Because French meals are on the UNESCO Heritage list. I didn’t even know food could be on the list! But think about it – aren’t crepes as valuable to humanity as the pyramids?
talk pancakes to me
This has absolutely nothing to do with language learning or wanderlust but I’m just too proud of my culinary masterworks to keep them a secret. Look at these beauties! I made these.
Here is the recipe, if you’d like to try it. (I altered it slightly, using 1/4 cup gluten-free all purpose flour and 3/4 cup buckwheat flour.) These pancakes turned out 100 times tastier than my ill-fated galettes experiment. I would venture so far as to say that even a wheat-eater would find them delicious.
The syrup comes care of my brother-in-law and is so easy to make that I wouldn’t even call it a recipe: in a saucepan, warm equal parts maple syrup and berries until they meld together into a compote.
Bonus: your pancakes will be Talk Foreign to Me approved if you daydream about your next travel adventure while eating them.
happy weekending!
I had so many fun plans for this weekend, starting with dinner tonight at a Serbian restaurant, my first Balkan meal ever. But about an hour ago I felt the first stirrings of sickness in my increasingly sore throat and since then it’s spread throughout my entire body – a general malaise that can only mean a cold is on its way. Must. Fight. Back. Must eat delicious meats with unpronounceable names.
Hope you all have a healthier weekend than mine unfortunately promises to be, and that you don’t need to entertain yourselves while convalescing with these interesting reads I’ve gathered from all corners of the Internet:
An English-speaker spends a year without speaking English.
Travel deals from around the globe.
And in the same vein… the U.S. dollar is now worth almost as much as the euro, which is at a 12-year low. Best places to travel while the dollar is strong.
But if you can’t afford to go abroad… on March 19, Americans can sample a (slightly less expensive than normal) taste of France.
Can you guess which of these blurbs was written by a computer? (The most foreign of foreign speakers is a bot, no?)
An argument for traveling in your 20’s (that I’ve applied to my 30’s).
The French ponder (in French) why Americans love brunch so much.
I don’t even know where to begin with this video. No wonder Air France is in trouble.
The French are not as cool with their version of Ashley Madison as you might think.
[Photo: Dennis Skley], Creative Commons license.]
flim-flan
Don’t ask me why I have been drawn to packaged flan lately. I know – it’s just asking for trouble. Still, in a taste-off between two processed, mass produced versions of a dessert that was just not designed to sit for months in the refrigerated aisle, there is a clear winner. Goya’s flan was too sweet and had an overly burnt top layer, but it nevertheless retained the general taste and contours of flan. Kozy Shack’s flan, however, was indistinguishable from paste. It tasted like flavorless Kool-Aid and had the consistency of Jell-o.
Just in case you ever get a hankering for flan and, like me, are too lazy to make it yourself or to find a restaurant in which to purchase it…FYI Goya’s is the lesser of the two evils.
(get over the) hump day inspiration: Benjamin Button
“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.” – Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
I’m sort of cheating since it’s 12:06 on Thursday morning, but let’s just pretend it’s not daylight savings time yet and it’s still hump day for another 54 minutes… Because it’s never too late to be the inspirational quote-poster I want to be.
A quick visit to the Alps
I had been hankering for raclette ever since missing my chance to try it in France, so last Thursday I went to eat it in New York. Philippe found me a quirky little place that serves fondue and raclette – but only on winter nights they deem sufficiently cold – out of a dimly lit, speakeasy-like back room. Getting to it felt almost like going through the wardrobe into Narnia. Continue reading
It’s the weekend…
…and I’m exhausted. Looking forward to accomplishing very little aside from a lot of hanging out this weekend.
But before I embrace sloth and hibernation, I need to set down some links, because they burn a hole in my brain when I leave them in my inbox too long without compiling and posting them here. So, a few things for you to read during your weekend lay-about, you lazy slugabed*:
Linguists found a common language root 6,500 years old.
More fascinating exploration of our ancient mother tongue.
Tfw you fail a language quiz that measures how hip you are.
The best city in the world for dating is…
How to say 21 curses in 6 languages (some of them amazingly inventive).
Can Louisiana resuscitate their distinctive French?
Think about this before you snap your next vacation pic.
Don’t get stranded on France’s disappearing road.
How to start your own language meetup (take note, Philippe!)
And if you’re in New York, don’t miss the Rendezvous with French Cinema.
*(Isn’t that a brilliant word? I just learned it.)
[Photo of Zoe the cat by Roadside Pictures, Creative Commons license.]
why learn Spanish, part 4
Because the average temperature in the Hispanophone world is 70.5 degrees Fahrenheit.
The average temperature in the United States is 52.9, and the average temperature of this winter in New York is cold-as-fuck.
With God as my witness: I WILL LEARN SPANISH AND MOVE TO WARMER CLIMES.
[Photo: Austin Aronoff, Creative Commons license.]
Why learn Spanish, part 3
To avoid this awkward situation:
(get over the) hump-day inspiration: Carlos Castaneda
“The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.” – Carlos Castaneda
Reminding myself to be a warrior today.
