We went to Blois on Friday to complete the sale of our new house Closerie Falaiseau. A perfect day and I was able to take photos of the city from the north bank of the river.
Cleaners I Have Known
I love my cleaning lady! We joke together that the only time I’m not so happy with her is when her holidays don’t coincide with mine (dammit, she goes away most of August) or when she stays home to look after a sick child (which I approve of naturally). One of the hardest things when I left the suburbs to come and live in Paris was losing my Portuguese cleaner whom I’d had since I was pregnant with Leonardo 30 years ago! She had a wonderful sense of humour (like my current Maria), was very devoted, obviously went back to Portugal for the whole of August like everyone else (I can forgive her for that!), and adored my children.
When she learnt that I was pregnant with Black Cat, she said that I’d never to able to make another baby as beautiful as Leonardo. But when she came to clean just a few hours after Black Cat was born, she declared that I’d done it again! Black Cat was born at home by the way, in case you’re wondering. I’d had enough of interfering French hospitals by then! I had a midwife and doctor present and everything went perfectly.
The French government has a good system for domestic workers called “chèques service“. If you declare them and pay social security contributions, they become a tax deduction. You have to set it up with the bank first so that when you declare their hours on the website, the social security contributions can be taken directly out of your bank account. That way you’re covered if there is an accident and they get a better old age pension and even sick pay. The scheme doesn’t just apply to cleaners, but also to nannies, gardeners, handymen or whoever else you might employ on an hourly basis.
So when we moved to Paris, Relationnel told me to be very nice to one of the Portugueuse concierges on our street (there are five altogether) because she knows absolutely everyone and decides who’s going to work where! He was right. Not that I wouldn’t have been nice to her anyway. I mentioned my need for a cleaning lady and very soon Maria arrived on my doorstep. All Portuguese cleaning ladies are called Maria Something by the way. Maria A. and I immediately got on. She likes cleaning, she takes pride in her work and she likes the freedom it gives her. She works for four or five different people in the same street.
We also go back to visit my first Maria in January each year for a galette des rois and whenever we visit a European city with a special Catholic church such as the Macarena in Seville or Assisi or Our Lady of Loreto near Ancona, I buy an icon to give her.
Leonardo’s first cleaning lady was also Portuguese but when she had her first baby and decided, quite understandably of course, to stay home and look after him, he had to find someone else, but never managed to find another Maria. Maybe that’s why he moved to Australia!
Black Cat has a male cleaner who’s Philippino and speaks English. Being a cleaner is a traditional profession for Philippino men and they do a wonderful job.
Now when we move to Blois in two years’ time, I’ll have to find another cleaner. I do hope there’s going to be another Maria.
How I lost 20 kilos after 50, for good – Part 5
A month ago, I talked to you about my discovery of the benefits of fish for which I have gradually developed a real liking and which have certainly helped me lose weight and keep it off. Christmas was also approaching and I was a bit concerned about a backslide. As it turned out, I needn’t have worried. I was able to enjoy a couple of côtes de boeuf and lamb chops cooked in the open fire, foie gras, Rozan chocolates from the Pyrenees (my favourites), wine at night and other goodies and still lose 1 ½ kilos by mid-January. I could gradually see the centimetres coming off as well.
The clothing situation when you’re losing weight is a bit tricky unless you have an unlimited clothes budget. Fortunately I had kept a few things from the next two sizes down so the first winter wasn’t too much of a problem. As spring came, I was a little short though but determined not to buy too many clothes that I would only wear for a brief period. In seven months, between mid-October and mid-May, I lost 12 kilos and it was beginning to show!
For the first few months, only my family and close friends had really noticed anything, but I can remember going to a get-together at the university in May wearing a new outfit I had splurged on after my last appointment with Doctor Séjean. I suddenly had women swarming around me, telling me how great I looked and asking me how I’d done it. They, too, had been told that after 50, it was pointless even trying to lose weight. That was probably the greatest kick I got out of my diet and was enough to keep me going while I lost the next 8 kilos!
With the warmer weather, I had started cycling again but probably the most effective move was to go back to the swimming pool. I now felt that I could face up to seeing myself in a swimsuit again. I decided to take things slowly and convinced Relationnel into going with me on Saturday or Sunday. Once I was doing 15 x 50 metre laps, I started going a second time during the week by myself. I gradually worked up to 30 laps, which is what I used to do many years ago, but I was much slower than before (age maybe?). In the end, I decided to go back to 20 laps because I was also getting too tired. Doctor Séjean regularly prescribed blood tests and gave me magnesium, vitamin B6 and vitamin D supplements accordingly.
Very soon after, we went to Italy for a month, moving around quite a lot. Doctor Séjean had told me just to take it easy, eat as much fish and vegetables as possible and pasta too if I wanted because it’s made with durum wheat which is easier to digest than fresh bread. We were mainly staying in B&Bs, with a week in an apartment on the Bay of Naples and the weather was very nice so we tried to only have one meal out a day. The rest of the time we bought picnic food from the markets or local shops, mostly salad vegetables, raw fish and cold meats. We had a glass or two of wine with our meals as well.
I guess we were getting a lot of exercise from walking but I was surprised when I came home to discover I was the same weight as when I left. In Italy, it’s quite easy to get vegetables in restaurants, particularly grilled zucchinis, eggplant and capsicums. One of the main things I had noticed after a few of months of dieting was that I no longer wanted carbs with each meal so I usually only had them once a day.
By then, any desire to binge or snack had totally disppeared!
If you enjoyed this post, you might like to read
The Natural Skinnies and UsHow I lost 20 kilos after 50, for good – Part I
How I lost 20 kilos after 50, for good – Part 2
How I lost 20 kilos after 50, for good – Part 3
How I lost 20 kilos after 50, for good – Part 4 How I lost 20 kilos after 50, for good – Part 6
Use Your French to Help Combat Hunger – Paris for Lunch – Atlantic Coast by Bike
As usual on a Wednesday, here are some snippets from other blogs. Thank you to the authors: Femme Francophil, Petite Paris and Experience France by Bike!
Use Your French to Help Combat Hunger
by Femme Francophile
Each year, on 20 March, French-speakers around the world celebrate the International Day of Francophonie.
This year to mark the day the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) and the United Nations’ Programme alimentaire mondial (PAM), known in English as the World Food Programme (WFP), provides you with the opportunity to not only extend your knowledge of the French language and the French-speaking countries but at the same time help those who are hungry. Read more
Paris for Lunch
by Petite Paris bed & breakfast accommodations in Paris
Bonjour Petite Friends. It’s 2.30pm and I havent had lunch yet. Looks like im going to work straight through AGAIN; picking away at an emergency (don’t have time to step away from le bureau) stash off tuna and crackers at my desk! If I were in Paris, I would eat at: Read more
The Atlantic Coast of France, My Destination for Spring 2012
by Experience France By Bike
This is my 100th post about biking in France, and I thought it was the perfect occasion to reveal the destination for my upcoming trip to France. Having spent the last two years exploring the Loire Valley, Burgundy, Brittany and the Dordogne, this spring I will finally journey back to the Atlantic Coast of France. Read more
Keep Those Clothes On!
Au mois d’avril ne te découvre pas d’un fil,
En mai fais ce qu’il te plaît.
(In April, don’t remove a stitch,
In May, do as you please.)
It’s 19°C today with bright sun and blue sky and I just powerwalked up to Concorde and back. And there they were, the poor little kids, all rugged up in their thick coats and boots and even hats. The luckier ones were bareheaded and some had even taken off their coats – but they were probably foreigners anyway!
I’ve heard this saying many times since I arrived in France in 1975 and not just in the north. It seems that the slightest little breeze will bring on immediate coughs and colds. In the metro, the kids must be so hot in the winter. I can’t bear keeping my coat on for any length of time and I certainly wouldn’t be able to put up with wearing a balaclava or a hood with a thick scarf around my neck in a train.
Our flat is totally overheated even though we turn the radiators off but if the heating is adjusted so that we have the regulatory 19°C on the fourth floor, the people on the ground floor will only have 16°C. It’s the hot water going through the pipes that heats our place. The trouble is, you get used to having 23°C all the time. When we move to Blois, I suspect that I’ll have to invest in some warmer clothes!
But spring is well on its way, with daffodils and hyacinths and magnolias out in the Palais Royal Gardens. I swear I can see my bulbs growing in the window boxes. Yesterday, there was only one crocus out and today there’s a whole crowd of them. Not easy to take a photo though. Our balcony is actually just a gutter but it’s just wide enough to fit a small table and two chairs if one person sits down first and pulls the table forward to let the other squeeze in.
The people are milling around the fountain soaking up the sun. I must say that Parisians are real sun lovers. I guess if you’re starved for it the rest of the time it’s understandable. It’s actually surprising weather for March when you’re supposed to be getting “giboulées” which means a sudden burst of rain, sometimes accompanied by wind, hail or even snow, and often followed by bright sunshine. Not my scene!
The Secret of Eating Out in Madrid
Not that I really discovered the secret. Our bacalao experience was only the start.
The first morning, we set off from our home exchange flat for desayuno and saw that a lot of cafés were offering the American-style breakfasts we had seen in Seville obviously geared towards tourists, with fried eggs and sausages. We ended up having a cute cappuccino and a somewhat disappointing cake and decided we’d have breakfast at home for the rest of our stay. I didn’t find any Earl Grey tea though and we had to make do with ordinary yoghurts as opposed to the Activia (bifidobacterium) we prefer. We couldn’t find a bakery either but I suspect they are called something I don’t know!
We had lunch at Eboli on Plaza Mayor. Relationnel chose from the counter – delicious mussels (mejillones) and some expensive rubbery octopus (pulpo). For our aperitivo in the evening, we went to an address given to us by our home exchange host but it was excessively noisy so we found a heated terrace at La Téa Cebolla with some good nibblies – mainly a dried sausage affair with little bread sticks and cheese. There were no tourists there. We then found a restaurant serving shoulder of lamb and went in.
The bar area of the restaurants is always very animated and the food looks great but if you want to sit down, you find yourself in a very different atmosphere with practically no one else around and rather off-hand service. The lamb was off (of course) so we left. We were much happier at El Lacon where we had an ensalada mixta and a tabla de carne, which is a sort of mixed grill. The ensalada mixta consisted of iceberg lettuce, canned tuna, raw onion and some bits of tomatoes while the meat (very copious) was served with delicious grilled vegetables – sliced eggplant, zucchini, capsicum, tomatoes, onions and asparagus.
At lunch next day, we stupidly chose the ensalada mixta again (some people never learn!) and discovered that it’s always the same thing. We had tried to eat at the Mercado San Miguel, which I definitely recommend if you don’t mind standing up to eat (which is not my case unfortunately, due to my uncooperative feet). The ambiance is wonderful, they have a really wide selection of food and prices to suit every budget, but it is always chockablock, no matter what time of the day or night and, I can tell you, we tried several times.
We had our aperitivo at Toma Jamon, which turned out to be a chain. It had typical barrel tables and ham legs strung from the ceiling which proved to be plastic on closer inspection! I ordered a mollete jamon iberico, thinking I was very smart, until we were given a thin steak sandwich on slightly sweet bread (that’s the mollete). After that we found a restaurant called Posada del Leon de Oro on Calle Baja which we think must be the “real” bacalao restaurant indicated on our mud map.
It was trendier than El Madroño and only slightly more expensive. You walk through an inner courtyard with several floors of wooden galleries (a hotel in fact, but it must be terribly noisy). The floor of the restaurant is made of glass and you can see wine bottles and cases on a sort of white gravel floor. Relationnel took the cod and found it excellent, but I thought it was rather dry. I was starving for vegetables so took the parrillada de verduras, much the same as the grilled vegetables we had at El Madroño, but with a lump of mozarella in the middle.
We had lunch again next day at El Madroño and I think we should have just adopted it for the rest of our stay because our eating experience went downhill from there on. We tried to have an aperitivo at the well-known Lardy on Carrera San Jeronimo, but it was closed on Sundays. We went to La Catedral next door, which made up in decor what it was lacking in gastronomy. I ordered some mushroom tapas (rollitos crujientes) which turned out to be little deep-fried bricks with mushroom stuffing. So much for the vegetables.
We tried two restaurants and walked out of each of them after seeing the menu which had mysteriously changed by the time we sat down, either doubling in price or offering different food from what was indicated outside. I left my bag in the first one but the waiter very nicely ran after me in the street. I nearly forgot it the second time as well. We ended up in La Taverna San Isodoro which was full of joyous Spanish families. Unfortunately there were no lamb chops left and we ordered a parrillada de pescado for two. It looked most unappetizing so I just stuck to the prawns, the chips and a couple of rings of octopus. Relationnel, who loves fish of any shape or kind, attacked it with great gusto.
Breakfast next morning was an unforgettable experience at La Chocolateria San Ginès where we dipped wonderfully fresh churros in thick hot chocolate. We took two servings of churros but one would have been enough. They certainly kept us going while we visited the Palacio Real.
The next and last restaurant was our worst experience (mine in any case). There was bright sun at last and Relationnel wanted to have tapas on Plaza Mayor, but it’s a real tourist trap. At Bar Tinco, we were given absolutely nothing to nibble with our wine and were charged 15 euros for a few thin slices of manchego cheese! I got very angry with the waiter, but it didn’t do any good. Relationnel just shrugged it off. He was enjoying the sun.
This is a somewhat negative post but I have been travelling for very many years and usually enjoy my food experiences and am ready to try anything. We had lovely raciones and tapas in Seville and I was expecting the same in Madrid. Maybe it’s because we never learnt the secret of where to eat or what to order! I really must improve my Spanish.
Sunday’s Travel Photos – Madrid: Bronze Statues
When we arrived at our home exchange flat in Madrid, the first thing we saw was an extremely realistic bronze lamp lighter. During our visit, we found four other bronze statues of the same kind plus a “fake” one in the form of a “living statue”. It was amusing to see how people would give them a friendly pat on the back as they went past.
Franco-Australian Curry!
When Fraussie suggested I write a post for her blog (I’m the Aussie exchange student who appears in this blog under the name of Brainy Pianist), I really didn’t have too many ideas. “Talk about food”, she told me, “everyone loves to read about food”. Fair enough, I thought, but how can I make it a bit different? And then it hit me. When I was leaving Australia last August, never having lived away from home, and (almost) never cooking (although I am capable), most people would ask what was the one thing I was going to miss most. Beyond my family and friends, the answer would inevitably come back to a good, home-cooked meal. In my case, that’s synonymous with pretty much everything that comes out of our kitchen, but especially a good curry.
I guess in part that’s one of the greatest things coming from an Anglo-Indian/Australian background and being exposed to different cultures and cuisine. Dad grew up in India, and Mum spent hours and hours watching and learning from my grandmother (and the trusty copy of Charmaine Solomon’s The Complete Asian Cookbook). As a kid I couldn’t stand most curries, whereas my little brother was getting stuck in before he could even walk! But times have changed, and more often than not, I’ll be hankering after a good hot curry. And moving to Paris, it’s surprisingly easy to find fantastic Indian restaurants (particularly around the 10th arrondissement), and spice shops. I get a real kick ferretting around in the stores up near Gare du Nord on Rue du Faubourg Saint Denis.
So, here’s a recipe for one of our family’s favourites – and it’s easy as well!
The ingredients are:
– 500g mince (I generally use beef – but you could probably use lamb as well)
– 1-2 tablespoons oil
– 1 large brown onion, finely sliced
– 2 cloves garlic, crushed
– 1 piece of fresh ginger, about 2.5cm long – peeled and chopped
– 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
– 1 teaspoon chilli powder
– ½ cup natural yoghurt
– 2 teaspoons garam masala
– 1 teaspoon salt
– Freshly chopped coriander leaves to serve
Now the method:
1) Heat oil in saucepan and fry onion until soft.
2) Add garlic and ginger and fry until onion is golden brown.
3) Add turmeric and chilli powder and fry for a few minutes. If you like, you could add some ground coriander at this point as well.
4) Add meat and fry, turning meat constantly until colour changes. Break up any large lumps of meat.
5) Stir in the yoghurt, lower the heat, cover and cook for 15 minutes. (This should be a gentle simmer)
6) Add garam masala and salt, leave the lid off, and continue cooking until meat is cooked.
7) Stir through fresh coriander and serve.
Just a couple of helpful tips: the amount of chilli powder depends a) on how hot you want the curry to be, and b) the individual chilli powder. Every powder is slightly different in its strength, and its potency also changes with age. If you’re opening a new packet, be cautious in the quantities!
The final cooking stage varies, but Mum told me just to leave it as long as it takes to cook the rice.
You can also control the final consistency of the curry: if you like a lot of gravy, you can add a little water at the final stage (but be careful you don’t add too much, especially if the meat gives off a lot of fat or liquid). If you prefer a drier curry, you can increase the heat in the final stage – but watch it closely and stir frequently– with the yoghurt, the curry will have a tendency to stick to the saucepan.
And don’t forget – if you’re increasing the quantity of meat, you mustn’t increase the amount of spices in the same proportion. For instance, cooking a kilo of mince, I would only put 1 ½ teaspoon of chilli powder – otherwise it can be very spicy!
Serve with cooked basmati rice (I like to add some dried curry leaves while I’m cooking the rice – I can’t get the fresh ones we have in the garden back home, but dried ones give quite a lot of flavour), natural yoghurt, pappadums, and for that extra kick, a spicy Indian pickle. Bon appétit!
Our First Home Exchange
The idea of a home exchange first came to me when a French friend told me that her stepson and his Australian wife were going back to Melbourne to live. I consoled her by saying she and her husband could visit them for longer and at less expense if she did a home exchange. I even recommended a website I’d been told about: www.homeexchange.com. And it has an iPhone app as well. The next thing I knew she had organised a 6-week stay. I immediately set about persuading Relationnel to do the same thing despite his reluctance in the past.
We were planning our next holiday in Australia to include a family reunion in Armidale. During our absence, friends from Canberra were to stay in our apartment in the Palais Royal in Paris for part of the time. They recommended that we go to Tasmania so we organised a 12-day exchange in Launceston and Coles Bay including a car. Our exchangers will be using Paris and our new house in Blois as well as our second car while they are in the Loire Valley. We then started receiving other offers – Victoria, Hobart and Adelaide – so we set up some non-simultaneous exchanges as well, some of which won’t be redeemed until our next trip in 2014!
With Blois and the Palais Royal combined, the possibilities seem endless. I thought that we might appreciate a break in sunny Spain before the final signature in Blois in mid-March. Miguel, who lives in Madrid, had written earlier on to see if we were interested in a swap over Christmas but we were having our bedroom ceiling repainted, so I contacted him again to see if there was a weekend in March that might suit us both. Bingo! We bought our airline tickets, arranging our flights so that he would arrive in Paris before we left and thus exchange instructions and keys.
The next question was how to get the apartment ready, especially for a short stay of four days. Should I empty the fridge or just leave a couple of shelves? What about sheets and towels? How about kitchen essentials? Our Adelaide exchanger, Kathy Stanford, a fellow blogger (Femmes Francophiles) is much more experienced (she uses www.homelink.org) and offered to share her “instruction manual”. It provided me with a good base that I could adapt to suit our particular situation (and country).
After a rather frenetic morning on the day we were going to Madrid, I now know that we need to have some spare room in our cupboards to be able to easily free up space for our guests. We had decided to buy extra sheets and towels so that there wouldn’t be the problem of changing our sheets before we left and finding enough clean sheets to make the bed when we got back. But just storing all this extra linen takes up space we don’t really have. Fortunately we will be able to transfer a lot of things to Blois which is much bigger. That should make things easier in the future.
Next time, I will specifically leave a tray with kitchen essentials that don’t need replacing and indicate food in the fridge that our exchangers are welcome to use. For just a few days, it’s rather silly to have to buy oil and vinegar, tea, coffee, butter and sugar, for instance. Miguel left us a basket of fruit which I thought was a great idea. I regretted not having done the same. I put clean tablecloths and serviettes in our usual drawer in the living room but it would have been much more sensible to leave them on the table as he did. I also forgot to put the remote controls for the TV in an obvious place.
The other thing I think is essential is to have a blown-up map of the local area and indicate the closest supermarkets, grocery stores, bakeries, restaurants, pharmacies, etc. We didn’t find the supermarket in Madrid until the day we were leaving! When you don’t know a country and language well, it’s not always easy to find such basic commodities. I’ll also take along some Earl Grey tea bags with me next time. I strongly believe in “When in Rome, do as the Romans”, but not for breakfast!
I’d love to have feedback on your home exchange experiences, particularly any advice you’d like to give a new home exchanger. Oh, and I nearly forgot to say that we found it a very positive experience and are looking forward to the next six we’ve already organised over the next year. Relationnel totally regrets his former reluctance!
www.homeexchange.com (which turns into www.trocmaison.com, www.intercambiocasas.com, www.scambiocasa.com, www.haustauschferien.com, etc. depending on your language!) www.homelink.org (not always easy to follow, but you can sign up as a visitor to consult the listings without joining) www.homeexchange50plus.com/ (a newcomer but promising because of its speciality) http://www.lovehomeswap.com/Summer in Paris – Obligatory Breathalyser – Let’s Make Duck
Snippets from other blogs that I’ve enjoyed recently. Thank you to all those who wrote the posts.
Summer in Paris by Petite Paris, an Australian based service for Australian travellers and fellow francophiles on www.petiteparis.com.au
Summer transforms Paris!! To all our guests who have booked their summer in Paris…enjoy Paris Plages as the banks of the seine will be yet again be transformed into temporary sandy beaches with Palm trees brought in, deckchairs, ubiquitous ice cream sellers, and concerts for French and foreign guests! :). Read more
Obligatory Breathalyser by Kaz Reilly, Get Real France, an Irish Biddy living near Perpignan for the past 10 years.
If you’re travelling by car to France this year, don’t forget to furnish yourself with a breathalyser which you must by law have in your car from July 1st, 2012. If you are found without an “alcootest” or an ” éthylotest ” , you will face an on the spot fine of 23 euros… Read more
Let’s make duck! My lesson at La Cuisine Paris by Un Homme et une femme, Tales of Paris with Sir and Lady Lancelot
My second date with Sir Lancelot was planned for an early September night that turned out to be a horrible rainy day. Knowing that any plans to be outside were foiled, I received a text message from him that morning inviting me over for a “euro-trash” dinner cooked by Sir Lancelot himself. “Oh, a man who cooks!” I thought. Read more