Daytrips to Ambronay, Meximieux and Pérouges

This week really flew by for me. Did it for you? I've been busy lately—for times like these I stick to simple dishes that take less than 30 minutes to make but deliver on taste. Lately I've been making simple couscous or pasta dishes. Try this and let me know what you think. Take simple spaghetti and toss it with caramelized shallots, shiitake mushrooms, petit pois, and soy sauce. For a bit of heat, I add hot pepper flakes. Why is this dish so good? It must be all that umami flavor from the shiitakes and soy sauce.

So what have I been up to this week? Travels, baking, and more. On Thursday R and I celebrated a friend's birthday in Geneva at her photo studio. For that I baked chocolate chip cookies and a bacon mushroom leek quiche. Why chocolate chip cookies? Because my friend is American, and if there's one comfort food I missed when I first moved here, it was an honest to goodness American cookie, crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. Over the past year I've experimented with different recipes and ingredients. After many tests, I finally have a few cookie recipes made using local ingredients. The results? A crispy crust leading to a chewy interior. And the French like it because it's something new and "foreign".

Along with 60 other people, R and I pitched in to clean up our village on a lovely Saturday morning. After assembling at the meeting point, we organized ourselves into different teams, with R and I joining a group of 5 who were assigned to pick up trash/debris along the roads, walking paths, and meadows in our own neighborhood. Besides getting fresh air and our morning exercise, we met more of our immediate neighbors who were either participating in the same event, or who paused to say hello when they saw us coming with our giant blue trash bags. That day I met a young Austrian mom who's invited me for tea any Friday I'm free. She moved to the village six years ago without knowing much French and now she's mostly fluent! There's hope for me yet. J'éspere!

As for the village, I'm happy to report that it is quite clean (with the exception of some wine bottles, beer bottles, cigarette butts, and plastic wrappers from food and cigarettes). However we did find some interesting things—like a small bamboo forest growing in our own backyard, next to a walking path behind our house and une casserole, a fry pan. After the cleaning came the mingling and snacking, or casse-croute. Forget chips and dip. At our casse-croute, there were two wines from the Côte du Rhone, loaves of crusty bread, two kinds of cheeses, pâté du porc, and a mousse de canard. While we were there I got a giant hug from my Japanese friend's son, L who hopped up and gave me a big hug to say hi. What a sweetie.

On Sunday R and I spent a rainy Sunday in Ambronay, Meximieux and Pérouges, a beautiful walled medieval city that looks like it's been untouched in centuries. I've visited many walled cities in Tuscany including Siena and Montepulciano which are very beautiful and charming in their own right. But in my mind, Pérouges stands out from the rest. Perhaps the size lends to its authenticity and quaintness. Perhaps it's the lack of modern "improvements" or ugly tourist trap stores. Whatever it is, cheers to that. For I love the city just the way it is, with its humble stone walls and roads that have stood for centuries, inviting you to explore and see what's around the next corner.