Midnight snacking on spaghetti

Pasta snack attack

It's 1:08am and I'm craving something to nosh on....sweet, salty, or both? The options include Cadbury chocolate bars, purchased at Heathrow en route to France; homemade French lentil soup using beautiful AOC designated blue gray lentilles from Puy. In the end, tonight's leftovers called to me...spaghetti tossed with garlic and olive oil, petit pois, grape tomato, and crevette. 

Now R is playing DJ and we are rocking out to an eclectic collection of rock and everything under the sun. Best part of country living...and a well-insulated house is that we are cranking it!!

Tonight's playlist includes Algerian singer Khaled Cheb's "Aïcha", then a Dutch rapper, now "Madame et Messieurs...Encore une fois", followed by the original Italian version of "Gloria" by Umberto Tozzi, and now Kiss' "I was made for loving you", Yes' "Owner of a lonely heart". The closing number is Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler".

What are some great songs you love to rock out to? Please comment, as I need to expand my musical world! And more importantly, when no one is looking, what do you snack on?

Happy Chinese New Year!

新年快樂! Xīn nián kuài lè!

Welcome to the Year of the Lucky Rabbit.

It was freezing in my neck of the woods, but still no snow. Our neighbor Helene noted that the 27eme Course de traineaux à chiens may be canceled this year. I just Googled and learned that the course, La Retordica, has been rescheduled for February 26th and 27th due to lack of the white stuff. I'm hoping I can dash through the snow on a husky sleigh ride in a few weeks time. Boston, please send a bit of snow our way!

This morning, fending off the cold with lots of layers and a warm thermos of hot Early Grey tea, R and I ventured down to town to check out the weekly farmer's market. We arrived at the market square to catch the last few vendors cleaning up, selling remaining inventory, and stowing away their goods. Passing by the fishmonger, I noticed some filets of salmon and was curious if he had any salmon heads. The tenderest and tastiest (IMHO) part of a fish is the cheek meat you know. Malheureusement, the fishmonger was wrapping up a big bag of salmon heads for a man who had arrived there a few minutes before me. Note to self...arrive a bit earlier next week to snag some fish head for Tamarind fish soup.

Orange glory

Happy birthday to my sweetheart R! We've had a great day so far—I went on a field trip with my new Japanese friend and her baby. Then R and I sat outside in the garden, having a nice leisurely BBQ, followed by birthday fruit tart. Fresh nectarines, strawberries, and kiwis—all atop a layer of French pastry cream speckled with vanilla beans and an almond flour/cornmeal pastry crust.

I got the kind of candles that relight after you've blown them to test his lung capacity—which is still pretty good for my R. Now listening to more of his CD collection—Stevie Wonder's Happy Birthday song, Milli Vanilli, Pet Shop Boys, Summer of 1969, and now Der Kommisar in German. Tonight R and I will be celebrating his birthday dinner at the bistro in our village, a place we've been looking forward to trying.


Last night R and I got into the World Cup spirit by dressing in orange. R made his entrance raising the Dutch flag in support of the Netherlands who were playing Cameroon. The hosts had festooned their house in the color of the Dutch royal house—orange balloons, orange caps, funny orange hats (which I'm wearing in the picture below), huge orange sunglasses, orange flower leis, etc. One of the guests even had a giant block of cheese on his head which faintly reminded me of the cheesehead hats that the Packers fans don. Upon asking my guess was confirmed—the guy got it from Wisconsin.

After the hosts realized Swiss networks weren't showing the game, R saved the day by hooking a laptop up to a site that had live streaming of the game. The game was good but I watched from the kitchen, near the table set with aromatic juicy barbecue chicken, satay sticks, tabbouleh salad. The beer, of course, was Heineken.

On another note, my Japanese friend was pretty excited that Japan beat Denmark, 3-1. And she reminded me Le Tour is coming! It's passing by our town on July 11th. I'm getting my yellow jersey out so watch out for me on le tv.