Voyage Toujours

Today was my first day of French school.  I understand so much but need to work on my speaking.  Will do.  There are 5 other Spanish speaking natives in the class so I may get to also practice my Spanish.  There’s 2 guys from Columbia, a guy from Spain, a guy from Mexico and one from Venezuela.  There is also a German kid, a girl from Kurdistan, one from China who is married to an American from San Francisco, a girl from Brazil, a Libyan girl and another girl from the US – Florida and myself – representing So Cal!  After school I took the metro over to the Carrousel du Louvre to the Apple store to buy another Euro plug for my stuff then had lunch at a Moroccan place before it started raining and I headed back home arriving around 4p.  Did some homework and there you go, the day was gone.

Yesterday, however, I went down to the organic open air market, open every Sunday morning until 1:30pm,  in the Avenue du Raspail and bought some veggies, eggs, and chicken.  The chicken was pretty pricey.  The French call organic stuff “bio” – whatever the thing is, bio-lait (milk), bio-oeufs (eggs), etc.  The market was a couple of blocks long and is mostly covered so even though it was sprinkling, you get through relatively dry.  I heard some other English speakers there but of the British variety.  They were a family in a group.  The market not only has food but vitamins and other homeopathic remedies.   The longest lines were for the meat products and you had to get in there and get the attention of the vendor and have your order ready.  I just wanted the 2 pieces of chicken legs with the thighs.  There was only 1 in the case so the guy went and got another chicken and proceeded to cut the leg and thigh for me.  With organic chicken, the skin is almost a yellow color and it’s true here.  I prepared it with shallots, green onion, thyme, bay leaf and rosemary in a pan and once it was browned I added some white wine and water and let it finish cooking.  I have a microwave that is also a convection oven, but I need to read the directions and see how it works.  But, so far, my cooking has been on the stovetop.  I don’t think I’ll try baking any tollhouse cookies.   Well, here’s a few photos I took of the market and one of the veggies I brought home.