A Lesson Learned

Wine is important to the Frenchman, and wine-drinking is a ritual in France. As a visitor, it's important to participate in this cultural mainstay, lest ye be laughed at. Fortunately for us economically hard-pressed language assistants, decent wine is cheap here. Three euros will buy you a drinkable bottle of wine, and five euros ($7) will buy you a good - nay, a classy - bottle of wine. Would you expect so much from a $7 bottle of wine in the States?

There is just one obstacle to overcome before one can partake in that sweet, sweet nectar. Have you ever noticed the pesky fact that it is, generally speaking, impossible to drink a glass of wine without first uncorking the bottle? And when you don't own a decent corkscrew, this is a feat easier blogged about than actually accomplished.

For your viewing pleasure, below are photos of the first bottle of wine my roommates and I uncorked to celebrate our newly formed roommate trio.

As you can see, the effort quickly devolved into a team-building exercise.

Fortunately we were able to get that bottle open relatively unscathed. The next bottle, as you will see below, presented a bit more of a challenge.

We broke the cork. We bottomed it. We banged the base of the bottle against a phone book (internet forum advice). We sliced the cork with a knife and attempted to dig it out, bit by bit. This, friends, is our dedication to the craft of wine-drinking. We broke the corkscrew.

Eventually, we did manage to get the cork out. And we drank that bottle of wine. The wine, it turns out, was only the least bit corky.

And then, friends, we invested in a winged corkscrew. And that little guy has been such a friend.

I can now open a bottle of wine with some measure of success and not too much strife. I still look forward to the day when I can open a bottle of wine in under ten seconds flat. Maybe my roommates and I should hold periodic tournaments...

Perfect Asian Broccoli

First, some backstory:

I am currently in the process of making kimchi, as the token AsiaMart in St. Etienne is owned by Chinese, and therefore the kimchi - a Korean dish - is not actually fermented. The kimchi recipe I am following, found here, directs me to seal my mixed kimchi ingredients tightly in glass jars and let stand at room temperature for two days.

My two kimchi jars are sitting on the kitchen table, provoking a strong urge in me every time I enter the kitchen to open the jars and sniff the kimchi. But I fear that this might disrupt the fermentation process. This unfulfilled desire has provoked in me a deep-seated sense of longing. Therefore, I am in the mood for Asian food.

It turns out that my first attempt at Asian food was somewhat pathetic. While at the aforementioned AsiaMart, I bought my first bottle of sriracha sauce in France. This precipitous event occurred two days ago, and for the past few days I have been scrounging around in my kitchen for anything and everything on which I might feasibly be able to put some sriracha. The best thing I've come up with so far is scrambled eggs. Bleh. The concoction wasn't doing it for me tonight.

Then, eureka! I remembered I had bought a head of broccoli at the greengrocer. And the broccoli turned out so tasty, in fact, that I may never eat broccoli any other way ever again.

And lucky for you, dear reader, I loved the broccoli so much that I decided it was absolutely necessary to pass the recipe on to you.

You will need:

A head of broccoli
1 shallot
1 or 2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp fresh minced ginger
1 sliced green onion
1 or 2 Tbsp butter or olive oil
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp sesame oil
1 Tbsp honey


To make Perfect Asian Broccoli:

1. Dice shallot and sautée in 1 Tbsp butter or olive oil over low heat until caramelized. Add more oil if shallot starts to brown too quickly. Once shallot is almost done, add garlic and ginger and sautée for 3o seconds more.

2. While shallot is sautéeing, chop broccoli head into bite-sized pieces. Rinse in collander. Place in steamer over 1/2-inch of boiling water, cover tightly, and steam 5-7 minutes, or until you can pierce it with a fork. If you don't have a steamer, find advice here.

3. While broccoli is cooking, add together soy sauce, sesame oil, and honey in a small bowl. Mix well. Thanks to my roommate Katherine for suggesting this delicious sauce!

4. Once broccoli is steamed, mix in a bowl or deep plate with shallot, garlic and ginger. Pour the
sesame oil, soy sauce, and honey mixture over the broccoli, focusing especially on the florets. Sprinkle green onions over the broccoli and serve.

Serves two. Pair with a cup of green tea if you really want the complete, Asian-y package.

How to survive a strike in France

The good folks of France like to go on strike. Frequently. The main reason for all the grève-making is that the French are very adamant about protecting their hard-won rights, but part of me also wonders if the French don't also like getting out of work and school obligations.

To give you an example of how prevalent the strike is in France, I once missed an entire month of school because the students were blockading the doors. Amanda, a colleague of mine, missed four months of university classes due to a strike. The current grève has been ongoing for about three weeks and concerns the pension age. Président Sarkozy recently passed a law raising the national pension age from 60 to 62.

Even though the law already passed in the legislature, the public sector continues to strike. This includes postal workers, teachers, trash collectors, and more. It also includes train conductors. As you might expect, transportation is somewhat disrupted throughout France.

So when a girl wants to go to Paris on vacation, what's a girl to do?

Step One:

Go to the train station.

At the train station, it becomes evident that only one train in four is running. The train for which my roommate Katherine and I have tickets is cancelled, supprimé. We hop into line and explain our predicament to the ticket attendant. She issues us new tickets for a train that is still running.

Step Two:

Get on the train.

This part sounds easy enough, but we are frustrated to find that the train contains four times as many folks as there are seats, and we have to stand the entire two hours to Paris. Next to the bathroom.

Step Three:

De-train - is that a word? - and find a metro station.

This feat took Katherine and I quite a bit of time, as both of us possess wholly and completely abominable senses of direction. We attempted to read the map at each bus stop, until finally a little old Italian man took pity on us and directed us to a parallel street, where we found a metro station.

Step Four:

Check into the hostel and settle in.

This part always challenges me a bit, as I tend to find hostels a bit on the dirty side. Our hostel, Aloha Hostel, had a nice ambiance, but we didn't have any heat in our room. We were loud, we were bitchy, we were unreasonable, but to no avail. We slept cold. A bit on the pricey side at 28 euros a night (that's $39), and with abominable customer service to boot, we don't recommend it.

Step Five:

Go see the sights!

We saw the Parisian Catacombs, we treaded the Tuileries and Luxembourg Gardens, and saw the Eiffel Tower. Yes, the Eiffel Tower - we visited that beauty every single night.

Andrine