Kill me now.
I spent the first few days trying to get past the fact that I have apparently chosen to live with a man who owns neither tin foil nor scissors, but the discovery that tin foil (along with plastic wrap and possibly Tupperware®) may not actually exist in France is something that will take much more getting used to. Apparently, they don’t really do food-storage.
Or labor laws–this woman was on the fourth floor on a windy, rainy day:
You know what else the French don’t do? Puff pastry.
You heard me.
See, I had dinner all planned out, because I’m kind of getting into this whole domestic thing (only worry if it lasts more than a week). I was going to make a version of the homemade pot pies I made in Washington Heights, which I imagined would be even more delicious with 1) forethought, and 2) fabulous French ingredients.
I searched every refrigerator and freezer case at least four times. No puff pastry (except for the kind with duck already in it), no ready-to-bake biscuits…nothing even close. And, apparently, somewhere along the way my entire self-worth had been staked on producing more than just a stew. I had the stupid Pyrex® baking dish (perfect size for two) in my grocery basket–I couldn’t turn back now!
Finally, on the fifth pass, I came across the pie crusts. Even better: I came across four types of pie crust, including one labelled as “salée” (salted), and I refused to be deterred by such trivia as the picture of the apple tart on the front, or the fact that the French have not yet evolved to the crust-on-top phase of pie. Clearly, I have the vision that they lack, and I will be the one to use this salée crust for the purpose for which God intended it.
Damn, but it was a good stew. Chicken and vegetables, with red wine and veal stock (“fond de veau,” my new favorite French phrase–it means “end of the calf” in much the same way that one might say “end of the hall”). Nice and thick, and seasoned perfectly. I poured it into the baking dish, and unrolled my crust on top. And nibbled a bit, of course, as I was cutting it down to size.
It was sweet.
It was really sweet.
It was my-mother-would-never-deign-to-bake-an-apple-tart-in-this sweet.
It was sweet in a way that was a million times more distressing than the way that it was dissolving rapidly into the stew. And I was too invested to just peel the thing off and throw it away–for added pressure, Nick had come home with no bread, possibly for the first time since he moved here.
Anyway.
Today I still have the bizarre taste of sugar and rosemary in the back of my throat, and I have decided that discretion is the better part of valor. I am strolling to the Eiffel Tower and taking a million pictures. I am dropping off Nick’s watch at the horlogerie across the street, writing thank-you notes to the nice people who have sent cards (we feel that springing for international postage merits a written reply), and keeping my eyes peeled for tin foil.
And tortellini is fine for dinner, right?