My First Marathon

First of all, I would like to apologize to all of you faithful blog readers. I know it's been 2+ weeks since I've posted an entry and I'm really sorry about that. What with preparing for the marathon and wrapping things up here in Besançon, the last few weeks have just been really busy. Even if I don't get to all of them before I leave here on April 25th (one week from today, eek), I've been keeping track of my ideas as draft entries, and don't be surprised if there's a crescendo of blog posts right after I get back. I hope you agree they will be worth the wait!

Now, for those of you who haven't gotten the update, about my first marathon:

I went into this, my first marathon, with the general goal of finishing. However, it's always good to have a more precise time goal, and since the three half-marathons I have run were all around 1:45 (one hour, forty-five minutes), I figured four hours was a good estimate for what I could do for a marathon. I have been running since I got here in mid-September, but didn't register for the marathon until early January. I re-read my journal on the train ride to Annecy, and was reminded that I had trouble running for 30 minutes without stopping when I first got to Besançon! So the marathon represents significant progress over the last eight months!

Grace (a fellow French major and '11 Wake Forest grad, she is a primary school assistant in a small town called Issoudun in the Loire Valley) and I arrived in Annecy on Friday night and had planned on spending all Saturday exploring the town, but the weather turned out to be cold and rainy. We ventured out to get our race packets and numbers, looked into a few shops and ate lunch, but then spent the afternoon reading and napping in the hotel. It's a shame because Annecy is known for being gorgeous and a lovely vacation town, but I can attest that it's not great in bad weather.
Unforunately that bad weather carried through to Sunday morning, when I woke up at 7am for my 8:30 race (the picture on the right is pre-race in the hotel room). It turned out to be good running weather though, because I didn't get hot and the rain kept my body refreshed. The course started on a street where the lakefront meets the city (the picture on the left is of me waiting to start the race) and then continued along the eastern side of the lake all the way down to the bottom and back. It was along a bike trail (flat flat fat -- good for my first time), and since there were 3,514 people running the race there wasn't much room to slow down during the first 15km or so. All the better for me! The first 15 km or so went really well; I didn't feel like I was expending any huge effort and my legs felt good. I was hoping to find a buddy I could chat with during the race but I didn't find any candidates (no one else was talking or looked friendly enough). Running in a pack was a big motivater though, I had the impression we were any army headed off to war -- a very skinny army!

I hit the halfway point at 2 hours, 40 seconds and that was when I started getting tired thinking about doing the same thing all over again. It really got tough around the 30km mark and the last 10km were a huge test of my willpower. It was my thighs in particular which started to ache; they felt like blocks of cement I was dragging along. But I didn't walk once! I did stop for water at nearly every water break, and I think those and the small refreshments (orange slices, raisins, even tiny squares of gingerbread) made a huge difference. I had planned to take 5-minute walk breaks at each hour, but I couldn't at the first hour, no one else was walking at the second hour, and by the third I figured, heck, I'd just run the whole thing.

There were pacers running with giant flags on their backs, and I was running with or in front of the pacer for 4 hours up until the 30km mark, when I fell behind. I was always within sight distance though, and I would check my watch to see how far behind I was and it was always around 2-3 minutes. I figured my new goal would be to finish in under 4 hours, 15 minutes. The final km was around the park where we started and it was cool to have people encouraging us. The crowd wasn't quite as loud as I expected though, and I noticed that few people seemed to be enouraging the runners other than their friends when I cheered for Grace in the afternoon.

I rounded the final corner with about 50 meters to go before the finish (the red carpet and everything, that part was pretty cool), and saw the giant stopwatch. It read : 3 hours, 59 minutes, 37 seconds. My heart soared!! I had thought there was no chance I could meet my goal and when I saw those glowing red numbers I burst into a sprint with absolutely everything I had left. I crossed the finish line at 3:59.45, 15 seconds to spare on my goal time, and promptly burst into tears. The happiness at achieving my goal and my complete physical exhaustion were just too much. It was undoubtably one of the coolest moments of my life.

I pulled it together though and happily accepted my medal from one of the volunteers. I tried to keep walking, because I knew stopping would only make it worse. I actually didn't have the impulse to sit down -- my legs hurt too much. They had refreshments in a big tent immediately afterward: fruit, granola bars, water, chocolate, dried fruit and slices of gingerbread. I wasn't even hungry, but I ate because it seemed like a good idea. I was still really shaky and scatterbrained afterwards, but met up with Grace and we walked (slowly) back to the hotel so I could change into dry cothes before her race (she ran the half-marathon in the afternoon).

The train ride back that evening was pretty rough. More than anything, I was surprised by how much my feet and ankles hurt. It might be because my shoes were a little on the old side (I was afraid to buy new ones right before the race). Or it could just be that they've never run that far before and are just tired. I was still in a lot of pain Sunday night, and had a hard time falling asleep because of it. Monday was pretty rough too, I waddled more than walked and going down the stairs involved bracing myself against the banister. But by today (Wednesday, the third day after the race) I'm walking normally again and can go down the stairs without too much wincing.

Despite the pain, I don't think it will be my last marathon. The high when I finished was incredibly, particularly because I achieved my goal. I was on cloud nine! The next time though, I want to do one with a friend or close to home, so that my family and/or friends can come cheer me on. I was jealous of the other runners who had their own fan clubs! Dayton, Ohio Air Force Marathon on April 15??

Cheese! Round 2

Here are some more cheeses I've sampled recently. I'm going to keep the same format as my earlier cheese post, and here's the key:

1. Fromages au lait de vache (cows' milk cheeses)
2. Fromages au lait de chèvre (goats' milk cheeses)
3. Fromages au lait de brebis (ewes' milk cheeses)

Saint Félicien

Hello my new favorite cheese. I sampled this one with my host family last time I was in Dijon and I became totally hooked. I picked some up from the fromagerie in the covered market and my crush became full-on love. This creamy cow's milk cheese is from the Rhône-Alpes region (the one directly south of Franche-Comté, it's capital is Lyon). It's very similar to the Saint Marcellin cheese in taste and texture, but is softer and creamier and can be almost twice as large in diameter. The name comes from the town where the cheese was first produced and sold, Saint Félicien. Apparently the best Saint Félicien is sold between April and September (it's not uncommon for cheeses to have "seasons" like this, and some aren't sold at all during a certain time of year), but based on how good it was the last two times I tried it, it's hard to imagine it being any better. I guess I'm going to buy some again in mid-April to see if I can tell the difference... oh darn!

St. Albans

This poor cheese has the rough job of coming directly after the Saint Félicien, and unfortunately it was already not a favorite. Part of it could have been that I bought this cheese from the supermarket, rather than from a fromagerie. But it wasn't pre-packaged or anything, it had clearly been cut by the people at the cheese counter of the supermarket. Oh well. This cheese was more of a "runny cheese" than a soft or firm cheese, and I didn't find it's taste particularly remarkable. I did notice they sell it in one of the fromageries where I shop, so maybe I'll try theirs and give it a second chance. Unfortunately I couldn't find a picture of this cheese readily on the internet, but you'll have to trust me that it wasn't remarkable.

Cancoillotte: Absinthe

I brought this with me when I went over to Candice and Laurie's apartment to make dinner last night (we had champignons à la crème using the mushrooms that Séb gave me when Colin and I visited Chapelle -- they turned out great). Candice absolutely loves cancoillotte, and I would rather take a jar to share than have a full jar sitting around my refrigerator, if you know what I mean. This variety was delicious, but I can't say I could pin down the absinthe flavor precisely. It tasted sweeter than regular cancoillotte though. I think my favorite is still the au vin jaune variety, particular the au vin d'Arbois one I brought to my host family in Dijon last time I went. But I've seen at least a dozen other flavors, and unfortunately there's no way I'll have time to try them all now. I guess that leaves something for next time!

Cantal

This one was a big winner. For some reason I had it in my head that I didn't like Cantal, and I couldn't have been more wrong. I've seen it's taste described as similar to cheddar, but I found it more similar to comté, but with a little kick. In fact, I could go as far as to say that I preferred it to comté, but probably won't for fear of being exiled from Franche-Comté from my bisontin friends who read this blog. In any event, this cheese is from the département (like the county) of Cantal, in the Auvergne region (south-central France). It is one of the oldest cheeses in France, dating back to the time of the Gauls, and has been an AOC since 1956. The cows whose milk produces Cantal cheese are fed straw in the winter and grass in the summer; their milk from the straw-fed period is used to make Cantal cheese and their milk from the grass-fed period is used to make Salers cheese. There are three types of Cantal: jeune (aged 1-2 months), entre-deux or doré (aged 2-6 months) and vieux (aged 6+ months). I'm not sure which one mine was, but based on the flavor I would guess entre-deux. Apparently the vieux is rarely exported from the region because it's flavor is so strong and particular that it doesn't sell as well as the other types. 

CORRECTION: After checking my receipt from the fromagerie I can confirm that the Cantal I purchased was indeed the entre-deux variety. 

Saint Vernier

This one is a local cheese, made in Franche-Comté in Cléron, about 30 minutes south of Besançon by car and not far from Ornans. It's a cow's milk cheese made with pasteurized milk and has a distinctive but not-too-overwhelming flavor. I tend to prefer denser cheeses over runny ones (this one had a texture similar to Brie, which isn't my favorite), but I enjoyed it nevertheless. It was also aged with another local product, le vin de savagnin. Not my absolute favorite, but solid nonetheless.

Don't Take This Post Too Seriously

So with only one full month left until my departure, I've been reflecting a little on what I am going to miss once I take that train to Paris, and eventually a flight back to the States. It goes without saying that I will miss Colin, my Friz'Bisontin friends, my assistant friends, and the random assortment of other friendships I've made during the last seven months. And of course I will be happy to go home to my family and friends from Cincinnati and from Wake. But I thought it might be interesting for you (and a good reflection for me) to think about some of the more mundane and possibly less obvious parts of my life I will miss and which I will be glad to resume in the US of A. So, here is my (occasionally irreverent) list -- in no particular order:

Things I will miss about France in general, and Besançon in particular:

1. Boulangeries in general, choco-amande croissants and macarons
          I don't know where to begin here. I feel like I'm just now getting down all of the vocabulary for the boulangeries around my apartment. You would think it would be simple (baguette, croissant, etc) but actually lots of boulangeries use their own proprietary names for the varieties on a basic baguette. More than once I've gotten funny looks when I use another boulangerie's term when asking for what I think is the same variety. I usually get "Ooooh, you mean __________." Oh well. The bread is delicious and I am thankful every time I walk home to my apartment with a fresh baguette.


2. The prices being exactly as they read on the menu/price tag
          Why haven't we thought of this yet?! So simple, but so much easier on the customers! You don't have to try and do weird math in your head (7% tax * $3.99 for a sandwich yields *headache*). Maybe I'm just bad at mental math, but I don't see why we can't just adopt the system of including the tax in the listed price. It certainly makes things more expeditious at the cash register, because you can have your exact change ready.

3. Cheese
          Saint Félicien is the current obsession, add it to the list of: 18-month comté, Roquefort, morbier, cancoillotte au vin jaune, mimeolette....

4. Seeing the Citadelle lit up at night 
          In keeping with #3, this one is super cheesy. I am ashamed to admit I still haven't been inside the Citadelle (don't ask, it's a long story or really a long chain of excuses). I'm certainly going to go before I leave, but until then I can enjoy a great view of the lights from my bedroom window, or anytime we drive by on the way to Ultimate practice. There's also a great view from one of the streets in Battant -- if I remember I want to try and get a picture from there before I go.

5. Beer (worth drinking)
          Just to get things straight, I don't think of myself as a beer person. Sure, beer goes really well with certain foods, like a juicy burger, a German frankfurter or pretty much any Czech dish. But before these 7 months I wouldn't think of it as anything besides a compliment to food. Wrong! Welcome to the land of Belgian beer. With wine under control, the French don't feel badly about looking to their northern neighbors for some good beer (not that there aren't French beers, but I can't remember the last time I had one, or if I ever have, for that matter). Maredsous is the main beer on tap at the Brass' and the blonde (6) and brun (8) are, in the words of Brian Regan, "both favorites," depending on the evening.  

6. Getting Carte Avantages Jeunes discounts on practically everything (or under 25 discounts).
          This one is pretty trivial, but it does come in handy. At any given museum, movie theater, event or location which requires a ticket there is probably some discount if you're under 25. I guess this may be the case at home too, but I feel like it's more advertised here. Of course, this one will only be good for another year or and a half so for me, but I'm enjoying it while I can. 

7. Horse-back riding
          This one is quite sincere -- although the horses may not always be top, I have really enjoyed my weekly lessons at Les Ecuries de Chateau-Galland. It took me a while to get back into the rhythm again, but now that it's nearly time to go I realize just how wonderful that hour per week has been. And now I have a whole range of French equestrian vocabulary!  

8. Being able to journal on the train
          Not having a car does have some advantages... like always taking the train. And while the train can be (relatively) expensive and sometimes long, it does give me a chance to catch up on my journaling, which I never seem to have time to do otherwise. And it's a great way to see the countryside, which is often incredibly scenic.


9. Bref.
          A TV show (well actually a series of shorts) through Canal+, Colin introduced me to it a few months ago and I've become hooked. Each episode is only two and a half minutes long, which is good because the characters speak incredibly quickly and I often have to watch an episode multiple times before I understand all of the jokes. The first "season" just came out on DVD and I'm definitely going to get it before I leave!


Things I will be happy to go home to (in America in general, and Cincinnati in particular):

1. Stand-up showers
          I know these exist in France, but my apartment doesn't have one, and I am therefore going to be grateful to re-enter the land in which stand-up showers are a standard feature.

2. Clothes dryers
          Again, can I live without one? Yes. Will I be happy to have access to one again? You bet!

3. Certain goods and services not costing an arm and a leg (manicures, clothes)
          It's common knowledge that the cost of living is generally higher in Europe than in the United States, and that is definitely true for certain goods and services more than others. For example: clothes. I was shocked the other day when an Old Navy ad popped up in my Gmail -- it was advertising some kind of "Everything for $4" sale. I challenge you to find a single item of clothing in Europe you can purchase for 3 euros (in a store, the market in Planoise may be able to hook you up). And I'm not even a fan of Old Navy, because their clothes often fall apart quickly, but even for the "cheap" clothes here, you can't buy them at that price. Another example: manicures. Obviously this falls under the "extras" category, but I haven't seen a single salon advertising a manicure for less than 21 euros ($27). I probably have had a $27 manicure before, but I usually pay half of that for one at home. Needless to say I've been doing my own nails here...

I feel it's worth adding that, on the other hand, there are some things which are considered luxury goods at home which are infinitely less expensive here. Really good chocolate might be one example, wine and beer would be another. Food in general, although it's more expensive, it's possible to have a "gourmet" meal here for half the price it would cost you at home. For example, Saturday night Colin and I went out to a restaurant called Le Vin et L'Assiette. The idea is you pick your food and they bring you a glass of wine which corresponds with the dish, but don't tell you what it is until afterward. For the record, our guesses were totally wrong, but the food was amazing and the wine complimented it perfectly (although the proprietor might have thought of it the other way around). Our meal was the sort of thing Jean-Robert would charge an arm and a leg for, and although it certainly wasn't cheap, it was more accessible here than at home.

4. Not having to formulate and auto-correct my questions before entering a store or starting a conversation (and not having to worry about botching the tu/vous decision).
           The "tu" and "vous" distinction still gets me sometimes, especially with adults who are clearly older than I am, but who I meet in casual contexts (such as, when Magalie's friend was there when Colin and I were invited to dinner). Or, sometimes when I meet someone who is clearly my own age, but who is a complete stranger. I think I usually get it right, but I've certainly gotten it wrong at least a few times, because I recognize the slightly-shocked expression which rapidly morphs into the "oh wait she's not a native speaker, it's okay" expression. At which point I cringe on the inside, and add that situation to my archive upon which I can draw in the future.

5. And along with that... being able to pronounce the words "frog," "fennel," "noodle," and "socket." 
          What do all of these words have in common? In French, they all end in "-ouille." As in "grenouille," "fenouil," "nouille," "douille." I seem to have a kind of block when it comes to producing this particular sound, and despite the efforts of more than one native speaker, I have yet to successfully produce it on my own without significant repitition first. If anything, it has taught me greater empathy for non-English speakers trying to distinguish similar sounds: when the kindly native speaker attempts to demonstrate the two different sounds (the correct one and my failed attempt), I of course hear exactly the same sound twice. "Can't you tell, it's the difference between nouille and nouille?" Ah yes, it's all clear now...  

6. Spicy food, Thai food in particular
          If given the choice, I would probably pick French food as the single type of cuisine to eat for the rest of my life. Luckily I don't have to make that choice, and I'm excited to have access to spicy food again (an type of diversity definitely lacking in French cuisine).  

7. Being able to drive, especially on a summer night with the windows down 
          I hope I remember how, it's been 7 months!

8. Being in the same time zone, or a lot closer to the same time zone, as the majority of my friends and family
          This doesn't seem like such a problem at first, but for my friends who work long hours, this has made Skyping nearly impossible (it doesn't help Steph and Charly go to bed earlier than I do, and since our walls are very thin talking on Skype would certainly wake them up). And with domestic postage costing about 1/3 of the price of an international stamp from France, I will be motivated to recommence letter communication with Trey and Holly!

Weird Weather à la Française

*This blog article was inspired by a link that Fred sent me regarding a meteorological phenomenon he had explained to me a few weeks ago when it was happening in Besançon. Since then the weather has switched to more of early summer weather (cool in the morning, but sunny and quite warm in the afternoon, clouds but not too much wind), but I thought the seasonal occurrence and its name was worth sharing. So here goes:

Les giboulées de mars

Here's the original article from the site Fred sent me (the title of the site: Understanding the Weather):

Les giboulées (souvent dites " de mars ") sont liées au passage de l'hiver au printemps. Ces brèves et brusques averses sont accompagnées par du vent, des fortes pluies, de la neige, de la grêle, du grésil ou encore de la neige fondante. Elles entraînent généralement un brusque refroidissement à leur passage. Au contraire, lors d'une éclaircie entre deux giboulées, le soleil donne l'impression d'un temps agréable et doux.  

My translation for you:

The giboulées (often called "the giboulées of March") are associated with the transition from winter to spring. These sudden and brief showers are often accompanied by wind, strong rains, snow, mild or intense hail, and wet snow. During these storms, the temperature often drops suddenly and significantly. But as soon as the storm clears, the sun usually comes out and the weather becomes agreeable again, just as quickly as the storm arrived.

I am here to testify that this phenomenon definitely happens. When I was waiting to participate in a tour of the synagogue in Besançon I was suddenly pummeled with eraser-sized hail balls. I wasn't even wearing my winter coat because the weather was so pleasant when I left my apartment that morning! The good part though is that they don't last very long, and as soon as the storm stops the sun comes out, the temperature rises and it's hard to believe it even happened at all.

Life Lessons from a Walnut

Before the comments start flying, I would like to state that there was no wine consumption associated with the writing of this article... although there may have been some absinthe involved... Just kidding! I've never actually had absinthe, although I am somewhat tempted to try the absinthe-flavored cancoillotte that they sell in one of the fromageries in the centre ville, just because it sounds so absurd.

Anyway, this post is about walnuts, specifically, the walnuts I cracked this past weekend when I was making the walnut oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for Steph's birthday. I received the walnuts from the very nice couple who own the antiques shop near my host family's moulin. Are you tracking? Anyway, when we ate lunch there a few weekends ago, Sophie commented on the large selection of walnuts they had drying outside of one of the barns. They generously offered us a hefty bag, which Noëlle proceeded to split between Sophie and me. Isabella, the wife, told us that at the time they had been picked a little early and thus now that they were dry weren't quite as good as they could be. I begged to differ though, I thought they were delicious!

But the part that really amazed me: I could crack them open with my bare hands! It started to hurt after a dozen, so I switched to using a nutcracker, but then only needed the slightest amount of pressure to split the shells. And the nuts came out whole, not in tiny shards! My only other memories of cracking walnuts are from my early childhood, take place at one of my grandmothers' houses (probably Christmastime), and usually involved my father's assistance. I realize now, that they must have been under-ripe, which is why the shells were so tough and the nut inside disintegrated under the pressure of the nutcracker. Cracking the nuts always seemed so silly and fruitless to me, but after attempting with walnuts of the proper age, the process was enjoyable and quite productive. Although, I did note how long it took to yield the equivalent of two cups of chopped walnuts. Having to crack each nut open individually, even under optimal conditions, made me think about how I was going to use them.

So where's the life lesson? I think it's always a good thing to have a better understanding of "how the world works." I'm not talking about free lunches or birds and bees, but how exactly we as humans interact with the world around us. Take food, for example. I am pretty far removed from the process of cultivating, harvesting, or butchering the food I consume. I consider myself relatively healthy because I try to eat lots of fresh produce and minimize the presence of packaged or preserved foods in my diet. But do I buy walnuts pre-shelled, of course? And this means that for me, eating them is just as easy as cutting open a plastic bag. Walnuts, and other nuts, are relatively calorie-dense foods. One cup (117g) of chopped walnuts represents 765 calories and 117% of your daily fat allowance! I'm actually a bit ashamed as I type this, because I'm sure that, on more than one occasion, I've consumed that equivalent in granola in one sitting. But the point being, you're less likely to eat one cup of walnuts in one sitting if you have to crack open each individual shell first. Does this mean I'm giving up civilization and living in the woods with only a set of tools? Of course not. But my experience reminded me of why, in the past, consuming very calorie-dense foods wasn't as easy as it is today.

But even this isn't the point of my post. The part of this experience which really struck me was how much easier it was to crack the walnuts when they were "ripe." My previous experiences with them as cocktail fare were so removed from the original setting of the food that I didn't realize it should have been easier to open them. I just thought walnuts were like that! Here's to learning more about the world around me, in a very concrete way.

Such a Shame

Well I guess things can't be sunshine and daisies all the time, and Tuesday morning was a rude reminder of that. At some point during the night on Monday, Ecole Champagne, the elementary school where I do most of my teaching, was broken into and vandalized. The police believe there were four teenagers involved, although only two of them have been apprehended (they were caught trying to break into a nearby library later that night). They broke a window to get into the school cafeteria and proceeded to break all of the plates and bowls, then emptied the refrigerators and threw them on the ground. They ransacked three of the nearby classrooms (upended chairs and tables, in general just made a mess) and stole three computers from one of them. But they really went to town in the teachers' lounge, spraying ink all over the floor and walls and pulling down the teachers' mailboxes with their papers inside (see picture from local newspaper on the right). I didn't have to go into school until 1:30pm on Tuesday, because my morning class was canceled, and when I arrived there was a cleaning crew stll trying to remove the ink from the teachers' lounge. It took pretty much the whole day, but classes were able to function normally and even the lunch service in the cafeteria took place as usual.

 

Apparently this has happened before, the most recent time being two years ago when someone burned down the École Maternelle Champagne (the nursery school next door) and tried to burn down the elementary school as well. The nursery school was totally destroyed and had to be rebuilt, but the elementary school suffered only minor damage.

There was another sober moment in the day as well: at 11am all of the schools in the country had a moment of silence in honor of the 3 Jewish children and their teacher who were gunned down in Toulouse on Monday. So in all it's been sort of a serious week. But the minor dammage inflicted upon École Champagne was nothing compared to the atrocity which took place in Toulouse, and two days later all that remains of the hoodlum activity are some ink stains on the floor and an empty space where the 3 computers once sat.

UPDATE: The three computers were recovered and are currently being cleaned. They should be back in the classroom soon!

A Perfectly Blissful Weekend (and Macarons)

This past weekend was exactly the kind of relaxing, peaceful and thoroughly enjoyable weekend about which Taylor Swift would write some kind of cheesy, sappy song. Luckily for you, I'm no good at singing or writing lyrics, so I'm going to do this blog entry instead.

The fun started Friday afternoon, with my weekly riding lesson. Friday's was a continuation of the gloriously summer-like weather we had been enjoying all week, and my spirits were further boosted when I discovered we would be doing obstacle (jumping) rather than dressage. I rode Quadrille as usual and she was particularly well-behaved.

She can be a little spooky around jumps and also if someone approaches the arean, but in general she's pretty honest, and as long as I'm no-nonsense with her when she starts to spook, she straightens up right away. Unfortunately we didn't get to jump very high (and for me not very mant times, because some of the others riders had some trouble and thus took many attempts to get it right). For the exercise, Béa (the isntructor) set up a very narrow obstacle with the usual posts on each side, and then two bars on each side of the jump, creating a little tunnel. She then proceeded to remove first the side bars, then the jump posts, leaving only a 3-foot wide box as the jump. The goal of the exercise of course was to work on our precision and on jumping the center of the obstacle.

After my lesson and some serious spring cleaning of my room, I headed to Candice and Laurie's for some sangria and quesadillas! Normally I wouldn't eat or drink any alcohol before practice, but I knew that Friday night's practice was actually... a surprise birthday party for Gaëtan! His family arranged it and asked us to help with the surprise. We arrived 9pm as usual and were throwing around while Gaëtan explained he would be leading the warm-up before the drills and scrimmage. At 9:15, right as he was about to start the warm-up, his family and more friends burst through the doors, bearing a considerable spread of food and drink. He was thoroughly surpsied! We sang Happy Birthday, chatted, chowed down on the delicious food and eventually played a short scrimmage, with Gaëtan's grandfather pulling the disc for the first point (pretty adorable). The surprise was a great success!

 

Birthday toast!

 

Marion, Gaëtan, and Franzi

 

Unfortunately we were missing a significant chunk of the team for the liuttle party on Friday night because they were still on the road back from the national championship of university Ultimate. Alex (team coach), Gaël, Lucie, Clémentine, Colin, TéTé, Alex and Réné finished second out of 16 teams at the two-day tournament in Nantes. Nantes is in the west of France and so the drive back took them between 8 and 9 hours (they arrived at around 2:30am on Friday night/Saturday morning).

The glorious weather continued through Saturday, and Colin and I decided to take advantage of it by having a late picnic lunch at the parc de la Gare d'eau by the bank of the Doubs river. We expected there to be a huge crowd, but there weren't very many people at all. It was probably the hefty wind that deterred them, although in the sunshine it wasn't cold or unpleasant at all. Although we both had slept-in quite late, we couldn't resist an afternoon nap in the sun...

Afterward Colin went to get his hair cut and I did a little window shopping for spring shoes (currently I've been switching between two pairs of boots, but with the warm weather this week I realized exactly how impractical they will be once it gets just a little warmer). Then Colin drove me to my macaron workshop! It was held at a culinary institute located in École Valentin, a suburb of Besançon. There were 8 of us (all women, mostly in their 30s I would guess) with the chef and his two assistants. We made passion fruit-chocolate ganache macarons. The class was scheduled to last only an hour and 15 minutes, but ended up taking nearly 2 hours.

We first made the passion fruit-chocolate ganache filling, then put it in the refrigerator to set while we made the meringue cookies. This was one of the parts of the lesson which surprised me most : Parisian macarons (the type most people are familiar with) are always an almond-flavored cookie with a flavored filling. The cookies are colored to correspond with the flavor of the filling, but there isn't actually any flavoring in the cookie itself. For example, with ours, you would guess that the cookie is passion fruit-flavored and the ganache is chocolate. But in fact the ganache is chocolate and passion fruit-flavored, and the cookie is just almond. The rest is just in your head!

Unfortunately I wasn't able to take pictures during the class, but they did give each of us a copy of the recipe and I took detailed notes. I'm pretty confident I'll be able to reproduce it once I get home, but I don't think I will attempt them until then because it would take forever to bake the cookies in the tiny oven in our apartment, plus it would be easier to make the meringue with a Cuisinart rather than my hand-mixer). For me, the most complicated part seemed to be getting the egg whites "peaked" to just the right level at the same time the sugar mixture reaches 118 degrees Celsius. I can imagine lots of egg whites being sacrificed in my first few attempts... But it was really neat to have everything demonstrated for us... hopefully that will make it easier when I try to make my own macarons without a master chef and his professional-grade tools to help me!

Saturday night was another social one: I went out with big group from the Ultimate team for Saint Patrick's Day! Lots of the bars in Besançon were giving out these ridiculous hats if you bought 2 or more pints of Guinnes and our group managed to acquire a couple:

Then Sunday (I know this entry is getting long, I promise I'm almost finished), the heavy wind which started Saturday afternoon and worsened that night turned into rain. I did some shopping for dinner (more on that in a second) at the few markets which are open on Sunday, then proceeded to bake cookies to give Steph for her birthday. I was so proud of myself, baking them Sunday afternoon so they would be ready when she and Charly got back from visiting their families that night, and before her birthday on Monday. Except it turns out that her birthday was last Tuesday! I had put the wrong date in my Google Calendar and was entirely convinced her birthday was the 19th! She was still happy to get the cookies though. After a quick run (quick because I felt really good and did the loop which usually takes me 55 minutes in 47), I got to work on dinner. Blanquette de veau à la vanille et nouilles (lamb in a white vanilla sauce over noodles) was the recipe I picked out to attempt this weekend, and Colin was brave enough to accept my invitation to dinner.

Whenever I attempt a new French recipe, it always takes much longer than I anticipate, and this time was no exception. It wasn't the hour and 30 minutes that the meat cooked slowly with vegetables and herbs, but the preparation of the sauce after which took a long time. But Colin was really patient, and helped me juggle the 5 pots and pans I was using to simultaneously cook part of the meal and at the same time and keep the rest hot. The sauce wasn't quite as thick as it was supposed to be (or at least as thick as I would have wanted) but despite that the dish was delicious! We used a stalk of vanilla which Colin's friend David brought back from Madagascar (and Colin gave me to use) and I'm sure that was part of the reason the vanilla flavor was so strong and so good. Definitely saving this recipe!

This picture is of Colin's seconds - I forgot to take a picture the first time around!

So blanquette de veau over tagliatelles, sautéed fresh peas in the pod, some 18-month aged comté and a Saint-Félicien for the cheese course, and chocolate oatmeal cookies for dessert... a successful Sunday evening meal. I crashed pretty hard that night, which I'm sure was in no small part due to the intense run that afternoon. I was thoroughly pleased though -- I couldn't have asked for a better weekend!