Seesaw Wheat Oof

It's a wonderful feeling when something you've been patiently, albeit sporadically trying to learn, starts to show results. It could be anything from learning to drive a standard transmission car (which I've been teaching my oldest) to a new quilting technique to studying a foreign language.

For a few years now, I've been teaching myself French with the help of books, videos and some coaching from my son, who's studied three years of French. Periodically, I visit websites that have mini French lessons, and I practice my pronunciation. French is very similar to English in that the pronunciation has little or nothing to do with what is written.

I was following a link to the Paris newspaper, Le Figaro's, website with an article (in French) about a contest judging the best flan of Paris. There is also a short video showing the judging process, so I watched and listened to see what I could pick up. I picked out "texture" "cream" "color" "golden" "bakery" and "food store". Then I heard this phrase "Seesaw Wheat Oof". I knew I recognized those sounds. What could it be? I kept repeating it to myself. Sees - that's six. Wheat aka huit - that's eight. And Oof is ouef - egg. Six a huit ouefs! Six to eight eggs! I have a lightbulb going off over my head moment and it feels awesome!

Water, water everywhere

When I was in France, I drank a lot of water. Coming from the humidity of Florida's climate, the naturally drier climate of France in September had us sucking on bottled water pretty much all day long. Like everything in France, the water was expensive. Whenever we sat down to eat in a restaurant, we would order the complementary "carafe d'eau" - a pitcher of cold water, to save the $4.00 bottled water charge.

One day in Lyons, I got separated from our group after I made an extended stop at the post office. Since I was on my own for the next six hours, I decided to make the best of it and stopped to have lunch at the outdoor seating area of a cafe on the central square. I was able to order the special, a pork chop with cauliflower gratin, without any problem and I asked for the pitcher of "d'eau" (pronounced DOH). The waitress looked at me quizzically and asked me "a pitcher of what?" "D'eau", I replied, "D'eau, d'eau, d'eau." Which made me feel like a Doh (Homer Simpson style.)

I ended up ordering lemonade.

And to this day, I still don't know what I was saying so incorrectly that the waitress couldn't understand me. C'est la vie.

World Nutella Day

How fascinating for a snack food to have it's own day - who declared this anyway?

It doesn't really matter because Nutella really does deserve it's own day. After all, it's hard not to love the wonderfully chocolaty, creamy, hazelnutty stuff. Thumbs up to the Italians who combine hazelnuts and chocolate in wonderful ways.

I was well into adulthood when I discovered Nutella. I'd always considered it price prohibitive - more than $4.00 for stuff that gets thrown in with the peanut butter selection at the grocery store? How good could it be, anyway. When it was on sale one day at Publix, I decided to give it a whirl. Boy was I in for a treat.

As soon as I realized how delicious it was straight out of the jar, I went on a journey to find what surface it was best spread upon. For me, Nutella on toast or baguette just didn't cut it. I tried it on various cookies and crackers and fruit and decided upon my favorite - cheap little butter cookies. These are flower shaped, hole-in-the-middle cookies you find at bakery thrift stores and drug stores, never in the grocery store, and they usually sell for about $1.00 a pack. Sometimes they are studied with bits of chocolate in an imitation of chocolate chip cookies. Try it and you'll see what I mean. My second choice is Bimbo Pan Tostado, but that's a little bit more difficult to find outside of a Mexican specialty shop. I suppose Rusk Toasts might be close. Pan Tostado has a slightly sweet taste that plain old toast doesn't have and I think that's why it combines so well with Nutella.

My favorite Nutella memory - It was our last day in Paris and I had taken the Metro by myself to Montmartre, home of the Moulin Rouge, many African immigrants and the fabric stores of Paris. I was shopping my little heart out and filling my shopping bags to the brim when it finally occurred to me that I was starving. The cafes were all full to the brim with tourists and locals taking in the view, along with their coffee, of Sacre Couer on the hill above. A corner takeout window was selling warm crepes filled with a choice of toppings, from plain butter to strawberry preserves to (you guessed it) Nutella. I tucked my crepe into my purse and found a somewhat secluded door step behind a rack of fabric and there I dined, basking in the afterglow of fabric shopping, Paris on a September afternoon and two weeks of French bliss.

Sense of Accomplishment

A couple of weeks ago, exactly when I can't tell you, but it was the day that University of Florida played football at Vanderbilt, I agreed to join in a Christmas Tag swap. And although I procrastinated hugely, I actually got all 40 of my tags done! I made 8 each of 5 different tags to share with 7 others. I am so very, very happy with how the tags turned out. I loved the process of creating something simple and (I hope) beautiful. It feels pretty darn good to finish something and then give it away.

We met for breakfast at Panera, caught up on what everyone's been doing (two of our group ran a half-marathon the previous day), and then passed around our tags. It's always fun to see the different creative directions each person takes. And I'm always excited to give and get anything with glitter on it. Love that bling!

For breakfast, I had English Breakfast tea and a Spinach Artichoke souffle'. It seemed more like a mini quiche me than a souffle, but it was absolutely delicious. If you get a chance to go to a Panera during breakfast hours, grab one of these babies. I promise you won't be disappointed. For a mouth watering preview, see picture above.

Last One on the Block

I know that everyone in the civilized world (or at least everyone I know) has eaten at an Outback restaurant. Am I right? But I've never eaten there, never wanted to wait in line, or wait until they opened or figured that any wait that long would be worth it. Well, yesterday I found out otherwise.

I had one of the Top 3 steaks I've eaten in my life at the Outback! Of course you're not surprised. But I sure was. And not only was the steak great (Ribeye, Outback medium if you please, which is medium-rare in any other restaurant), but the Coconut Shrimp was to-die-for: crunchy, perfectly coated, cooked just to doneness without being tough. It was happy hour, so I ordered 2 frozen drinks made with peaches, peach schnapps, vodka and champagne. Wow! I saved one for dessert (and snuck it out in my iced tea to-go cup.)

The Bloomin Onion was greasy and great, and the veggies and wild rice flavorful and properly cooked. I don't really understand why the bread was such a dark brown color without tasting at all like pumpernickel, but it was tasty. I tried to limit myself to leave room for the rest of the meal. Pedro said he wasn't fond of the Caesar's salad, as the cheese was overly salty. Apart from that, we just loved the meal and left in an exceedingly content mood, to waddle through our grocery shopping.

What a great meal and excellent service! Plus, I had a $35 gift certificate, making a great meal a great deal. Maybe I'm the last person in the country to discover the good food at the Outback, but I'll be spending many good meals making up for my lost opportunities.

FYI, the Top 2 steaks I've eaten were both eaten in Houston, Texas. Number One was at an awards banquet at the George Brown Convention Center, a bacon-wrapped filet mignon. Number Two was at a restaurant in Houston called Houston's, oddly enough. Count on Texas for great beef! Number 4 was on a recent outing in Mexico, in a little family-owned restaurant in Dolores Hidalgo: a delicious thinner-cut rib-eye, lightly marinated, and grilled over real wood coals. And number 5 would have been any of really good steaks grilled over pecan wood that I ate at Durango's, before they went out of business. Good food just can't survive poor management and service.

P.S. Googled Outback Bread and found out the recipe has both cocoa powder and instant coffee - that explains the color.

Back To School

Even though they pushed the start of the school year back about 10 days, it still seems crazy to be sending Cheo back to school in August. School starts on Monday. Yesterday we went to registration, and tonight we have to go to a meeting about Cambridge AICE diploma qualification. The only good thing about that is I'll miss weigh-in at TOPS this week.

Why is that a good thing? I weighed this morning, and am at the same weight as last week. Add the days food and water consumption, and I will have gained weight by weigh-in at 6:30 p.m. Although I wouldn't have deliberately skipped a meeting, this gives me a chance to get back in the groove. Last nights Kraft Deluxe Macaroni and Cheese did not help me a bit. All-in-all, I'm eating better and less, so that's a plus.

I posted a few more auctions on e-bay today. All the other auctions had completed, although not all are paid and shipped. I shipped out three auctions today. I'm still cutting up fabric yardage into fat quarters and it's finally beginning to look like there's an end in sight. I plan on having a big garage sale in September, inviting quilt guild members for a preview sale, and opening to the public for Saturday.

Eating Healthy

Apart from the fact that the phrase 'eating healthy' is bad grammar, it's what I'm trying to do. After seeing great results on a friend, I joined the local chapter of TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) just before we left for Mexico. I had originally planned to wait until after we got back from vacation, and then I realized that I always lose weight while we're in Mexico (mostly because we walk a lot). So, my first week back at TOPS, I posted a 7 pound loss. Two weeks later, I was down a little over 10 pounds.

Sooooo, this week has been harder. We were out to dinner Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, and I chose to eat junk some of those times. And then more junk yesterday (Coca-cola and pork rinds, yeah, I know). Today, I'm determined to get back on track. Which is why I just love this stuff - Great Grains Crunchy Pecans. It keeps me feeling full for a long time and has a wonderful nutty crunchy taste. And it was on sale at Publix, buy one get one free.

I'm really not trying to advertise for Post or KraftFoods, just wanted to share a great product, and keep myself honest about what I'm eating.

Mom came over yesterday with a bag of marshmallows, a box of graham crackers and a 6 pack of Hershey bars. She had brought them because 14-year-old Petie had really enjoyed dipping marshmallows in chocolate during our Mother's Day brunch at The Melting Pot. She mentioned that we, having a gas stove, could make S'mores right on the stove.

That was too much temptation for me. I whipped out a bamboo skewer, prepared the chocolate and graham, popped up the flame, and proceeded to char me a marshmallow.

Now, I'm one of those rare adults that likes my marshmallow black on the outside. However, if you burn your marshmallow right away, which is really easy to do over a gas flame, it's still solid in the center - not good for s'mores. Plus, on my first attempt, my bamboo skewer caught fire and I ended up with a burnt bamboo tip in my s'more.

Next try, I held the marshmallow up higher over the flame and it was definitely getting nice and gooey inside and golden on the outside. At that point, I zoomed in for the blackening, and my nice, melted marshmallow plopped right off the skewer and landed on the stove. Plus my bamboo skewer was getting shorter as the tip kept getting burned off.

At this point, I switched to metal skewers with wooden handles made especially for marshmallow roasting (Firemaster Roasting Sticks at Amazon.com), and moved my prepped chocoloate/cracker closer to the toasting site in case of another falling, flaming marshmallow. I turned the flame down to medium, and held the marshmallow about 10 inches above the heat. Within seconds, the skin began to bubble and pucker, and turn golden. I kept rotating the marshmallow until I felt it loosening on the stick. Then I brought it down to the fire, set it ablaze and moved it right to the s'more base. I blew out the flame and topped it with the second graham cracker in the same moment. Voila! The perfect s'more!

(Last night, laying in bed, I got s'mores on the mind, and decided to get up and toast a marshmallow or two. The bag was gone! Petie, our marshmallow lover, had polished off the whole bag.)