I was a little confused as to what was happening for dinner (or if we were eating at all). Everyone was sitting leisurely in the living room chatting and sipping on some drinks but no one was in the kitchen preparing anything. I had seen meat being cut earlier but it wasn't being cooked. So when we were called to the table, I was thinking, "what the heck are we eating!?"
I was in for a nice treat. We were eating traditional French cuisine - raclette. You use something like this one from Tefal....
Here's how it works. On the top of the grill, they sprinkled some freshly cracked pepper and sea salt. The meat I had seen them cutting came into play here. The meat - beef and turkey - was thinly sliced so as to cook evenly and quickly. Right away everyone started putting the meat of their choice on top of the grill which was already hot. Underneath, where you see the little handles, are these little spatula-ish things. You put a piece of cheese (raclette) onto this and place it underneath the grill where it melts. Once it melts, you pull out your handle and the cheese slides right off. There were boiled potatoes which you slice and dice to your little heart's desire. There was a fresh, crusty baguette. Then, you take the melted cheese and put it on top of your potatoes, bread, and/or your meat. I even had a nice laugh when I saw my guy's brother putting cheese on top of a pickle!! Those French, they'll eat cheese with/on anything!
As you see in the picture above, you can try it with veggies or whatever else you'd like! If I wasn't eating with a bunch of carnivores, I definitely would have tried some veggies brochettes out.
This was a pretty cool experience and an awesome way to host guests. Not only was the hostess able to sit and spend time with the guests rather than being stuck in the kitchen, we were able to have some fun with the dinner. There was also a big salad and an elaborate array of sauces to put on the meat. I would love to buy one of these to use at dinner parties one day (a wonderful wedding registry gift, people!!).
I can't wait until I have my American family visit and can share this wonderful French experience with them. I am also so glad I got to be there on Saturday night to spend this wonderful evening with the French fam. They have welcomed me with open arms, and considering my family is so far away, it feels good to be loved by so many people here.
As far as the apartment searching goes, well, it hasn't gone very far. The problem is that the buildings are all about 3 stories high and this doesn't allow much light to get it. Each building blocks the light from the next. It's like when people come to the beach and sit right on top of you and put an umbrella up. It felt like every apartment we walked into was dark. There wasn't a whole lot of natural light. Even the pictures we look at online are dark! We need to find a place that won't be miserable and will have a lot of windows and light. **Side note: When I lived in Long Island, NY for a short period of time, I had an apartment that literally didn't have one window. There were a few occasions where I fell asleep early on the couch and would wake up and see my phone said 10 and would freak out thinking I was super late to work - not even realizing it was 10pm. When there's no natural light, you have no concept of whether it's night or day and it's a whole heck of a lot harder to get your butt out of bed in the morning.
The apartments we saw also fell into two not so wonderful categories. There were the apartments that were old and classic with hardwood floors that I just loved, but they were also kind of falling apart with cracks in the ceiling and things that would require an insane amount of scrubbing. There's also the issue of them not having any appliances in the kitchen. My guy found and apartment last night and said, "the kitchen isn't that great." When I looked, I saw that there was literally nothing in the kitchen except for a few pipes to hook up your gas and water lines, too. And then we both laughed and simultaneously said something like, it's really just a kitchen. A lot of the apartments were like this - you really need to use your imagination to figure out where everything would go. For renters, it's also an added hassle and an obvious added cost to have to buy new appliances. For fourth floor walk-up apartments, lugging appliances around isn't enticing at all.
The second category of apartments were the ones that were trying to be modern but done in a very cheap way. They had fake wood floors and those kind of marble looking counter tops that are made of plastic. Everything was just so cheap looking.
My ideal apartment would be classic (while not falling apart) with modern appliances. I like the classic meets modern feel where the modern is just in the kitchen. I love to cook and don't like cooking on old stuff. I wouldn't mind having something classic and fixing it up if it was something we were buying, but since we're renting, we don't really want to invest a load of cash into something we're not investing in for our future. We'd really just be making it better for the next renter!!
I think I have just been typing as my brain is rambling and thinking. That's enough!! :)
