Apple Rumble Crumble

When walking the girls to school, we pass by some apple trees growing by the side of the road in a neighbor’s yard. They’re in full form right now, with multitudes of lovely apples hanging from the branches, emitting a sweet apple-icious perfume. (Or more likely the scent is coming from the apples that have already fallen, lying streetside, being feasted upon by worms in varying levels of decomposition.)

And as I discovered a couple of days ago, when S returned home with a bag in hand after visiting the neighbor, some of these apples are edible—as long as they’re cooked first.

So marked the commencement of my first baking endeavor in Europe. My mission? An apple crumble, which I figured would be easy enough. First I had to peel them and cut out all the worm infestations. They aren’t the same apples that are sold at the grocery store—they’re mini-sized, and the flesh has an acidic tang. I was worried they wouldn’t bake well, but it ended up making a nice snack after the girls came home from school.

Pre-baked apples; looking quite Cezannesque (but note the holes)

Still Life with Basket of Apples, Paul Cezanne

Here’s the recipe I used, it’s really simple and it came out well:

Apple Crumble

¾ cup flour
1¼ cup regular oats
½ cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp salt
½ cup butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ cup apple juice or cider
¼ cup sugar
10 cup chopped apples

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit/200 degrees Celsius. Grease large baking dish.

Combine flour, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt; then incorporate butter and vanilla extract with a fork until the mixture is moist and crumbly.

Combine apple juice, sugar, and a dash of salt in a large bowl. Stir until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is smooth. Toss with apples to coat evenly, then spoon into baking dish.

Sprinkle the oat mixture on top. Cover with aluminum foil and bake 30 minutes. Uncover and bake additional 30 minutes, or until top is golden and the apples are cooked through.

Pique-nique!

On Sundays when the weather’s nice, we’ve been having a lakeside picnic lunch in the afternoon. It’s a testament to how lovely the simple things in life can be, the water glimmering with sunbeams and the mountains in the background. And simple yet delicious food: some nice sharp cheese and a bit of juicy tomato inside some crusty baguette—golden crisp and crumbly on the outside with a pillowy soft white interior (la mie); a hard-boiled egg; some fruit.

Lac Geneve on the way to Gruyeres:

Lac Genin:

My Maiden Voyage

Today was my first solo flight in the White Citroën. Prior to coming here, I was accustomed to my bright blue little Beetle (une coccinelle, en français), with its lovely, easy-to-drive, automatic transmission. Luckily, I got some lessons before I left on how to work a stick shift. But driving here is a lot different than it is back home, basically for four reasons:

A. Roundabouts (aka rotaries): Apparently the French really like their rond-points because they are everywhere! I discovered that they are especially tricky when one has no idea of the surrounding area. On the plus side however, there is a considerably less amount of stoplights, which makes driving quicker.

B. It’s Europe, so the streets are narrow. That’s what makes them look so charming. But it also makes knowing who has la priorité (the right-of-way) a requirement at all times, because if two cars are on the same street, passing in opposite directions, one of them has to stop in order for both to eventually get by. It would be almost impossible to drive a big SUV here.

C. Windy/curvaceous roads: Any sort of pre-planned arrangement of grids just doesn’t exist. It calls for a considerable amount of defensive driving, because oncoming or neighboring cars can’t be seen until the very last snake bend.

D. And last but not least, the hills: being located in a valley between the Jura mountains and the Swiss Alps, it’s pretty mountainous terrain around here. Which means that starting up from first gear on an incline is a frequent occurrence, usually necessitating the use of the hand brake; or at least I can expect to roll back a bit before picking up speed, and I wouldn’t ever want to roll back into the car behind me!

My first time driving—I don’t think I’ll ever forget it—it was so overwhelming! My host mom S was in the passenger seat, serving as the driving instructor, and I have to say she did an excellent job of staying calm. If I were her, I would have been pretty scared for my life! In my defense, we were heading home from Geneva, so I was driving on some fairly intense autoroutes.

So every night last week, either S or D took me out for a little tour of the area to practice shifting. It’s funny because we were switching between French and English, so many a time I find myself trying to conjugate a verb in my head while keeping my eyes on the road (which trust me is harder than it sounds, in midst of a conversation and a driving maneuver).

But now I feel I’m starting to get the hang of it, and apparently S does too, or at least she trusted me enough to go to the supermarket all alone today, with a shopping list of the food items we need: some fruits and veggies, a few cartons of milk, and of course, some brie cheese.

Thank goodness I have no dramas, problems, or funny anecdotes to report back—everything was fine. But I don’t want to jinx myself now, because I’m still learning. It’s nice though that it's starting to come naturally. It's even approaching the point of being “fun” now, when the engine kicks in just right and I get a nice zip of acceleration.

And after driving around here for a year, it’s going to make Framtown in my Buggy a piece of cake in comparison.


The White Thunder Slice

Yummyness!

I am accustomed to having crepes for breakfast, rolled up with the delicious sugar-bomb duo of maple syrup and brown sugar.

So a couple of nights ago for dinner I was excited to have my first taste of crepes in France, their nation of origin (at least I think so), of a more savory rather than sweet variety.

Words wouldn't give it justice but I forgot to take a picture, so I decided to draw a little diagram instead:



Voila!

You would never guess what I ate this weekend

So last Saturday morning I ran errands with D. Mainly to practice my stick shift skills, going from store to store. Finally, we arrived at la boucherie (the butcher shop), which, as to be expected when one is in France, is quite a sight to behold.

Red meat everywhere! Pig and cow carcasses; assorted pieces of raw animal flesh, all tied and cut up, arranged on platters in a glass display case and hanging from the ceiling and walls.

Funny how –back in the day—when I was vegetarian, I used to diligently avoid the meat section of Stop and Shop, not even taking a glance, because I was so disturbed by the sight of dead animals. Now I just swallow the disgust that naturally arises from my stomach and think of how I am experiencing and embracing French culture in its entirety.

While D was giving his order to the bloody apron-clad butcher, I decided to go look at the gourmet marinades and sauces that were lined up on a shelf. As he was ready to leave, I went over to pick up the plastic sack that was holding all our meat for the upcoming week, when I realized it was extraordinarily and unnaturally heavy.

“What’s in the bag?,” I asked.

“La langue de boeuf.”

“The what of beef?”

“La langue.”

Ah-ha.

In celebration of her birthday, Ar could have anything she wanted for supper. Anything at all. And what did she want? Cow tongue. Yummm. At least it sounds more appetizing in French: la langue de boeuf.

As it turns out, the lady who watched her when she was little was quite the traditional French cooking chef and used to serve it to her.

So it made sense why the bag was so heavy. The tongue is a muscle, after all. And for a cow, it is quite large: wide, and about a foot long. As S pronounced when we returned home, “C’est énorme!” It was her first time cooking it, and I could tell she was a little intimidated but quite the trooper. We discovered that the tongue shrinks significantly in size as it is slowly cooked stovetop overnight, as directed by the recipe, in a tomato-based sauce along with chopped sautéed onions and onions. When I went to get a glass of water from the kitchen that night, the fumes wafting around the kitchen were actually quite enticing!

Finally, as the time for supper approached the next day, my stomach was clawing with hunger and I was formulating various excuses, trying to find the most polite wording possible, and fully planning to eat only the side dishes for my meal.

So how did I end up eating the TONGUE of a COW, gory ligaments and tendons and all?

In my defense, I was drunk at the time. Okay, not really. But being in France, we have l’aperitif first, and this being a special occasion, D popped open some champagne (literally, he let the cork flew over the table). I instructed just “un petit peu” in my glass, but I ended up with a full one. [Note: the legal drinking age in France is 18.] Of course, I should have known better than to drink on an empty stomach. Furthermore (and more than anything this is probably more why I tried it, more than the fact I was a little dizzy and discombobulated from the alcohol), I was gauging the social pressure of the situation, and I could tell that it would have rude for me to refuse, to not at least attempt a bite.

So I made the decision to be courageous, plunge my fork into the meat, and forget the fact that MY tongue was in the process of digesting another tongue. It was a grayish brown color, some parts of it were smooth and others were bumpy. There was no denying its tongue-ish characteristics, no way of misidentifying it as a typical cut of meat. And even so, I have to admit: it actually tasted pretty good! (As in, I could understand why Ar would like it.)

And hey, now if someone asks me what is the strangest thing I’ve ever eaten, I have a pretty good answer.