Christmas Greetings

H and I will be away for a few days. So in case I couldn't post earlier:

Here's wishing you the best this Christmas :)

And now, here's wishing I had an umbrella when I set out this afternoon...

It snowed a bit so I went out to get snowed at. The coat I was wearing was stiff with white flakes.

I think I got frostbite when I ate a crepe, but then I couldn't eat it with my gloves on.

The horse on Pont D'Iena was beginning to go white. 

But some pigeons refused to go south. 

They remind me of the homeless in the Metro.

There were still lines to go up the tower, 

but it's just a matter of time before they shut it down because of the weather.

And then I froze up.

Tired

Went to lunch with H at the 12th Arrondissement.

Ran in the rain to visit a friend at a hospital who'd just given birth.

Welcomed little Mia.

Ran to bar for coffee and beers.

Ran back into car. Considered shanking husband for stupid parking stunt.

Came home and finished 2,000+ word articles just in time for the usual midnight deadline.

Thank God for cupcakes and milk.

Now going to watch Emma.

Good night, Paris.

Christmas Gifts

H and I went toy shopping for christmas. He knew what he wanted to get for a boy (a garage set) but he didn't know what to get for girls so he asked me to choose for him, saying "What did you want when you were a kid?" - BAD IDEA. Because I wanted it all.

I wanted a Barbie, her playhouse, her pink corvette, a complete wardrobe and a boytoy - for her, of course. I also wanted a robot like Irona in Richie Rich. I wanted Star Wars action figures, Muppet plush toys, Fisher Price whatevers, a tiny kitchen, a dress like Snow White's, RainbowBrite's horse, a toy train like I saw on Silver Spoons, a human-sized Voltes-V, and a Sony Walkman. I wanted everything they stacked behind Uncle Bob, and I wished I was part of the Lucky 7 Club. And if you're a 80s kid from the Philippines, I bet you wanted pretty much the same things too. Materialistic na kung materialistic! Je m'en fous!

I had a hard time choosing for his niece, but I hope she likes what she's getting. I would love it if i were her.

But while we're on the topic of spreading cheer through toys, I just found what is, quite possibly, the saddest toy any child can get judging from the box it comes in.

The toy that zaps all happiness from childhood...

That reminds you of dreadful things (like why you're 30 and still single)...

It's completely joyless... 

It's KAPLA!

These were the only boxes that were untouched in the whole store. I bet touching them was like the dementor's kiss, which is a pity because Kapla reviews on Amazon were very positive. Kapla has been to the Louvre, the Cite de l'Architecture of Paris, and the Children's Museum in Manhattan - and French schools use them for instruction.

Kapla should just... really... rethink the box, or not market it as a child's game at all. I know some nerds who would love this. 

As for mahself, I'm getting the Jane Austen video box set with a gift card I got for my birthday. 

Colin Firth! Squeeeeeee!!!!

    

EPIC FAIL or How to cook gratin dauphinois right the first time

Yesterday I made my first French dish, a well-known and well-loved comfort food from the Dauphiné region, the Gratin Dauphinois. And I ruined it. Not because I burned it (like I usually do) or I needlessly experimented (maybe sometimes I get carried away) but because it escaped my knowledge that different occasions require different types of tubers. Apparently, there are taters for salads, frying, baking, mashing, soups, casseroles, roasting and barbecuing - and I learned all this the hard way.

(There are other variations of the recipe, you can check this one out from Julia Child, or this one from About.com. The one I have below is from a French cookbook.)

Gratin Dauphinois with a pinch of fail à la Stripeysocks.

This recipe is for 1 pan,
I made 2 so that's double the whole recipe :)

Last Thursday I made 2 pans of gratin dauphinois for a party using the recipe a friend gave me. I had all the ingredients, meticulously measured and prepared: the potatoes sliced uniformly thin so the lovely little scallops would cook evenly, I had the perfect amount of crème fraîche, and I had rapé cheese at the ready. I pre-boiled the potatoes in cream and milk, then baked them at the exact temperature in a pre-heated oven  for the exact amount of time said in the recipe. I even buttered and rubbed garlic on the pyrex. AND nothing burned. I did not deviate from the process one bit because this dish was make or break; I had to do this right because my first attempt at French cooking is meant to be historic!

But leave it to me to mess up the most basic thing.

The key miscalculation was the chances of me getting the kind of potato wrong, which is about 8:1.  I may be practically illiterate in French but I at least know that it's a pomme de terre (literally, apple from the ground). But put me in a French supermarket in front of the produce section and I'm grabbing the first 2-kilo bag of yellow potatoes out there. Ergo, I baked potatoes that were for boiling. 

Come dinner, it was announced that I made gratin dauphinois: THE gratin dauphinois that every French child grew up with, that holds lovely memories of winter and of snow and of the alps, memories that could be stirred back to life by awakening their taste buds, taste buds that I kind of trampled on with that sacrilege I called a gratin.

After the first tasting my friend put it back in the oven for 30 minutes, but it wasn't enough so she put it back in again. At first we thought I wasn't cooked enough, but then it became plain that something was definitely wrong with it because it resisted being cooked, as if the spuds resisted being eaten.

Ugh. I miss the Philippines - over there, a potato is just a potato.

So my only advice for those who want to attempt this is: check the potato first. Ask around. It's better than having two giant pyrexes of FAIL.

I'M A L'HIVER LOVER - to borrow from binoe p.

ow

Early December, in pictures.

Earrings. A birthday gift from http://rockandrule.weebly.com/ 

H had a meeting at the Champs Elysees, so I tagged along to take pictures...

And window shop. I can wait until the sale season starts in January :D

This is for my mom, whose Omega I *kind of* killed when I was a kid.

A message from above. I HEAR YA SAMSUNG BUILDING!

We always had a christmas tree in Manila, and for the sake of tradition, we got one as soon as December struck. We are still a little Pinoy in this house :) It's my first real tree!

We went up and down the street to shop for the perfect tree and got one from just beside the building.

A simple candle-lit pesto dinner.

Some decors are from his old stash, some I got from Habitat, some from Ikea,
and some from Hapao, Ifugao! 

An unexpected snowstorm takes Paris by surprise and leaves the city deep in 4 inches of snow.

Morning after. Kids leave fresh tracks on the snow.

I left this bottle outside to chill it naturally. But the sun was in the mood to play contrary.

Golden, but colder than when there were clouds.

The snow left unexpected flooding, and many cars were left on the street from the night before.

There's a sight you don't see every day.

But the snowstorm also brought with it a stranded friend on her way to Poland:
Michie, in the green coat with Jj in the yellow scarf.
The man in the middle, I don't know. He squeezed himself in.

And then we took Paris by... well, I can't say by storm,
we were more of a light drizzle.

We had tarts at the Marais.

The interiors of Le Loir are so hip.
There's an impression of bipolarity, like they maybe tried and gave up.

The reason behind the teashop's whimsical name is illustrated in the mural. 

This reminds me of an artist friend in Manila who made a painting of a misunderstood elephant in Japan.
And my brother who knows the answer to "What's up?"

There was a photoshoot in the Loir when we came in, but I couldn't take a clear picture of the girl they were taking pictures of... so I took a picture of Michie instead.

They had quiches and I had a gateau.

But we all had a pact to show the lemon pie no mercy the next time we are in Paris all at the same time.

We walked to Les Halles because we needed to put Michie in the train straight to CDG Airport.
H called to make sure we were on our way because he rechecked the flight schedule while us girls were touring. 

And then I went straight to school. Was absurdly early.
The benches in the courtyard were covered in snow so I hung out at the coffee lounge instead.