Maxipoche+ 2018 - a back-to-school dictionary review with index of verbs

I am back in French class again

and so far so good! I'm starting a program in environmental studies/sustainable development at Université de Sherbrooke but first, I have to take their French for University classes to sharpen my skills. 

I went through the various stages of grief when I learned I had to take two terms of French language and writing courses before starting in on the subject matter. I have a BA in French, for goodness sake, but it's not from a francophone institution and bureaucracy wants what bureaucracy wants. Plus maybe, despite living and working in Montreal for over 10 years, I have gotten a little soft. Whatever the case, I have reached the point of acceptance and am taking pleasure in (re)learning the formal rules of French.

These are online, distance-learning courses and the tests are open-book but during the exams online resources are unavailable. Paper reference material is a must. This should be no problem for me - I went through my BA in French, then my MA in Translation Studies, and I still do translation work for a select group of clients. I have bought and used hundreds of dollars - thousands of pages - of reference books over the years.

But I have also gone through Francine Jay's Joy of Less decluttering system. That is, I got rid of all but my most treasured books. Reference material, which is easily available online or at the library and which I consulted infrequently at best, all had to go. Adieu, French-English pocket edition. Goodbye, enormous hardbound dictionary. Dear thesaurus, it has been a treat, a delight, an absolute pleasure to work with you. 

And so I found myself, a student once again, in front of the French reference book section at Indigo downtown facing the same dilemma as in 1997 and 2002 and 2007 and now 2018 - which dictionary to buy? Do I take a Bescherelle too? By the way, did you know that now Bescherelle is not just the handy little red volume? It is a multi-part series that will give you not only conjugation, but also grammar rules and spelling. It is all too much, if you ask me.

I opted for the Larousse Maxipoche+ 2018 (there was a similar Robert product, but Larousse is classic).  Poche has nothing to do with it. There are few pockets in the world that would fit this dictionary. Hagrid's, maybe. For the sake of completeness, I just now tried to slip it into my big comfy hoodie pocket, but the opening is too small. Pocketable or not, this dictionary includes grammar rules, some verb conjugation (115 words), and proper nouns. Perfect. I don't want to end up with a shelf full of reference books again!

So far I am enjoying it, with one exception. The conjugation section does not include an alphabetical list of the verbs it includes. After trying the flipping-through method for two weeks, I had enough and made my own.

Here, for quick verb-finding in the conjugation section of the Maxipoche+ 2018 (special Pierre Larousse édition anniversaire), is my handy index. I'm going to print it and use it to bookmark the conjugation section in my dictionary.

Bonne conjugaison les ami(e)s!

Mochas are the worst

Yesterday, my first whole day back in Montreal without packing-related stress in weeks, and full of jetlag and mucous, I dared to venture out for errands and thought I'd treat myself to a spiced hot chocolate. I've been sick on and off for over three weeks, and also travelling for about the same amount of time, first a fun friend vacation, then for work. I can't taste much of anything and thought it would be nice to coddle myself into some sort of warm wellness.

But instead of a chocolat Bogota the barista made me a mocha.

At first I wasn't sure what what wrong. I didn't have a sip, after all, until I was halfway home. This was going to be an accompaniment to curling up peacefully with a new library book before my love came home from work. My nose was plugged, but still, I was tasting more bitterness than I expected... and where was the cinnamon? Surely I would at least taste the cinnamon... 

Was this a cruel trick of my cold? Condemned to misinterpret deliciousness as funk? Or did they get it wrong, after a long wait, after the lady after me got her coffee before me. Oh, the disappointment, the first world injustice of it all!

Husband tasted and confirmed my suspicion, and even went back up to the café for me to see if they could make the right thing, but they had just shut down the machines for the day. They recalled the error and sent him back to me with conciliatory baked goods, which I had for breakfast.

So now here I am with three-quarters of a cold mocha I stashed in the fridge last night, not wanting evening caffeine nor for it to go to waste. It is not good, friends. Not good.

I used to think mochas were magical. Mom always had a little rectangular box of International Delights Swiss Mocha powder in the cupboard and it smelled like heaven. Sometimes I would get a sip, and a sticky residue of oversweetened froth on my little lips. Sometimes the empty box would come my way and I would use it to store treasures while sniffing the marshmallowy lid and dreaming of a day when I could have as much mocha as I wanted.

But real world, grown-up coffee shop mochas turned out to be a sad disappointment. I tried for a while, always expecting the sweet creamy treat it should be, always falling flat from overroasted beans or underdosed chocolate. Truly, it is the worst of all worlds, not chocolaty enough to be chocolate, not bright enough to be coffee - just creamily flat and bitter, a cruel tease and an affront to everything that's good about either.

Have a coffee or have a hot chocolate, but at a certain point you have to quit expecting magic out of a mocha.

Junk food vs. bone marrow

Unfortunately, this is not about a delicious taste-off between chips and roasted beef bones.

Preliminary research indicates that junk food changes the microbiome and causes bone marrow inflammation.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/body/junk-food-can-alter-your-immune-system/

Just another reason to choose real food at every possible opportunity and feed our friendly bacteria friends as well as we can.

That said, though, I ate homemade oatmeal cookies for breakfast and just barely resisted buying Halloween-themed white cheddar Cheetos at the grocery store yesterday. They were in the shape of different bones, and you could put them together to make little skeletons! Those clever food marketers... who doesn't want to have cheesy DIY skeletons? They are scientifically designed to be delicious! Peter Pham at Foodbeast found them salty, though I would have to try and see for myself.

We prepared a box of snack veg for the week instead. Joy, rapture. I should really not be so glum about our vegetables. They are tasty and fresh, Phil did the knifework, and the celery is a real taste delight with PB & a nice fleur de sel (flaky sea salt). This is one from near where I lived and taught in France. I like the crunch it adds, and its burst of salty flavor. Almost makes up for my snack not being skeleton-shaped.

Knitting Nettles

Did you know that you can harvest nettles and spin their fiber?

In my volunteer work at the Château Ramezay, I teach visitors about the fibers that would have been used by habitants, European settlers in New France. Wool is big, of course, and so is linen (from flax).

Yesterday I discovered that nettles can be processed similarly to flax! Check out this video from YouTuber Michael Taylor, be astounded and inspired, and then save it under "post-apocalyptic survival skills."

Any country-dwellers up for giving this a try?

Yogurt: an experiment in oven control

Several months ago Phil and I were walking home from downtown and decided to pop into the bookstore at the ÉTS to see what there was to see. After poking around the computer section (Phil) and the stationary section (me), we headed over to what looked like the fun things section and a make-your-own yogurt kit caught my eye. The combination of the little pots and the cute recipe book overcame me and we brought it home.

The box of pots for the yogurt sat on our shelf and the book sat on my bedside table where I would pick it up and leaf through from time to time, my stomach rumbling in happy anticipation of nutella yogurt or honeyed yogurt.

I finally decided to go for it one day. I bought my full fat organic milk. I bought my freeze-dried yogurt culture. I washed the pots and some extra jars and then sat down to read through the instructions once more.

Mes petits pots de yaourt gives instructions for four methods: in a yogurt maker, in the oven, in a pressure cooker, and in a thermos (for emergencies [who has yogurt emergencies??]). Not having a yogurt maker or a pressure cooker, and considering the fact that I was not in mortal peril for lack of yogurt I decided to use the oven. Here's what the book has to say about that:

You can make your yogurt in the oven if you have an oven whose temperature you can control very precisely.

Carefully mix 1 litre of gently warmed milk with 1 yogurt culture. Divide into pots.

Put the yogurts into a 40 degree (C) oven. After two hours turn off the oven but no matter what don't open the door. Leave the yogurts in the oven without moving them for at least 6 hours, then refrigerate them. Serve cold.

Okay, fantastic, no big deal.

But then I looked in The Joy of Cooking, which had quite a lot to say on the matter of making yogurt, but it starts with this:

If you have ever eaten good, naturally flavored yogurt, you will try, as we have, to make it. We hope these directions will spare you some of our exasperating failures.

Exasperating failures doesn't sound too promising. The method that Joy suggests is to build a "snug nest" contraption that retains the heat of the warmed milk. Maybe some day I'll buy the required inch-think foam rubber to do one up, but this time around I decided to stick with the oven method. My oven doesn't have a precise temperature gauge that goes low enough, however. I decided I would continue on... The metric instructions call for 40 C, the English for 106-109 F. That oven setting looks pretty good, right? In a flash of inspiration I thought of a fantastically clever way to monitor the internal temperature of the oven: I stuck my insta-read thermometer into the oven vent and thereby could see the temperature of the hot air as it left the oven.

I'm so smart! If the temperature at this point was juuust a little below what it was supposed to be, then in the oven it would be spot on. So I waited and watched my little jars of inoculated milk through the oven door.

After the prescribed two hours I turned off the oven and waited and waited and waited. When I opened it oven the yogurt looked pretty good. Some of the water had clearly evaporated, at least.

Disappointment struck, however, when I tilted the jar.
Exasperating texture failure - it was still thin thin thin! Why hadn't it worked?
I roasted my bacteria!

I haven't repeated the experiment but maybe next time I'll try to make the cozy nest and stick it in an off oven.

For now I'm working on getting the apartment all tidied up. Little brother is coming for a visit and at the end of August I'm moving up to a new job that will require me to have a good home office space. The professional organizer comes Wednesday to help me get sorted...

Anarchist Vegetables

My thesis has to be submitted by August 18th. Two weeks from tomorrow.

Phil kindly cut off the internet during the day today so I wouldn't be so very distracted. That was a good move; I finally got a few new pages written. A few more to go, plus editing and that should be that! So far I'm doing a very good job of not barfing.

This summer we've signed up with Jardins de la Résistance and have been picking up vegetables every other week. We figured that with just the two of us we couldn't eat the whole thing every week, and we were right. Today we picked up "basket" number 3.

Even after two weeks, there's always something lurking in the fridge that we've neglected. The first week it was the beets and radishes, this past week beets - again! - and some very sad broccoli. I'm embarrassed. There is no excuse! I love beets AND I bought myself a food processor recently, so I could just have peeled them and run them through the grating disc for quick and basically effortless beet salad. Terrible. If I'd anticipated them going to waste, I could have passed them along to a friend! My former roommate Brianne makes the best borscht I've ever tasted. She wouldn't have let them get all mushy and sad.

The food processor, though... it's a beauty. Our first week of anarchist vegetables, we got to take 30 "fleurs d'aïl". I'd never seen one so of course I didn't I know what to do with them, so I googled "garlic flowers" and bam! Turns out they're scapes. Scapes I'd heard of. Lib, Wolfie's wife loves them. What she does with them, well, that I didn't know.

The internet suggested making a scape pesto. Clearly it was time for me to make my move and purchase this machine I have long dreamed of.

The pesto turned out marvelously, although I didn't follow the What Geeks Eat recipe. My vegan friend Dru was coming to stay for a few days and I wanted to make something that he could enjoy, too.

I cut up about 25 scapes, removing the flowery part and threw them into the machine. Pulse! What power. I added some olive oil (I should really start measuring or keeping track of these things) and it really started looking good. I added a palmful (or was it two?) or pine nuts and it looked phenomenal. To compensate for not using the parmesan I gave it a three-fingered pinch of salt and a little grind of pepper for fun. The resulting pesto was nicely textured, herbal yet unctuous, with a serious garlic hit.



We've eaten it on sandwiches, crackers, pita, pasta, and have yet to go wrong.

Yum yum yum.

Vertical Farming

An op-ed in today's New York Times discusses the amazing potential of vertical farming:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/opinion/24Despommier.html?th&emc=th

Is there any reason not to proceed with these structures?? Your lazy butts are in this too!!

Le Resto du Village!

Tonight was visit #2 for Brianne and me to the Resto du Village and it was just as good as the first time. Better for me, actually, because I didn't overdo it. Last time I had a hamburger (just wonderful- good meat, beautiful toasted bun) and a poutine (again, fabulous thick gravy, piping hot, the cheese was tasty but a little soft, steak fry shaped fries but they were well-done and perfectly double fried) and then got the block Québecois the next day. Delightful. That was Friday. Today I initially said no to another diner outing but then, following in her father's footsteps, Brianne used her greasy breakfasty wiles (involving the magic words "it's on me") to win me over. :D Thanks, lady!

This time I ordered the Déjeuner Poutine (yes, that's right, the poutine breakfast). It was a small dish of poutine made with hashbrown-sized pieces of potato (like home fries, not tiny ones; the potatoes were about the same size as the cheese curds), an egg, bacon, fruit, and toast. The poutine served as my savory dessert to the "regular" breakfast food. The egg was extra large and perfectly sunny-side up, the bacon flavorful and crisp but not overcarbonized. The fruit amounted to an orange smile and an equivalent piece of grapefruit, but the toast (brown bread) was toasted just how I like it with just enough butter to make it interesting.

The Resto du Village is probably the most exciting food find I've had in some time. It's just a few blocks away from my apartment and it's open 24 hours. Brianne noticed today that it's also a bring your own wine/beer place. That's right, you can sit and drink your own booze and endless coffee at any hour of the day or night and eat perfect breakfast food or burgers or Chinese fried rice or shepherd's pie or raw vegetable platters OR ESCARGOT!!

In other news, Myriade is in the running for Best Independent Café on the Krups Kup of Excellence challenge. I don't know exactly what that means, but I do know that they should win. Pick "Montreal" and then "Café Myriade" here.

In other other news, I've quit smoking for the umpteenth time. Can you even count to umpteen? Didn't think so. This time I've picked up a little nicorette inhaler (affectionately nicknamed (nic-named?) The Puffer) that seems to kind of be working. I mean, the chemical burns my throat when I exhale but otherwise I can't feel what I've inhaled. That's not a very satisfying sensation. The upshot is that I can walk around - outdoors or in - with what looks like a tampon applicator hanging out of my gob and get an itty bitty fix, or so the box tells me. Today was my first full cigarette-free day in a few months. Tomorrow will be another good one.

black bean destruction party

Dinner was leftover beefy black bean soup with rest of Canada Day black bean/red pepper dip thrown in for texture and volume, garnished with leftover grated cheddar and Fritos. C'est la classe. Delicious.

Come to think of it, I think that frito pie/pepperbellies are the Midwest's poutine. They're both ragingly unhealthy and even tastier than they are caloric.

(Thanks, Rachel, for encouraging even the tiny updates!)

Back on the horse

After an extended absence during which time my life has changed somewhat dramatically, I'm back to the blog.

I'm also back to eating cereal. I keep a collection of cereal in my kitchen but mostly just look at it while enjoying my toast. For the past month, my view has been a box of almond-raisin Müslix, a healthy-looking thing that was on sale, well, a month ago I guess. I tried some this morning and WOW! It's really good. And instant. I remember, now, why people eat so much cereal. Erik would always have it, so even since he's moved out I've felt compelled to buy it when it's on sale at the store.

If the cereal trend continues, perhaps I can go back to purchasing whole quarts of milk. Not gallons, not half gallons, quarts. I'm on pints now. Turns out I don't drink a lot of milk. Over the past two months I've had to throw away at least 3 quarts of milk that soured before I could even get close to finishing them.

That's the new challenge: to learn how to shop and cook for one. Since it's been a couple months already, I'm starting to get the hang of it but it was very difficult at first. I still find myself with obscene quantities of soup and stews from time to time...

Goliath

Sitting in the study room eating the room-temperature leftovers of my chinese takeaway lunch I can't get the part of Act Two of the above-linked episode of This American Life where they talk about workers in Cambodia buying just one gram of meat out of my head.

I'm pretty sure I have triple that in almost every bite.

Halelujah! (drought is over)

Nina rescued my computer from the clutches of internet dysfunction! Thanks, Nina!

Midterm Crunch and the Baking Extravaganza

Hello from the library computers! I'm taking a break from inventing a research topic and it feels pretty good. I'm a little dizzy from looking at the screen so long, and it's been 8 hours since I finished my coffee (need. another. coffee.).

This seems like the right moment to update you on the wonders of my oven. My oven is a naughty oven, it has no heating element on top, which means that broiling, one of my favorite ways to finish off dishes, is impossible. It also makes baking a bit of a crapshoot.

For the past two weekends, though, I've had some success with baking! The Saturday before the superbowl I made an enormous batch of cookie dough (beware recepies from parenting magazines!) which turned in to dozens and dozens of chocolate chip cookies.

The highlight of the baking was by far this past Sunday's apple spice muffins. I started out by poking around on Epicurious and allrecipes for something to do with this bag of apples I'd had in the drawer of our fridge for a while. Muffins seemed like a fine thing to try, but the recipes weren't very satisfying. I decided to improvise on an apple muffin recipe that seemed standard-ish, although the comments were awful. The results were amaaaazing, if I do say so myself. The tops were a little gooey, but otherwise the texture was great. They should probably be called "cakes" but "muffins" sounds less indulgent. I made it a very healthy recipe, and it uses "the muffin method" of baking, so let's call them "muffins."

The Dry Ingredients (mix these together first!):
1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour (we don't have all-purpose flour in our house)
1/2 c. ground flaxseed (natural Omega-3 and fiber infusion!)
1 c. granulated (white) sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda (for a lighter texture)
4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper (have no fear!)
a pinch of salt

The Wet Ingredients (eyeball these all in one big glass measure cup for minimal mess):
1 egg (beat it now, before adding the other ingredients)
1/4 c. canola oil (I didn't want to melt butter... and it's expensive!)
1/3 c. applesauce (for extra moisture and appley goodness)
1 c. milk
2 tsp. vanilla extract (Flavor Booster!)

All the wet ingredients should end up being about 2 cups. I definitely didn't have exactly this or that amount of each thing, and then I also had to add a splash of milk later on.

So mix all the wet ingredients well (mixing them as you go along in the measure cup helps) and then pour them into the dry ingredient bowl and mix until everything in moist.

Peel and dice three or more apples and then put them into the mixture which will have gained some volume during the apple surgery. Spoon the batter into baking cups and back at about 375 F for about 15 minutes. Your oven probably works right, so I said 15 minutes. I did mine for 20.

Tell me how yours turn out!

Suffering Internet!

Our internet has been cut off, taking with it my blogging dreams. When it gets back, I'll be back! Mark my words!!!

How many of what to eat per year:

It may sound persnickety, but it's for your own good, or so says The Onion.

Staying healthy and sane mean

Apparently not keeping on top of this. I took pictures of the cupcakes I made a week ago with the awesome sprinkles from Rachel and my first stab at homemade icing (wow!). That will come. For now I'm working on staying on top of my readings and fighting off an on-again off-again cold with copious amounts of vitamin C: OJ, effervescent C tablet, Emergen-C, vitamin C-laced cough drops...

Here's something beautiful: from the BBC News, landscapes done entirely out of food.

Nina, I'm still knitting!

But slowly. I had great intentions of finishing the project on my trip to visit the family for the holidays but got nowhere. Half of this was knit watching the World Junior's gold medal hockey game just this past Saturday. I need to finish it and two more for my brother's godfather's children before I see them next! It could be any week now.

Complete and utter failure.

Most of the time when I cook something I don't think is wonderful, I can still eat it.

Tonight I had in mind a tofu and snap pea stir fry with ginger and sesame on rice noodles. It sounds like a good idea, doesn't it?

I cut the tofu into uniform blocks while heating canola oil in a skillet (whose handle is FALLING OFF! I need a new skillet.) and boiling the water for the noodles. Then I squeezed as much water out as I good and tossed it in a big bowl with some ground ginger (maybe a tablespoon... not NEARLY enough, as it turned out. I couldn't even taste it.), a splash of soy sauce, and a palmful of sesame seeds. Then I fried it in the oil until golden brown and threw in the pea pods. I wanted to drain some of the oil off, but with the handle broken and spinning in circles on me, I couldn't do it. So I decided to just say fuck it and leave the oil in. That wasn't a problem. So I cooked the pea pods and threw the noodles in for the requisite minute in the boiling water. They were tough to get out of the package and left little noodle nesty bits everywhere but cooked up very nicely. And the peas got sort of burnt, which you kind of want... you know, that tasty blistery action. But I threw in another splash of soy sauce and then they really browned. Many of the sesame seeds blackened and the tofu was dry and tasteless. The lesser-cooked peas were pretty tasty, but generally blech.

I took a few bites and then decided it was the most disgusting thing I've ever made. It was almost too salty, but not really even flavorful enough to be too salty. It needed more ginger, maybe some chili, maybe some lime juice, less oil, less heat, NO sesame seeds (they stuck to the pan, not to the food), and perhaps a real Asian cook. Erik, truly a trooper and a good sport, ate most of his, but left a few tofu chunks behind. He has been fighting a cold, so it's likely that his taste buds were not up to snuff. The house smells like smoky oil. Luckily it's uncharacteristically warm for this time of year today, so I've been able to open up a window.

Maybe tomorrow will be more successful.

What to wear in Montreal in January

This.

What to eat while waiting to pick someone up at the Montreal airport

Yesterday I did my first round trip to Pierre Elliot Trudeau International Airport/ Dorval/ YUL entirely on public transit. Since I hadn't gone the whole way before, I wanted to make sure to have plenty of time so I wouldn't miss meeting Erik's flight.

It took about an hour, so I had an hour to spare. In my purse I had a book, an almost entirely full roll(?) of Starburst, my iPod, a menu from SushiShop, a sandwich and juice box for my tired travelin' man, and my wallet.

Right next to to place where domestic flights get in there is a Tim Horton's. It's easy to get Timmyed out around here. There is a Tim Horton's express stand (just donuts, bagels, muffins, and drinks) in the building all my classes are in. And on in the building across the street. And a full-service, newly-renovated Tim Horton's just a block away from those, across from the Metro stop. I'm not sick of it yet.

I've always been a donut fan. The fact that Canada shares this love was one of the first things that attracted me to it. Donuts are my number one sweet breakfast food, beating out all manner of waffles, pancakes, muffins, and crepes (well, American ones... this is another story). My number one anytime food is soup. The thing I miss most about college is the daily soup selections and eating some at pretty much every meal. In France I scandalized my European friends by making soups that were full of things, not just purées of this or this.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Tim Horton's has a combo that is soup and a roll and butter and a donut and a drink. That is an ideal meal for me. And it's $4.35 after taxes, so I can't feel too bad about having it one in a while.

We all know that airport food is notoriously overpriced. Even the fairly standard-priced McDonald's takes advantage of its captive customers by overcharging for its [tasty] crap. Well, my friends, this airport Tim Horton's was the same price as any other one.

I tried the Chicken, Rice, and Vegetable soup and roll with a glacé à la vanille donut (raised donut with vanilla icing and too many crunchy sprinkles) and a hot chocolate (8 pm is too late for a coffee). It was my first time with both the donut and this particular soup. The soup was burn-your-mouth hot (This is a plus as far as I'm concerned. Soup can cool down, but it's not going to heat itself up!) and came with two packets of saltine crackers (Premium Plus). It may be my favorite so far. The broth was flavorful and somewhat thickened, the rice was a good cracked open tender consistency. There were also lentils (nice touch, Tim!), parsley, and tiny bits of red pepper. The saltines were richer than some others I've had lately (Zesta, at Tous Les Jours). It may be the warm and spreadable temperature at which the butter packets are kept or their perfect salt content, but I have never been disappointed in the roll and butter that comes with the soup. To inhale or to savor? I rip the roll in two lengthwise, one half per butter packet (so buttery.) and eat the first voraciously, then make the second last as long as I can. The hot chocolate was also extra hot and served in a doubled-up cup. The one drawback of this airport operation was that everything was served in paper and plastic. If you choose to eat-in at a regular Tim's the soup is served in a real bowl with silverware. You can also have a mug for your hot drink.

Now, about that donut. It was good, but there was not quite enough icing, and what icing there was was absolutely coated with hard round sprinkles. I prefer jimmies (those long, softer sprinkles) for their texture. In the end, I ate the top of the donut and left a little un-iced part behind. Why finish it if it's not good or good-for-you, right?