La Truffade: My favorite dish

S decided one night randomly to show me how to make La truffade, a traditional lozerian dish. Of course, in France you start with an apero, so we had wine and brebis cheese which is from a sheep. IT WAS AMAZING!

Here is la truffade cooking. It's almost done! Look at all that cheesy goodness.
This is S and I sitting down to eat this wonderfully delicious meal! Merci S!!!

I liked it so much, and as you know one of my goals is to learn 5 lozerian recipes so I thought I'd make it myself last week. Here is how you do it. If you find this cheese in the usa tell me where!!!

Here is my version of La Truffade. Step one: Dice potatoes and lightly fry with oil for about 5-7 min, then add minced, (in my version i cut them), garlic. Lots of it. 1.5 cloves per potato.

While this is cooking some more, slice La tomme du Cantal. This cheese has virtually little flavor and is soft, sticky but actually low in fat!
Then when the potatoes are almost done you add the sliced cheese on top like this and let it melt down.

When the cheese is gooey, melted you flip it over as much as you can and it should be brown like this. Wait until is gooey and brownish.

Then finally, you eat this with jambon sec which is cured ham. SO GOOD!

Some more randoms....

Bonjour! I thought that I'd post some pictures, even though I'm currently against picture taking. (See my post on 3 x 5) Here is where I spend the majority of my time while waiting for my next class or just hanging out talking to other teachers. Here are the regulars.... Mme B, my responsable and the two math/science teachers. I think. lol. In the background there are our"casiers" for each teacher. Mine is to the right-ish and second from the top.

This weekend we celebrated F and B's birthday's chez S. I have a cool video I'll try to upload on how to open a wine bottle with a traditional "tire-bouchon". Trust me, after my 15th bottle this year, I have yet to master it. I dream of the days when I'll go home to the old, easier bottle openers.
On sunday I had lunch chez M. and Mme G. M. G has lots of old cars so I had him take a picture of my on his very very old vespa. I so wanted to ride it but this was the first time it had been out this year so he couldn't verify that everything was in working order after the winter in order to drive it. I also am experimenting with my new camera and the color accent mode. Pretty cool eh?
After lunch we all went for a walk around La Garde (where they live). This little chalet was cute. It's not inhabitable but with the grey sky and trees, this was so typical lozere I couldn't resist capturing it.
Next post: Truffade!

Books and fond flashbacks of Pogs

This week has been quite interesting! I finished my second book, Vol de nuit, which was an easy read but not very good. I found some very thoughtful quotes and things like that but all the same, it was a book about night flights and pilots which don't interest me much. The next book I'm reading is La prochaine fois which is more my style. Its longer and a bit more difficult but I like the story line way better.

Last night I sort of signed up on the 'market place' for exchanging magnets for le gaulois boxes. I realized that I have eaten about 480 nuggets so far. Grossss. Suddenly after signing up and marking my doubles on my map people started emailing me to exchange. It was quite wierd and then I really started to get into it. I've traded with 6 people and I expect 9 new ones to come in the mail monday or tuesday. Cool eh? I should have 38 more to go after I receive them. Mme S and Mme H have more to give me too!!! I am so close yet ...so far away! After forgetting to eat dinner and freakishly obssessing over people emailing me, I realzed this reminded me of my 'pog' days. For those of you who never had them, they were a fad in the mid nineties of little flat discs with designs on them that you played with. I never knew how to play so I just traded all the time....oh memories.

I have about 5.5 weeks left till I get home which is making me sader by the day. I remember back in the beginning how excited and nervous I was, then lonely and sad but now that things have gotten wonderful with friends, activities and work I really am going to miss everything about St. Chély d'Apcher. I relish this experience for giving me the confidence to speak in French no matter how bad I was to begin with!!! I have learn a lot from being in the hospital, to playing the french paper work game to questionable and questioning kids that I will never, ever forgot how much I've grown and succeeded on my own in France. Thank you Oli for giving me the push I needed to do this and always supporting me in every way imaginable!

Bisous all

Oh soleil, promise me more!

The sun was amazing today! The sky was cloudless and I went to the park to finish vol de nuit, a book I had been reading. I ran into some students who invited me to have sit with them and drink coke cola and smoke cigarettes. I promptly thanked them and declined. I think it's funny that the french kids smoke and drink coke on a regular basis after school. I see them all the time at 8 à 8 buying stuff for their afternoon snack.

This friday I am going to clermont with S because she has a car thingy and an apt at her family's store there. I hope I get paid before that!

Oli's company kind of screwed him over and he can no longer take the may vacation with his dad. I have mixed feelings about this trip mostly because it's nature and rving and he has no experience or any clue what this is going to be like. He told me today there are no bugs in the mountains of colorado. You could probably see why I am worried after this statement....

My nose got some redness from the sun (sorry mom! I put 30 on before I went out!!). I hope tomorrow is the same. I'll wip out my bathing suit by saturday if the weather continues this way...

Spring has finally come!

March 20th, 2010 ....

I’ve found the theme song for this year finally. I find that every year of my life there is a song that represents it or reminds me of that period of my life because it was on the radio so often. This year, it’s more the lyrics that attracted me to it as it is quite old but all the same how I felt about this year : 3x5 by John Mayer. I encourage all of you to go out and listen to it, and maybe, think of me. J

Today I’m able to sit in the courtyard where it’s not that windy and the sun is coming and going. I wish I had brought my book out to read too ! I could definitely spend forever outside on days like this.

This past week I went to Montpellier with Mme H since she had a formation on “the voice” within the classroom. I thought it would mostly be language teachers and that we would learn how to effectly teach pronunciation but alas I was wrong. It was how to get the students to effectively listen to us teachers while we are teaching. I don’t really need help on that front as my voice can carry pretty well but I could definitely see why some of the teachers were there. I spent all of Wednesday in seminar and the Thursday I told Mme H that I preferred sleeping in a little and going into town all day. On Wednesday night we decided to do a little shopping and see a movie. The movie was so funny and cute! I definitely recommend L’Arnacoeur to everyone! It was just like a normal American chick flick but in French! (this is jackpot gold for me.) Since it was St. Patrick’s Day everyone was out about in the streets and Mme H really wanted to find this pub and have a beer. I wasn’t really in the mood but I went along anyways since it was only 10 p.m. We found this brasserie and she seemed so disappointed and wanted a pub but this place was packed and I said if anything this is the place to be! We each had a pint and after that decided to head back to the hotel since she had to get up early the next day.

Thursday morning at breakfast we decided to meet up for lunch at the seminar building cause the lunch there is cheap. We took our teas in town though since it wasn’t that far to walk. I bought two more books at fnac during the morning. Vol de nuit and la prochaine fois. I am almost done with the first and I’m sure I get to the second this week. After tea I stayed and read a little while Mme H went back to her seminar. I had been looking for this used bookstore all morning and after I left I finally found it. Needless to say I spent about an hour in there (I bought la Chartreuse de Parme) after which I went on my search for the carafe d’eau that Mme M has. I had no luck on this front but I figure that I’ll find it somewhere soon. She said she got it long ago at some random cheap store so it’s got to be sold somewhere!

It was wonderful to spend some time in a city but I was glad when four thirty rolled around and Mme H and I headed back to St. Chely. I haven’t done much since because all my classes on Friday were cancelled due to an internship with the 3emes. I had a pretty relaxing weekend because no one was really around to go out which is fine with me cause I spent way too much in Montpellier!

Bisous!

Restos du coeur

I've got to preface this post by saying the following is utter ridiculousness.

Tonight, I decided to put tf1 (principal television channel in france) on in the background while I messed around the apartment. When star academie (french idol but way better than american idol) stopped I went through a sadness of the loss of my one favorite french t.v. show and I haven't really connected with any shows since but tonight, god must have been smiling on me cause "restos du coeur" was on! I must explain: all famous old, young, recent and past songs and singers are sung by alllllll my favorite french stars. I love french music and when every single one of my favs are on t.v. on stage doing their thing- I'm in 7th heaven. No joke here. I don't care what anyone says cause I love french music and musicians. The thing that got me into french to begin with was their music so naturally I'm a little obsessive. So tonight, I get from 8:40-11:30 goodness, frenchie goodness. :)

Surprise Surprise! There's no food in the fridge!

Today I had a wonderful surprise at the middle school! Mme G prepared a surprise birthday party for me with les 4emes. (equiv 8th grade) All the kids brought little treats and drinks from home and we had a little "gouter" before lunch. I was amazed, shocked and so happy! Mostly because I didn't tell anyone it was my birthday last sunday at the collège.

This first photo is of some of my 4emes in the section euro. This class is a special test in english class so all these kids want to be there and have a higher level of english than my regular 4emes. That doesn't always mean they behave but they are a great group of kids.

These boys are so funny. They like to joke around with me a lot and they make fun of my accent sometimes but its all good natured. We're missing one because he was off winning the champion de france running competition in Corsica! Congrats to Collège Haut Gévaudan for winning over all schools in france!
This a group photo. I'm in the back and Mme G is off to the right.

On a completely separate note, here's a photo of the sorry state of my fridge. I cleaned out the bad stuff tonight in a fit of cleaning everything I could get my hands on and then realized that all I had to eat tonight was pasta and pesto or pasta and butter. Notice how much freakin' butter I have. I'm not sure why... I bought it before the vacation and I think I thought I'd make cookies or something. Nonetheless this is a very typical french thing to have bricks of butter. (the 2L is not mine mom! Mme G gave it to me today!)

For the next couple of weeks I have class on friday with the 3emes at the middle school. They are working on a theatre production of love songs transformed into poems I think and Mme N asked me to help them out working on theatre techniques, pronociation and the like. I really have fun with them despite having to be there at 8 in the morning! I technically don't have to go since my hours are full but I want to and the kids I hope benefit since Mme N is the weakest english speaker of all my teachers. It's not a rag on her cause she's fluent for sure but she's also THE youngest teacher in St. Chély therefore it's logical that the others would be more fluent than her if there are degrees of fluency. I really love working with Mme N too cause she always does fun activities and I never have to prepare for them. I guess that makes me lazy but when I see a kid every other week for an hour and I have no idea what theme they are working on, it just makes it easier if the teacher gives me ideas or lessons and I can adapt them to my personality.

I don't have plans for the weekend but next week I might be going to Montpellier with Mme H. She's got a formation training for two days and asked if I'd like to come down with her. I have to see about rearranging my classes on thursday so I'm still undecided. Also, Oli was upset about me going so I don't know if I will either. It's completely unfair of him to deny me any opportunity for amusement since I rarely get that here but I don't want to start another lipstick war.

Bisous