Poilâne

Today I had the opportunity to go to Poilâne bakery, one of the few bakeries that still use an old wood fired brick oven to make their breads. And they gave us a tour downstairs (just like Julia Child. No really, if you read her book 'My life in France' there is a picture of Julia Child in front of the very oven that you see here. Random french bakery history for you) Anyway, moving on. This bakery specializes in artisan breads and they are the nice heavy chewy ones that are mostly healthy for you. My favorite is the rye/raisin bread but the apple tarts were WAY better than most of the boulangeries just off the street.

Upon entering, we met in a little room off the entrance and received a history lesson. They have been making bread the same way since 1932 and still even use some of the original sourdough starter. This is a chandelier made of bread. No, not the original. They remake it every few years.
During hard times (depression or WWII, I can't remember) local artists would paint pictures for the bakery in exchange for some bread. Thus the room full of bread paintings.
This is how they weigh their ingredients.
and this is where they mix them.Then after the rising process, the dough is shaped and put in this oven which is about 500 degrees but will gradually drop off to about 160 degrees before they will add more wood to the fire.

The baker masterfully removes the bread and moves things around so they they are in the hotter part of the oven if needed.


Voilà, you have a ton of fresh bread.

Here are the apple tarts I mentioned. Yummy.
If you find that you are craving any of this, fear not for you can order online (click the link at the beginning) from them and they will ship it Fed Ex to you so you, too, can have fresh Poilâne bread...just like me.

Bon anniversaire de marriage

2011 means it's been 11 years since we got married. (Pretty smart of us to get married in 2000 so we'll always know exactly what # anniversary it is). Anyway, today Doug took the day off to spend the day with me. I was truly pampered and we spent a lot of time together. We wanted to go out to eat at Jean Paul Hevin tea salon (who wouldn't want to eat lunch in a chocolate store?!), but our timing was a little messed up. So instead we grabbed a crèpe , and walked along the Champs Elycées until we got to La Durée. We went in to grab an anniversary treat and I will be back many times.

Also today we went to Thomas' classroom to read some favorite books to the class. The students loved the book "What's with that room?" by Tom Lichtenheld (especially the line about having the underwear on the ceiling fan)

Today was a great day. I look forward to spending many more anniversaries with you Doug. Je t'aime.

Joyeux anniversaire Matt!

Happy Birthday Matt! Today he is eight years old! Wow. Eight years ago I became a mom. And now my baby is a big boy getting ready to be baptized. Sometimes I am amazed at how easily he picks up on new things he learns at school. He loves reading and practically every week he comes home to tell me he's advanced to the next level reading group at school. He gets excited about new concepts he's learning at school (like communities, or matter, or dinosaurs...) He really enjoys learning new words in his french class and will tell you that he is the best one in his french class. He is always wanting to try out french conversations and I am amazed at how quickly he's picking it up. Who knows where he will be a couple years from now. I know he can handle an entire afternoon playdate in french. He is still great at math and brings home math tests with perfect scores all the time. Matt has made a couple really good friends (one is a fellow Star Wars guru). I have actually set up an after school playdate with one of the moms for every Friday after school. Matt's friend is also new to Paris and the two of them love being together. Matt has really gotten into Lego's. He loves building new Star Wars sets and after he's built them, he takes them apart to build new things. It's nice to see his patience with his Lego's. Matt can be very helpful and likes to help with dishes and laundry. He loves helping Timmy and teaching him new things. We love Matt and his love of learning. Matt requested a Star Wars Lego birthday party. I was all prepared to make his cake look like Legos and then put Lego guys on it. However, the day I was making his cake, I didn't feel well and had a horrible headache and achy yucky. So I "made" a Death Star and put it on a dark cake like in space. (I actually originally tried to make a giant cake ball (Like Bakerella), but I think I added too much frosting and it sank into an oval mess.) So, I coated a plastic basketball toy with frosting instead. I don't really like decorating a cake with just toys, but considering my health, it turned out ok. Matt liked it and that's what counts.

Joyeux anniversaire Thomas!

Happy Birthday Thomas! He is six years old today. He is a happy energetic boy ready to make anyone around him laugh. He's a natural actor (for better or worse). I love it when he smiles and his blue eyes twinkle (with mischief) and you can see his cute dimple. He still loves his cars and is excited to learn about new ones here in Europe. He is quickly learning to love Legos and he and Matt can play nicely for quite a while with Legos. Thomas likes to give hugs and tell you that he loves you. He always seems to say the right things if I'm feeling sad. I love you Thomas. Keep on smiling.

Thomas requested an army tank for his birthday cake. As a result we had a army boot camp party with a few friends from his school class. Doug taught them how to stand at attention and do pushups, and we created an obstacle course complete with tunnels, army crawling, target practice, and balancing skills. I think that the boys had a lot of fun.
Here's a closer look at the caterpillar tracks on the tank. I used black licorice for the tracks, Oreos for the tires, and a pirouette cookie for the cannon. We also put a SW camo clone at the top. Actually this was a pretty easy cake to make. Thomas liked it and that's all that matters.

cookies

Christmas vacation is upon us. Two whole weeks to keep boys entertained and Mommy happy. We spent a lot of time cooking and preparing for Christmas and then playing. We all really enjoyed sleeping in.

I went a little overboard with food (again) this year. Oh well. I'm my mother's daughter. We made a bunch of cookies. Here are some samples:

It isn't Christmas without some sort of mint cookie. Apparently there is no mint flavoring to be found here. (mental note to get some shipped before next Christmas). So I had to be creative. There IS, however, a flavoring to add to your drink that is mint flavored. I wondered if I could use this although it was mostly water based and not extract. I think that I succeeded because I haven't had any complaints. Chocolate sandwich cookies with mint frosting.
My wrestle with Rudolph. I saw these cookies in a magazine and I thought they were so cute. What I forgot was that my reindeer cookie cutter is a huge pain to use. See if you can find... the doe (no antlers), the one legged Rudolph, and the bodiless Rudolph. Yummy, but a pain.

Sugar cookies. I have a love/hate relationship with sugar cookies. I love to eat them. I hate to take the time to roll out dough, cut it, and decorate it. Children, however, love all aspects of it. So here we go...

La 5ème Fête de Halloween

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

At long last. Halloween is here! I've had a lot of fun all month planning various meals. I'm sure that I'll start planning Halloween 2011 sometime next summer. (Or maybe tomorrow as I find online sales on Halloween costumes!).

Halloween dinner 2010 Menu

Intestines and Eyeballs. I had a lot of fun making the eyeballs.
Bone bread and...


Skeleton bones. Like the skeleton made out of breadsticks? Fun huh?For dessert we had Bleeding Hearts. I made yeast doughnuts that I baked in the oven. Then I cut them out with a heart cookie cutter, and right after baking I dipped them in a glaze. Then I attempted to fill it with cherry pie filling. It worked better to dissect it from the front. Way yummy. Glazed doughnuts are the best when they are still warm.
Skull cookies.

We also made regular Halloween sugar cookies. I let the boys frost them and dump (literally) the sprinkles on.

La 4ème Fête de Halloween

Happy Halloween (again). Here's yet another meal by yours truly. I was in a bit of a hurry today, so it's not quite so entertaining, but here you go:

Main course of Ground up Zombie Guts in Slime. (aka broccoli cheese soup), with zombie hands reaching up from within.
Zombie Eyeballs. I was in a bit of a hurry for this one (didn't want the soup to get cold) so I didn't paint all of them, nor take the time to make the red lines wiggly like strained eyeballs. I'll do it next time. Apparently Thomas likes deviled eggs, just without the yolk. (yeah, only the white part. better than nothing)

Mummies in Concombre Coffins. I mixes Boursin cheese with some cream cheese and then piped it back and forth into a hollowed out cucumber. Then I used red peppers for eyes.And for dessert, Coffin Cake. This was fun to research and make. Doug said it was one of my best creations yet. My only complaint is that it was small. I used a loaf pan and then cut the cake into a coffin shape. Then cut off "the lid". I hollowed out the middle and filled it with cherry pie filling. Then I had fun piping skeleton hands on.

La 3ème Fête de Halloween

Halloween dinner 2010 part III. (are you getting tired of this yet? I'm not)

Tonight we had a couple of missionaries over. (Funny thing is that when one other pair of Elders heard that we were doing our Halloween dinners they were upset that they were going to miss out. I mentioned that every pair will have their turn. Tonight there is a new Elder from Taiwan, so Halloween is kind of new for him. I had to reassure him that this was not normal, nor was it normal for Halloween. I'm just kind of weird like that). On to the menu.

Main dish was pizza. We had Mummy Pizza (there were strips of cheese before they baked into one. Oh well)
And a cheese pizza with a couple pepperoni bats for the boys. ( I have a funny story about making Bat Pizza, but it's inappropriate for the blog, so ask me later)
For the vegetable course, we had Frankenstein spinach dip. (hint, Frankenstein is actually guacamole)
Gross looking but yummy, Stake through the Heart chicken nuggets.
To go along with the stake through the heart, here is Dracula's teeth Jell-O.

Bloody brew. The "blood' dripping is just corn syrup mixed with red food coloring. I now know why the recipe said to use wine glasses or at least a glass with a stem. This produced some sticky fingers.

And for dessert we have Witch in the Night pumpkin cheesecake.

La 2ème Fête de Halloween

Here we go again. Halloween dinner the sequel 2010. Tonight we had some other friends over with two little boys, so we made it a child friendly meal. Here was the menu. (a lot of classic repeats from the past couple years).

For the main dish we had Snake sandwiches. I made the french bread dough and shaped it into a snake. Then I let Matt and Thomas paint the snake with an egg white wash. We cut off pieces of the snake to make our sandwiches.

Our two little friends that came over tonight are allergic to wheat, so I made Mummy Hotdogs with strips of white cheese.
The ever popular vegetable platter with a hand sticking out of the dip. The fingers kept slipping into the dip. oh well.

Always a child favorite are the Hot Dog Critters.

And what's a Halloween feast without a Jack-o-Lantern pumpkin cheesecake?