Tarts with Red Fruit

Julie and I took a little road trip

And we saw little hidden treasures of France. I am going to let the pictures and captions do the story telling.

 From Biarritz to Bayonne. It adorable little city is very proud of its Basque roots.

On our way for Bayonne to Arcachon was stopped by Europe's largest sand dune, to say it was odd and amazing are both understatements

 

Ready to climb?

 

 Up we go...

 All most there...

 The view!

 

AMAZING French Hippie Van

Arcachon and a very happy Julie, in her element of west coast France

We then continued our trip to Il-de-Re, a Julie find of course.

 

Off we go on our biking adventure to Phare des Baleines (a lighthouse)

 

Oyster farms, Il-de-Re produces almost 10,000 kilos (I think...) of oyseters each year, yummy!

 

 Crazy tides

 

 

 These are a few of my favorite things.... wine and Pepe

 

Le Phare, so overrated considering it took us forever and just a few wrong turns to get there.

 Look Mom...Donkeys! (I may have been on the verge of exhaustion at this point)

Bar Hemingway, baby bottles of wine, and the Hammam

So this post is long over due...

From Laura's visit over Bastille Day to Julie's visit my futon was in constant use, get your minds out of the gutter. It was wonderful to have all these friends and loved ones but somethings slipped by the wayside, case and point my blogging. 

Post Dwight and Brittany's Paris extravaganza Jebby and Katie came to visit on their way to Italy.

While their trip was short, it was certainly event filled. On day one we did a warp speed walking tour of Paris. Katie's pictures prove this by being all off angle because we did not stop to let her compose any of them. (sorry Katie, I can only walk by the Eiffel Tower so many times)

After a quick respite at my apartment we decided to go to Bar Hemingway at the Ritz. Oh la la right? Bar Hemingway is a very cool Ernest Hemingway bar, with delicious but grossly over priced cocktails. But was had to allow Jebby one macho event during his 48 hours in Paris.

But lets just say after our swanky cocktails the classy-ness of our night serverly dimished.... cheap wine in baby bottles anyone?

Le me tell you it never leads to good things or decisions. You can drink wine out of baby bottles just too damn fast. Now mom did you ever think at almost 25 years old I would be complaining about that?

Needless to say all three of us woke up with a very painful head...

Now Paris has these wonderful things called hammams. A hammam, also known as the Turkish hamam or Turkish bath, is the Middle Eastern variant of a steam bath, which can be categorized as a wet relative of the sauna. Although the first hammams originated in Arabia, and bath culture was a central part of Roman life, Turkey popularized the tradition (and is most often associated with it) by making hammams available to people of all statuses

The bathing in a hammam is a process, but let me tell you it really does sweat all the toxins (aka cheap wine) out of your system. When I first suggested the hammam to Katie she thought I said Hamas, yes as in the  terriorist group, now as that may have been one way to scare the hangover out of all of us the hammam seemed like a more relaxing way for Katie and I to get through the next few painful hours.

As with almost all fun nights, a hangover comes and the next morning, and after a few horrible hours the hangover soon does pass.... but I would like to suggest a hammam or a Turkish bath next time you want to accelerate the detox process. Alas the hammam near my house is women only so Paris really did get the better of Jebby...

Dwight's Journey Home

In his own words...

"After the closure of border patrol at Charles Degaulle due to an unattended bag that had to be exploded, the area was stormed by thousands, I sprinted to the front of the line and ran to my gate just to make my flight and then we circled ATL in the sky for 30 minutes, then sat on the runway for 45 minutes, then I was forced to spend the evening in a Holiday Inn where the conference rooms where named after types of wine... Ohhhh and I got meal vouchers for the Waffle House that was like half a mile away in the ghetto by the airport and the woman wondered why I didn't want them, but I did manage to snag an LIT before the hotel bar closed. Now that's a happy ending." 

Dwight my dear you always keep it classy.

The Hot Mess Express takes Paris

Top 5 HME comments

5. Are there wild Guinea Pigs? You know like feral cats, so I guess feral guinea pigs...

4. Brittany I hate to break it to you but Unicorns and Santa Clause aren't real

3. A four year old could diagnose me with ADD

2. At least we are the chicest hobos in Paris

1.

Visitors

I love visitors .... Here are pictures from Ali, Taylor, and I baby bottle fondue adventure

Ali and I 

Me with a baby bottle of wine

And our friend the Moulin Rouge Dancer

I still hate to study

So nothing has changed since college. I still hate to study and I am an excellent procrastinator.

However, during my studying and came across this fun little tid-bit tand thought I would share...

In Normandy there is a dish call canard au sang, literally translated duck with blood. Now here is the fun part in actuality canard au snag means the duck is smothered instead of decapitated so the bird can retain all its blood before cooking.

So happy I am gaining all this knowledge.

I had a little accident...

The universe must have listened to my last blog post and was apparently pissed that I didn't think my life was eventful. Because Tuesday morning the universe gave me all sorts of exciting things. Blood, fireman, ambulances, hospitals, and stitches just to name a few.

Tuesday was supposed to be an very normal day, busy but normal. Normal for me here in Paris is usually about 9 hours in the kitchen. So when I was beginning to de-bone my lamb and prep my vegetables for of first dish of the day I thought nothing was going to be too interesting. The recipe  called for tomatoes, and as I have learned here in France all vegetables are peeled and seeded, I began prepping my tomatoes. This is where my little oopsies happened. My tomatoes has just come out of the fridge and were slightly damp, my paring knife had just been sharpened and when removing the last stem and core of the last tomato my knife slips and the base of my thumb caught the brunt of my blade. 

Everything happened very quickly, I managed to grab some paper towels and not get blood on myself, anybody else, or anything else. We quickly realized that it was not going to be a simple band-aid, rubber glove get back to work kind of cut. The long and short of it is school was obligated to call the firemen. Here in France firemen are the ones who take you to the hospital. I would like to go on record saying that I asked if I could walk to the hospital instead of going in the ambulance, when they said no, I tried to see if I could ride up front of the ambulance and not in back on the gurney, another "no",  but on a positive note I am still stacking up evidence for the French that I am one crazy American.

After arriving at the hospital I waited for a little less than a half hour, saw a doctor, and was stitched up and out the door. All in all from cutting myself, getting patched up, and walking back to school I only wasted 2 hours ... and a little blood.

Oh and it only cost me 25 euro, thank you socialized medicine. So take that France. Just when you thought it was safe to let me handle knives I make you think twice.

I think they did a pretty good job don't you?

 

So ha ha Pam you are not the only Brewster with stitches.... and mine come with a better story. 

Quotes

Terribly sorry there has been a lull in the posting, I have had really nothing exciting to say. Well mom got a knee which is awesome but other than that my life had been cook, study, gym, sleep and repeat. 

So since I have no fun stories and no life advice I am passing along words of wisdom from others...

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

-Michael Pollan (In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto) A great book for anyone who is curious about how food has changed in the developing world, and more applicable than his first book An Omnivores Dilemma

If you can’t dazzle them with dexterity, baffle them with bull.

-P.T. Barnum

Don’t sweat the petty things, and don’t pet the sweaty things.

-David Broadfoot

Be who you are and say what you feel ‘cause people who mind don’t matter, and people who matter don’t mind.

-Dr. Seuss

When you were born, everyone around was smiling and you were the one crying. Live life so that when you die, everyone around you is crying and you are the one smiling.

-Unknown

Kate and Laura Anthem

My beloved Laura will be leaving me and Paris tomorrow and I thought I would share our new favorite creepy song by this guy ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7GhrUaNDAI

Bubbly

The story goes that when Dom Perignon first tasted the mistake that began Champagne he exclaimed "come brothers I am drinking the stars" Laura and I decided that after the adrenaline rush of the morning jump we would give our taste buds a little bit of the action.

So we ventured to Pommery and Tattinger, you all know how I love the individual bottles of POP and Laura is a Tattinger fan so we covered our favorites. We learned about the Champagne process and the history behind the houses. Laura was ready to jump our tour guide at Tattinger, sadly no pictures but imagine Cornell hotel school of management, a year at the Sorbonne, perfectly coiffed hair, preppy ties and large side order of douche-bag. Just her type...

But beyond that, our tours were informative and different from what we have in the U.S.  The vineyards are not part of the grounds where you go to have your tasting tours, as these are outside of the city (Reims).  But, it was still a fascinating place to go visit and learn about the history of the town and their champagne house.

So some of this champagne is so good, it can make you believe in God.  Speaking of God, we went to a church.  To be fair, it's not just a church but also a stunning cathedral that history dates back to approximately 409 A.D.  It's seen multiple coronations, and its stained glass windows are designed by some of the renowned French artists spanning the Renaissance to Modern era.  

I jumped out of a plane and landed on my ass

Laura and I started our adventure off with a bang.... or a really long road trip in a nugget Mercedes (i.e. a sexy bitch) car.

Also, a quick side note.  To say "exit" in German, you say "ausfart".  I'm sure you can hear our giggling all the way from France.

I will sum it up by saying that Laura's plane landed 4 hours late and then we got in the car and drove 8 hours to Interlaken/Lauterbrunnen Switzerland.  It was just the beginning of our lesbian honeymoon.  We drove through some of the French countryside, and all the way into the Swiss Alps.  Just imagine little Swiss country houses dotting a green, rolling hill.  All of a sudden on our drive, BAM MOUNTAIN, in your face.  Let's just say, the Swiss Alps went "boo-yah bitches." 

Truly one of the most spectacular things I have ever gotten to see in my life.  We got to drive around a big lake that was one of the most gorgeous blues and different blues I have seen.  (See skydiving pictures to see what I mean).

We found our way to Interlaken, and found our way to the valley where Lauterbrunnen is.  It took us 20 minutes to find our way up to our hotel, a quait Swiss chalet on a hill, right next to a big gondola that takes you to the top of the alps.  Sadly we did not have time to go up to the top of the Jungfrau Glacier (which Laura has been to, but not in 21 years), so guess who's coming back to Switzerland to do that... and some skydiving again.

This leads us to the second part of our trip.  After a relaxing evening, we crashed early and woke up to wander the town of Interlaken until we had to meet up with our skydiving unit.  Sadly, our dive was canceled for Sunday because of intense weather.  So we were torn between keeping to our schedule and driving out to France that day and not diving at all, OR finding a hotel to stay in and dive the next day.  After driving for over 8 hours to Switzerland, we decided that there was no way we weren't going to go skydiving.  So for the first time in my life, I went to a hotel and said "Do you have a room for the night?"  Luckily they did.  And let's just say the decor was... interesting.

Case in point: our artwork special person bed.

However, the sheets were clean.  The bathroom was lovely and pink.  And the beer was cold in the downstairs bar.  Laura and I wandered to a restaurant for a fantastically healthy Swiss fondue dinner, followed by a few drinks at the bar.

Some of us may have had a few too many (Laura.......). 

But we went to bed filled with excitement about jumping out of a perfectly good plane with a random man.

We were planning on waking and following a big bus full of fellow skydivers to the drop site, and were told that the bus would be across from the main office.  Needless to say, we followed the wrong bus (note to self, skydiving does not equal paragliding) and the diving instructors were in awe of our brain power.  After heading back to the main office, a man flags us down and tries to open the door to the car.  We figure out he's an instructor (who Kate ended up knowing intimately by the end of our skydiving jump), and he just jumps into the car to drive with us to the drop site.

Laura and I were on the last of 3 planes for the morning.  I think the pictures explain it all. 

 According to the guys in the plane Laura has a "set of lungs on her" (see above)

We then drove the 6 and a half hours to Reims.......