AUTUMN’S ADVENTURES

Today was my last full day in Damelevieres and though was sad to leave I was also excited for the last dinner — but we’ll get to that later.  To start off the day, Nath, Baptiste and I went to Nancy to coat shop for Bapt and then they took me to the Fresh Market to show me where their dad buys all of the food that he makes.  It was so amazing to be there and to see the hundreds of different cheeses in giant blocks.  The exotic fish and the live crabs and other shelled fancies.  The fruit was beautiful and expensive but not as expensive as the truffle mushroom, which costs almost $3,000 USD per kilo and look like baby elephant turds.  Apparently it is very hard to find and people use pigs to sniff it out and dig it out from under trees.  Maybe someday I will try it…

Now onto the dinner!  Both sides of the grandparents came to the dinner so the table was full and excited for this awesome meal.  To start, we had smoked mackerel with lemon followed by foie gras and smoked duck over a bed of spinach and pine nuts.  For the main course it was what I had been waiting for — escargot!  They were in porcelain “shells” to retain heat but normally they are served in their own shells.  The sauce was a parsley and butter sauce which you dipped bread into after you ate the escargot.  I liked it, loved it, wanted more of it. So I did. I ate about a dozen.  For the first dessert, it was none other than, you guessed it - cheese!  After that was the real dessert of gauffre, or powdered waffles.  I brought maple syrup from NY so the family tried some of the waffles with that. Yummy!

To end the night, Nath, Bapt and I played a french game called Yam.  I actually learned how to play this came in Jujuy but I forget what they called it.  Needless to say, I lost at Yam too…

This afternoon was another culinary experience at Nath’s grandparent’s house.  It started out with trying Patis, a famous french liquor made from anis.  I knew I probably wouldn’t like it because I am no fan of the flavor of anis but I tried it anyway.  It was mixed with some other juice or something but it was still too strong of a flavor for me so I took one sip and thanked them for letting me try it.  Then her grandma poured me some porte wine from Portugal but even that was too sweet for me.

For lunch we had pote lorraine which was different sausages and pork steaks slow cooked until the meat is so tender it almost melts in your mouth.  There was also a beet salad that was so good that I ate it up before I remembered to take a photo.  The beets came from her grandmother’s garden in the back yard. For dessert we had mirabelle and her grandfather had me try mirabelle liquor that he made in 1965.  Usually you pour the liquor over the mirabelle fruits and eat it like that but he had me take a cube of sugar, dip it in the liquor, put it in my mouth and chew.  He said it would take the edge off but it was still the strongest and most intense mix of burning in my mouth.  It took me a few minutes to recover after that one.  Nath told me her other grandpa used to gargle the mirabelle liquor every morning, to clean his throat and keep him from getting sick.

After lunch we went to Nath’s other grandma’s house to chat with her for a hot second.  She served us chocolates in the shape and color of mini golf balls while I listened to them catch up in French.  She had two tiny fridges covered in magnets from the US.  I got a kick out of that.  Since I couldn’t speak to her in English, I pointed to each magnet that I’ve been to and tried to explain with my hands that I’d visited or lived there.  She either thought I was a crazy person, banging at my chest to indicate “ME HERE” or she understood. I’ll never know.

We were meeting up with Mimi and her boyfriend for dinner tonight so we decided to make brownies to bring with us.  We bought all of the ingredients versus buying a box and throwing in some eggs.  I was worried that they wouldn’t turn out because I was converting the measurements from cups to grams and brownies are so finicky.  An hour later, we pulled them out of the oven and they were PERFECT.  I’ve never made perfect brownies before.  These had a flaky top layer and were super moist in the center.  I patted myself on the back for that one.

When we arrived to Mimi’s, we were greeted by an autistic cat that wouldn’t let us go up the stairs.  It was a cute cat but something scared me about it being autistic as I’ve never known a cat to have such a diagnosis.  It even had it’s own mini cat couch.  But that doesn’t top what I saw when I walked into the kitchen.  I look down and see a giant white bunny at my feet, hopping around like it’s the owner of the house.  This thing was so domesticated it was insane.  It came to snuggle with me a few times and proceeded to get white hairs all over my new black sweater.  We played poker after dinner and I lost.  First bowling, then this? I was on a losing streak…

Nathalie had some errands to run today so I accompanied her to Nancy.  She brought me to this bakery that makes her favorite pain au chocolat and then we checked out a few stores and Place Stanislas, the famous and most beautiful plaza in France according to Nath and her family.  It was hard to photograph it, being it was so big and all, but it was pretty and gold and stuff.

For dinner we went to this restaurant chain called Hippopotamus which is a steak house.  A bunch of Nathalie’s cousins and their girlfriends/boyfriends also joined us for this dinner.  Nath told me that I had to try bone marrow so I did (and I liked it).  I also ordered a rare steak and it was a perfect blueish-red hue.  What a hunka meat I tell ya. YUM.

After dinner a handful of us went bowling around the corner.  I’ve internationally bowled only one other time in Buenos Aires.  I always have fun bowling but I never win.  In fact, I always come in last.  I don’t really care though because I’m only in it for the neon lights and the slippery shoes.  And it reminds me of the Big Lebowski.

After two months of laying low and resting up in New York and spending some quality time at home with the family, I am finally on the road again and living it up, international-style.

I arrived to Paris at 11am French time/5am New York time. My friend Nathalie picked me up and we drove directly to her parents house, 3.5 hours to Damelevières, Lorraine, France which is 20 minutes outside of the city of Nancy.  When we arrived to Nath’s parents house she gave me a tour and I met her mother, brother and father.  Her brother speaks English but her parents only speak a little bit of English so I am really trying to learn some basic french so I can at least talk to them on a comparable level in French.  If they are willing to make the effort with me, it is only fair that I do the same in return.  And also, not knowing a language sucks when everyone around you speaks it.

I smelled like super B.O. from my long travels so I changed my shirts and then we all headed to a restaurant called La Gavotte to eat the best crêpes in Nancy.  They are like the crêpes in Brittany, France, which are the best crêpes in France.  We drank apple cider wine with our meal because they told me that is what you drink with crêpes in Brittany.  My crêpe of choice was filled with mushrooms, bacon bits, a sunny side up egg and cheese (probably my four favorite ingredients!).  It is made with buckwheat flour that gives it the darker color and is only used for salty crêpes.  It was freaking delicious.  I also tried some of Nath’s dad’s crêpe which had cow intestine in it.  It wasn’t so bad.  For dessert I got a crêpe with butter and blackberry jam.  It was lighter and made with a different flour.  It was also delicious.

After dinner the whole family went to a small rock concert in a bar called Le Vertigo Cafe.  Nathalie’s cousin is in the band that was playing that night so the whole family came out to support him.  I really liked that about her family since I’m all about family gatherings these days. Her cousin plays the keyboard and the band was more or less experimental rock music, heavy instrumental long jam sessions.  They were good.  I met Nathalie’s friend Mimi who is an English teacher in Nancy.  She was really nice and she invited me to speak to her class in English some time this week.  We drank a lot of Stella Artois and the night ended somewhere around 1am.  I was surprised that I made it through the whole day without sleeping since I was so jet-lagged all day long.  When we got to Nathalie’s room I couldn’t wait to shut my eyes and rest my body.