How to make macarons

For Christmas Dorian (a friend) had given me this macaron kit and we both figured I had waited long enough to try baking them. So, today after school, which ends at 12 on Wednesdays, Sarah and I went over to his house to make this delicate French treat.

Sarah pressing the raspberries for the ganache. We made all of the ganaches ahead of time because they need chill so you can spread them on the macarons later.

The batter for the raspberry macarons. In almost all recipes for macarons you need almond powder, powdered sugar, egg whites and sugar.

Then, once the batter is ready, you put it in a piping bag and make small circles. Macarons are really expensive the cheapest I've seen cost 0.80 € for one macaron, but I understand why, they're hard to make, time consuming, and almond powder is really expensive.

All ready to go in the oven!

As the raspberry macarons were baking we got started on the chocolate macarons.

Here I am making some chocolate macarons, it took a while to get the hang of it. The first ones I made didn't look as good as Dorian's.

Once the macarons had cooled we put them together with the ganache. Whenever there was a macaroon that "wasn't pretty" we would eat our mistake, I don't think we actually had that many mistakes but it was a good excuse to eat.

Tasting my first macaron!

Our raspberry macarons.

Our chocolate macarons.

Our lemon macarons. You can see that the ganache was still a bit runny, so of course we ate a lot of lemon macarons.

All three. It was a lot of work for so few macarons, but if you had tasted them you would have known it was worth all of the effort, they were amazing!



A Day at the Opera

After talking with my parents about my blog, it was brought to my attention that the majority of my posts and photos are of food. But hey, I'm in France! It's normal! In this post, instead of talking entirely about food, I'll also talk about my trip to the opera.

On February the 8th, immediately after we had finished school at 12, my class of 1èreL and a few students from 1èreES piled into a bus that would take us to Lyon and to my first opera. The drive went quickly thanks to Matilde, who had remembered to bring her iPod, and in less than an hour we were in Lyon. Then, after getting off the bus we had some bad news, we had to go directly to the tour of the opera, which lasted two hours, we didn't have enough time to grab a bite to eat, which is hard for French people to hear because meal times are very important to them. Besides the fact that everyone's stomachs were growling, the tour was wonderful. Our tour started outside, despite the cold weather, to see the facade of the building which is practically all that is left of the old opera.

This photo gives you an idea of what the opera looks like but not its size.

Inside the huge prop room.

Where the chorus practices and another tour group from our school.

Fun chairs from the opera.

This photo gives you an idea of how the opera is organized.

The stage, set up for the first opera we would see.

One of the most beautiful rooms that we saw on our tour, this is where the audience goes during intermission. I don't believe that there are many ceilings that look like this in theaters in America.

After climbing many flights of stairs we were on the topmost level of the opera and were able to see this incredible view. This room is normally a dance studio for the ballet to practice in, but when we toured it we got to hear a private concert from a violinist from the opera who was practicing before the show.

View of Lyon with the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière and the Metallic tower of Fourvière, which looks like a mini Eiffel Tower, on top of the hill.

Our tour group.

Then at around 3:30 the tour was done and we were free to walk around Lyon until the show started at 8. We first planned to eat at McDonald's but ended up eating at Quick because the heating wasn't working at the McDonald's. Quick is a French fast food restaurant that the majority of my friends consider it to be less "greasy" than McDonald's. The very few times I've had fast food in France I've noticed how much smaller the portions are and how much more expensive it is compared to fast food in the US.

After our late lunch we went shopping at the Place Bellecour.

In France, sales happen only two times a year, once in winter and once in summer. These "Soldes" last for five weeks and each week items get cheaper and cheaper. Thanks to the soldes my friends and I all got great deals.

After we had finished shopping we went over to a Starbucks to warm up. Again, the only difference I could find between Starbucks in the US and Starbucks in France was the price and the slightly different bakery items.

It tasted just like back home!

Just before the show.

The first opera we saw was Eine florentinische Tragödie written by Alexander von Zemlinsky. The opera was in German and therefore had subtitles above and on the side of the stage so the audience could follow the story. It was interesting to hear the songs in German, see the translation in French and then translate everything to English in my head.

The second opera was Gianni Schicchi by Giacomo Puccini and was sung in Italian. I preferred this opera because it was a comedy and the songs had more musicality.

The poster for the two operas we saw.

American Holidays in France

Just because I'm in France doesn't mean I missed out on candy for Halloween or a huge meal on Thanksgiving. Before I left I told myself I would make the full Thanksgiving meal turkey and all, so within a few weeks of my arrival in France I had my parents send some of my favorite recipes so I could plan in advance my favorite meal of the year. Since the fourth Thursday in November in France is not a National Holiday and the whole Thanksgiving meal would be too big for me to prepare after I get home from school at 5:30 I decided to wait until the weekend. The actual day of Thanksgiving I wished my friends Happy Thanksgiving it took them a while to understand so after I explained the holiday they wished me Happy Thanksgiving in return and did the bise which added a little French twist to the American holiday. My History teacher also realised it was Thanksgiving when two more girls from my class wished me Happy Thanksgiving and did the bise and then said "Oh yes, it's the day of the Turkey." That Friday I went to Valence, the closest large city, to find the "foreign food" I needed for all of my recipes which included; cranberries, Turkey, sweet potatoes, brown sugar and cider. The only thing that we had trouble finding was a Turkey, which aren't that common in France except for Christmas, eventually we found one but the largest that they had weighed only five pounds. Friday night I got to work on the cranberries which was the only dish I had enough time to prepare ahead of time and refrigerates well.

Preparing the cranberry sauce.

Cranberries before. This was the first time I had ever made cranberry sauce and I never realised how easy it is, you just boil the cranberries in sugar water and wait for the cranberries to burst. Now I'll never have the canned cranberries again.

And after, you can see it's starting to look more like a sauce.

Saturday morning I got up, had breakfast and went right to work in the kitchen.  I started with the Sweet Potato casserole, which took forever because I had to individually cook each sweet potato in the microwave and each one took around 8 minutes to cook and I ended up burning my thumb in the process.

The topping for the Sweet Potato Casserole.

The Sweet Potato Casserole ready to cool.

Then I worked on the stuffing.

I had finished the turkey, cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole and stuffing when the first of my friends started to arrive. In France, it is expected that if you are invited to someone's house for a meal you bring a small present. My friends brought me an orchid, papillotes (French Chocolates for Christmas), more chocolates from a nearby dessert shop and a tile with a painted flower which on the other side says " A little souvenir from France ♥ Sarah".

Sarah also drew me this which I kept on my whiteboard in my room.

Since the pie, mashed potatoes,and gravy still weren't done I put my friends to work. Here they are making the pie crust. All of the recipes I had were in English and used American measurements, luckily I had brought cups, tablespoons and teaspoons with me because we still had to do a lot of converting with Fahrenheit and Celsius and the butter which is hard to put in a measuring cup.

Marie cutting our modest turkey.

All of the food we made (clockwise from the top); mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, turkey, cranberry sauce, and stuffing. Not shown; gravy and apple pie.

Sarah, Marjorie, me and Marie.

My plate.

Before we ate my friends asked me if there was something my family and I would normally do before we ate at Thanksgiving, I said that my Grandpa would say a prayer but that some families would go around the table and say what they are thankful for so my friends and I decided to do the same. I started and said I was thankful to have the opportunity to be in France, Marie said she was Thankful that I was in France, Sarah said that she was thankful to have such great friends and Marjorie said that she's thankful there's such great food! I think they really liked it because at the end they jokingly said Americans actually know how to cook.

Sadly, we put the pie in the oven right before we sat down to eat so by the time I took it out of the oven and it cooled my friends had had to leave.

Halloween

Halloween I went over to another American AFSer's house who's name is coincidentally Laura, we were then joined by another Ameican AFSer who lives nearby named Eliza. In the afternoon we walked to a closeby grocery store to by ingridients for all of the sweets we planned on baking that night and then went to a McDonald's for a snack, how American of us, but in my defence it was the first time I ate at McDonnald's in France.

Laura and Eliza at McDonald's with their ice cream.

When we got back to Laura's house we got busy with all of the desserts. Each person had a different task, I was on cupcake duty, Laura was incharge of the cocolate chip cookies and Eliza decided to do the Trader Joe brownie mix that she got in the mail. Here's a photo of the cupcakes, brownie batter and chocolate chip cookies.

Me and the cupcakes, complete with halloween cupcake liners and cat and spider toothpicks.

Me, Laura, Eliza and the cousin of Laura's host family indulging our sweet tooth after dinner.

Laura with trick or treaters, yes, the doorbell rang a total of three times, which I think is pretty good for a town in France.