Making Croissants

Shortly after we found out we'd be moving to Paris, I got this idea in my head that I wanted to take a class to learn how to make croissants. I figure, I love a croissant, especially pain au chocolat, and how fun would it be to actually know how to make it! Well this weekend I finally got the time and chance to do that. People have told me that it's a very long process and a complicated one and that it's much easier to just go down to your local boulangerie and buy one there. But I didn't care. Even if I never make croissants on my own, I wanted to learn how I could if I wanted to.

So I recruited two of my girlfriends, Amy and Jacalyn, and Saturday morning we headed over to La Cuisine for our 3 hour lesson on making croissants.


Now we did learn that making croissants does indeed take a long time. There are multiple steps that require waiting for 30-60 minutes before moving on to the next.

Here we are making our dough

Then through the magic of having dough that was prepared earlier, we moved on to the step of adding the butter. It's all about getting a slab of butter and basically wrapping the dough in it and rolling it out. But to get the butter thin and ready, you have to pound it with the rolling pin.

Once you've got the butter combined with the dough, we are able to roll out the dough.

And create our croissants. We made three kinds. The regular croissant, pain au chocolate and croissant aux amandes (croissant filled with almond cream).

 

Here is my croissant aux amandes

And the pain au chocolat which are ready to rise and then bake

And yet more croissants

And then voilà!  Yummy croissants!

Now the question is if I'm actually going to make these on my own. I would like to try it just to see if I can do it. And imagine your very own kitchen smelling like a boulangerie! So perhaps one of these days, when I have a whole weekend free, I'll give it a shot. Until then, the boulangerie will continue to get my business....happily.

Oktoberfest Take 2

It’s that time of year again where the tents go up in Munich and it’s a crazy party for 2 weeks. After our lesson from attending Oktoberfest on opening day last year, we decided we’d take a day off work and go on a weekday. We headed to Munich a week ago on a Thursday after work and had our first beer in hand by 9:30pm. And wow did it taste good. I’ve been drinking mostly wine here in Paris and it made me forget how good beer can taste....especially when it’s German beer straight out of Germany. We had a delicious German meal that night and met up with our friends Stacey and Alex. They were with us for the craziness of last year so they were also ready for a more successful Oktoberfest. Alex surprised us saying that he did the impossible and at the very last second was able to get us a 4pm reservation on Friday in the Paulaner tent. I don’t know how he did it but it was great news!!! We now had a guaranteed spot in a tent.

This year we also decided to change it up and truly participate in all of the festivities.  That’s right, we decided that we needed a dirndl and lederhosen.  And that’s what we did on Friday morning....we went out and purchased ourselves a genuine Oktoberfest outfit.  Eventhough it was the last weekend of Oktoberfest, we were lucky enough to at least find something in our size.  We were now ready to head to the tents!!!!  We first went to the Augustiner tent and found a spot at a table quite easily.  We made friends with the people we sat next to and enjoyed a few liters of beer.  Before we knew it, it was time to head to Paulaner for our reservation.  We got our table for 10 (at that point there were only 4 of us), sat down and were immediately bombarded with people who wanted to be our new best friends.  Along with our Paulaner beer we enjoyed some delicious roasted chicken (almost as good as that fried chicken from Jazz Fest) and good ol’ German potato salad.  

Before we knew it people were on the benches dancing and we were having a great time singing along with the band.  There were a ton of drunk people (I know, shocking) and things were starting to get a bit crazy.  The tent was packed.  If people weren’t packed into tables then they were standing in any empty space.  It was all really fun but soon it got to be time to leave.  Afterall it had probably been almost 8 hours since we had arrived and that was plenty of time to be there.  

The next day we met up with my friend April who had run the Berlin Marathon the weekend before and was in Munich before heading back to San Francisco.  We headed to an outdoor market near Marienplatz which had a huge outdoor seating area in the middle of the market.  The weather was perfect and we found ourselves a spot at a table, ordered some beers, some sausages and enjoyed a wonderful afternoon hanging out.  Before we knew it, she was off to catch her plane and we met back up with Stacey and Alex and a few of their friends.  Had a nice dinner in Munich and said goodbye the next morning.  

So overall I’d say it was a successful Oktoberfest this year.  Lesson learned....attend Oktoberfest on a weekday.

Stockholm

It was another one of those weeks where I traveled to Zurich and Oslo for work and Nate was in Helsinki so we figured we’d take advantage of being in the Nordics and visit one of the cities up there for the weekend.  Since Nate is up there quite often, I asked him to pick the best one out of Helsinki, Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm.  He suggested Stockholm eventhough he said all of the cities would be great choices.  So after my travels to Zurich (which was strange and familiar all at the same time but felt so great being back) and Oslo, I was off to Stockholm Thursday evening.  I worked from our Stockholm office that Friday and met up with Nate Friday evening.  It was finally the weekend!

The weather was a bit chilly and rainy all weekend but we were off to make the best of it.  Friday night we explored a bit of the old town on Gamla stan, grabbed a drink and had dinner.  One thing about Stockholm, and the Nordics in general, is that speaking English is never a problem.  Everyone there knows English and they speak it very well.  So from that perspective, it was a bit of a language vacation for us as well.  

Right outside City Hall

Saturday we were up and off to City Hall for the tour.  Stockholm is the home of the Nobel prize awards ceremony. The ceremony takes place at Stockholm Concert Hall and the banquet takes place in City Hall.  While we were on the tour of City Hall we saw the giant hall, which they call the “Blue Room”, where they host the big banquet dinner.  We also saw the “Golden Hall” where the dancing takes place.  It was pretty cool to see and quite pretty both inside and out.  City Hall sits right on the water which makes for lovely views.

We were then headed back to Gamla stan to check out the Nobel Museum (pretty cool....it highlights all of the Nobel prize winners and talks about Mr. Alfred Nobel himself, the founder of the prize), Stockholm Cathedral and the Royal Palace.  We walked around, shopped and had dinner in a nice local neighborhood and before we knew it, were on a plane the next morning headed back to Paris.  

It was a quick but very pleasant weekend and was a good chance to get a feel for Stockholm, check it out and enjoy some Swedish meatballs.  I think it’s a beautiful city and it feels very “European” to me with the buildings and cobblestone streets.  Nate says I should join him back there again in February when I can get a true sense of winter in the Nordic region.  Uh, yeah....meet you there babe!

It's not a full vacation but….

Hey, we'll take it!  Taking 3 days off work while not quite as good as a whole week and definitely not as good as two, is still a very good thing given how busy things have been.  Two people who did take the whole week off to join us in Paris and the South of France were our friends Ehren and Julie coming from DC.  Julie having lived in Paris for a year herself was excited to be back and show us a few of her favorite places in town.  

Arriving early on Saturday morning and after getting a refresher nap in, we started out on a gorgeous afternoon to do one of everyone's favorite things to do in Paris - Go to a park with cheese, wine, and meats to sit in the sun and simply enjoy.  Meeting up with some of Julie's friends in the Jardin de Tuileries we spent several hours outside in the park before moving on to spend that evening sitting along Canal Saint Martin which was packed end to end with people given just how nice the weather was.  Literally the best weather all summer long.

Jardin des Tuileries

After a nice lazy Sunday Ehren and Julie left Paris on their own for a few nights in the South of France while we worked the first few days that week.  Cleaver and I left Paris Wednesday morning on the train to the town of Nimes where Ehren and Julie picked us up on our way to île de Porquerolles which is a little island town just off the coast.  On our way from Nimes we stopped in a medieval town of Arles for lunch.  We then headed to Hyeres on the coast where Porquerolles was a short 15 minute ferry ride away.  It's a small town with a nice little town square and several beaches you could reach easily en velo (or bike). 

île de Porquerolles

Our few days there were quite relaxing, starting with a breakfast we made in our hotel room, then renting bikes and heading out to the various beaches.  The first day we found this great little cove where we just sat and took in the scenery for a bit.  Leisurely we worked our way back to town by late afternoon for happy hour consisting of the usual bread, cheese, wine combination before heading out for dinner.

Looking out over the water

The island had maybe 15 or so different restaurants and given that we were there in the middle of the week post-vacation time in France it was all fairly empty which added to the relaxing feeling we had.  We enjoyed this lifestyle for a few days before heading back to Paris on Saturday morning.  I would be remiss without mentioning on this train ride back to Paris that we had probably the loudest screaming crying baby right next to us for the entire ride.  This was unpleasant.  Very unpleasant.  But let's not dwell on that and just move on.

Back in Paris Saturday night for one last outing before Ehren and Julie had to head back home on Sunday after a great week in France!

Mischief and Mayhem - Just a day in Burgundy

Well after all of the craziness going on in our lives these past few months, we finally had a day where we could go explore beyond Paris.  Louis was in town....a quick weekend stopover in Paris between work trips in Portugal and Geneva....and he had a request that we leave Paris and explore somewhere else.  After presenting a few options, we decided on Dijon and the region of Burgundy.  More specifically, we went to Beaune which is a small town about a 20 minute train ride from Dijon.  We did just a day trip although if we had it to do all over again, I think we’d be better off spending the night.  We headed out on the TGV early on Saturday morning and just a little over 2 hours later, we were in Beaune.  It was a chilly day but at least it wasn’t raining, which was good because our plan was to rent bikes and explore the wine region of Burgundy.  Our friends Stacey and Alex recommended a bike shop in Beaune and Cedric (the guy who worked at the shop) helped us out by not only renting us bikes but also giving us some great suggestions on where to go for both tastings and lunch.  We headed off on our bikes and shortly after leaving the small town, we found ourselves amidst the vineyards of Burgundy.  It was pretty amazing and surreal.  I mean here it was just a regular old Saturday and we were bike riding through Burgundy.  Amazing!

We just happened upon a small little winery called Mischief and Mayhem where the lady was from the UK and spent some time telling us a bit about the wine region.  The wines were only ok although Nate and I bought a courtesy bottle.  The strangest part at this winery was when this lady poured us the reds she told us that she wasn’t sure how long they had been open and if they would be any good since she hadn’t been in the tasting room for a while.  Umm, ok?  Perhaps she wasn’t interested in really selling wine and more interested in getting to her lunch (after all, the wineries all close from about 12:00 to 1:30/2:00 for lunch).  So yeah, as nice as she was, it didn’t leave a great impression.

We headed off to our lunch at a restaurant recommended by Cedric.  It was a very homey feel of a restaurant and very typical French food.  The meal was delicious and we met a fellow bike traveler visiting from Boston.  All in all, a very lovely lunch.

We were back on our bikes and ready to explore and find another winery.  We again just happened across this one winery that seemed interesting.  It was called Edmond Cornu & Fils.  A lady greeted us and took us down into the wine cellar where she proceeded to pour us a few tastings.  Now she didn’t speak any English but luckily Louis is French Canadian and therefore could help translate.  She spent quite a bit of time with us and the wines were fantastic...as evidenced by the 7 bottles we bought between the 3 of us.  And we would have bought more too but there was only so many we could fit into that empty backpack we brought along.  It was overall a great experience and she even gave us a special taste of their Corton Grand Cru.  We are all still kicking ourselves for not making room to buy a few bottles of this one.  

Nate & Louis learning all about the region from this sweet lady

In any case, we had a wonderful experience here and in fact spent so much time there that we needed to start heading back to the bike shop to return our bikes and catch our train back to Dijon and then Paris.  Again, it would have been great to have had more time....there is so much to explore!!  We were mainly in the Aloxe-Corton and Ladoix areas but the southern part of the region was highly recommended as well.  I think it will definitely be on our list of places to head back to.  All in all it was a brilliant day and one that I think we will all remember for a long time to come.

9-1

“9 -1-1 is a joke in your town” is a little shout out to those of you who appreciate some good old fashioned late 80’s militant rap which in this case may have also come complete with a giant clock.  What may also be a joke starting with “9-1” is the month of September, as in how can it possibly be September 1?  Been awhile since we contributed to the interwebs, kept meaning to for about the last 6 weeks, but what can I say, it’s been busy!

So what have we been up to? Um, well, more than just a nice little Saturday so to speak.  As most people by now know, at the beginning of July (yeah, like 2 months ago, I know) we left the friendly confines of Zurich, Switzerland and made the move to the big city of Paris.  As has been documented on this blog we loved our time in Switzerland but were faced with the choice to either come home to SF or move to Paris.  It wasn’t a difficult choice.

Having obtained the necessary paperwork, off we went and thus begins our past two months.  Start with the arrival at a new city / temporary apartment.  Nothing to really note regarding the temporary apartment, wasn’t bad by any means but not too exciting either, other than some creative engineering on the appliances (see stove from previous blog).

Finding this place to be nothing more than ok and obviously temporary, we then had our day of apartment searching with a person we worked with directly to get us set up.  A full day of looking at 8 different places and naturally the first one of the day was the one we liked the best.  We still could not move in for a few more weeks but at least got a place secured and could check that off the long list of things to do after a few rounds of back and forth with the property agent and owner, took some time but we got it done

Next up – Bank account.  This should be easy, open account, deposit money, get ATM cards, on line set up, and off you go.  Not so fast mon ami.  They make this process much more difficult than it needs to be by forcing you to come into the bank twice and receive codes via mail that may never arrive.  So this took about 4 weeks to do what should taken about 4 minutes.  But we’re set up, so moving on.

Work – since neither of us had any changes to our jobs, just simply working in a different office, this one was pretty straight forward.  Well except for me and the visa / transfer process.  I would tell you more but honestly, it was so painful I just can’t relive it.  Maybe sometime later on over a beer or two I can fill you in, but for now let’s just say we’re both settled in at our new offices and work is going along just fine now that we’re here.

Moving day – relatively painless getting into our new place on August 1, took all of our suitcases, got the keys, had the rest of our stuff from Zurich delivered and we’re in.  Still took a few weeks to get settled in, buy all the little things you always need when moving into a new place and finally as of about a week ago, starting to feel like home.

About a week after moving in we needed to take a week and go back to San Francisco and get our life there in order, meaning packing up our apartment and moving all our stuff into storage in SF.  This week in SF was great, very good to be home, but a very busy few days of packing, moving, property manager meeting and taking care of all that we could to keep things organized.  Our apartment in SF is now being rented by someone – so for those of you who stayed there the past year without us knowing because you got a key from somebody else – don’t go back.  Somebody else lives there now.  You have been warned.

Week in SF, make the trip back to Paris, back to work, work trip that week in late August blah blah blah and that friend is how two months goes by and we get to 9-1 without even realizing it. 

So one last question – when does summer vacation start?  Doh!

Paris

Well so far we are slowly getting settled into life here in Paris.  It’s now been about two weeks since we moved here.  We’re currently in temporary housing near the Saint Lazare train station.  It’s not the most exciting neighborhood but it is relatively close to our offices so that part is nice.  About a week ago, Nate and I spent the day with our home search consultant looking at apartments.  And when I say the day, I mean the full day.  We started at 10am and after looking at 8 different places, finished at about 6pm.  It was one exhausting day.  But the good news is that we found a place we liked, in an area that we think we’ll enjoy and that many people recommended.  We’re hoping all continues to go well and that we will sign the contract next week and get everything squared away for a move-in date of August 1.  Yay!!  We could not be more thrilled or excited to get settled into a permanent place and finally get comfortable here.  Our temporary accommodations are overall fine however there are a few things that just make it frustrating.  It’s small, for one, with no storage space.  So we’re pretty much living out of a suitcase with just one closet.  The bathroom is literally a part of the bedroom which is not ideal when one wants to sleep and the other is taking a shower right there in the room with you.  It’s a bit bizarre I must say.  And it makes this temporary place just not conducive for guests.  Oh and then the Parisians must love space saving appliances as we have a stove/oven/dishwasher all in one (see picture).  This also is a bit bizarre.  So in any case, while this place is most definitely sufficient, we cannot wait to get settled into our permanent place.

Is it a stove? Is it an oven? Is it a dishwasher?

Waiting for fireworks

I’ve also started settling in at the office.  The great news is that nothing about my actual job and the role itself changed.  So with all of the other change happening in our lives, it’s nice to have one thing that stays the same.  Everyone in my office has been extremely nice and welcoming.  It’s funny how they ask if I speak French and when I tell them no, I get this very concerned and confused look.  As if how could I survive here in France without speaking French.  I usually quickly follow it up with the fact that I’m currently trying to learn and that I really do want to speak French and that seems to make it all better.  

Speaking of the language, it is much different than being in Zurich from an English perspective.  In Zurich, English was no problem at all.  95% of the people you encountered all spoke English, and quite decent English at that.  Here in Paris it’s much different.  In just two weeks, I have had multiple occurrences where the person on the other side of the counter didn’t speak any English at all.  We managed to get by, of course, but it’s definitely a bit more challenging.  But that’s totally fine with me....I don’t expect by any means that they should be able to speak English for me.  I actually look at this as a great opportunity to learn French more quickly....hopefully!  Like I said, Nate and I both are really eager to learn the language here and are practicing as much as we can.  

Overall Nate and I are truly loving being in Paris.  We are definitely grateful that things worked out the way they did allowing us to move to this amazing city.  I think we’re going to be very very happy here!  I do love me a big city and although it took a few days to get back into “city” mode, I’m loving every second of it.  And what a great city it is!!  Yesterday was Bastille Day and one of the things they do to celebrate here in Paris is a fireworks show at the Eiffel Tower.  Nate and I spent the afternoon exploring a new neighborhood, Le Marais, and then at about 9:30 headed towards Place de la Concorde to get a spot to watch the show.  We waited for probably an hour but we couldn’t be happier.  I sat there just staring at the Eiffel Tower, all lit up, and kept telling myself that this is my new city.  Pretty amazing!!  Like I said, I think we’re going to be pretty darn happy here.

Happy Bastille Day!