Free Food!

The Husband and I have been offered lots of free food lately — I guess that’s how you can tell when you truly become a citizen of where you live — people in the community start to recognize you and share bits of their life.  Our baker, in particular, has been loving on us.  You know how you always hear about the stereotypical boulanger/customer relationship — the one where they both know each others names and see the other every day?  Well, we have one of those — the best part is that he loves to practice his English with us, which makes us giggle.  No one loves to practice English, which is great, cause our French just gets better and better every day!  But in reality, the best part is the free food that he gives us. Lately, he’s shared a strawberry angel food cake with us (yep, not dairy free but I ate it anyways!) as well as a Turkish pie (that we ate too quickly to take pictures of)…

 

If we were going to have a polyga-marriage, he would definitely be the third member, just for the food perks.

Never mind that I can only eat two of the foods pictured here — it’s the thought that counts.

We’ve grown to love our French lives, and the thought of having to return back to America some day is making us more and more sad the longer we live here in our closet apartment.

 

Stress|Cook

When I get stressed, I bake.  And since we don’t have an oven in our current apartment (pretty par for the course in Paris… We’re lucky to even have our own toilet and shower…), I’ve had to change from a stress baker to a stress cooker.  Not the worst of changes, since according to The Husband I’m a better baker than cook.

Voilà, the fruits of my stress over the past 3 days.

Homemade Ravioli: (mushroom, garlic, and soy cheese filling)

And of course, a dessert of fresh baked bread from our boulangerie with some Bonne Maman.  Mmmm, I can die happy after a meal like this.

Not pictured?  The sautéed chocolate chip cookies (don’t even ask…. I get desperate), Lemon cake with raspberry frosting (that I had to go to a friend’s to make), and lots and lots of popcorn.

Here’s hoping we get an oven some day before I go crazy!