one day in food.

Yesterday was quite the food experiment. I only had to work for 4 hours - 4 hours that were spread throughout the day. So, although, my day involved a little bit of back and forth traveling, it also allowed for me to cook some delicious meals and read from my lovely Kindle.


I started out my morning with a sweet (vegan) treat! mmmmm.... pancakes topped with hot fruit and a delicious vanilla latte (and a good book!).

For lunch, I enjoyed a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato and avocado!! I used my favorite French cheese from the Pays Basque region, Brebis. It's fruity and light. I paired the sandwich with a bowl of spicy lentil soup (full of about 10 different veggies). *Notice the cute coasters I picked up with quirky images and comments at a little shop in Stuart, Florida. The one on top says, "now just because grandma farts at the table doesn't mean you have to."

For dinner, I devoured white bean patties (seasoned with thyme), roasted balsamic brussel sprouts, and rosemary mashed sweet potatoes. Thyme is seriously my new favorite herb! I thought I didn't like it but it turns out it's so versatile and adds such a nice flavor to many dishes. *It's hard to make white bean patties look good in a picture, but I promise you they were surprisingly good. I think I would even serve them to carnivores.

As you can see, I had a lot of comfort food yesterday. However, nothing I ate was really that bad for me besides maybe the pancakes (which really aren't all that bad for you - minus the sugar). It was a well balanced day - fruit topping (just frozen fruit heated up in a saucepan), pancakes (1/2 cup wheat flour, 1/2 cup soy milk, 1 tsp. sugar, 1 tsp. oil, 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract, 1/2 tsp. baking soda), the grilled cheese (wheat bread, lightly coated with vegan butter - we need some fat in our diet),  super healthy lentil and veggie soup with a ton of spices which means you don't need to add much salt, brussel sprouts (dash of salt, a lot of pepper, shallot, drizzle of balsamic and EVOO), potatoes (sweet potato, soy milk, vegan butter, salt, pepper, rosemary), white bean patties (white beans, thyme, bread crumbs, shallot, pepper - cooked in the oven for about 10 minutes then pan-fried for about 2 minutes on each side).

I heard on the news that because it is unbearably cold here, we shouldn't exercise and we should eat greasy food and we should drink a lot of water. I thought it was a joke. However, if it's what the doctor ordered, I really can't disobey. No exercise, grease, and water... okay... DONE!

What are your favorite recipes? Do you stick to the same recipes or do you like trying new things?

adjusting.

I am finding it somewhat difficult to adjust to life in France. I am happy here, really, I am. However, it isn't as easy of an adjustment as it was for my guy when he came to live in NYC.

I try to explain this to him, to make sure he understands just how different our situations are, but sometimes I just don't think he gets it. And, I don't know why I have this burning desire for him to get it. What does it matter anyway? I guess I just want to hear him say, "Yeah, babe, I'm sure this isn't easy."

I think I finally succeeded in getting this out of him tonight, but I'm still not completely content with his agreeing because I never wanted him to agree or cry mercy and say it, I guess I wanted him to go out of his way to say, "You're brave. You're strong." Something like that...?

When I told him today that my Mom's Facebook newsfeed was buzzing after she posted that I was starting work and driving there with a stick-shift for the first time, he kind of laughed. And, when I told him her friends were commenting how brave I was, he laughed again. This kind of annoyed me.

You see, my living in a foreign country is a big deal to my family, our circle of friends, and well, obviously, to me. He, on the other hand, has been living away from home since he was 13. He went to a sort of "boarding school" on a scholarship for handball (an actual sport - not just something we play in gym class) for the French equivalent of 8th through 12th grade. He studied in schools all over France for university while playing handball professionally. He studied abroad while playing professionally in Holland for a year. He had an internship in Morocco and played for the Moroccan national team. He worked in NYC for a year...

So you see - living in different places is no big thing for him. For me it is though... I am out of my element. I went to Penn State University - 4 hours from the home I grew up in, the only home I ever knew, the home my Dad built with his own two hands in New Jersey. I moved to NY after college where I began working... you see the pattern here. I was never more than one state away from my home, let alone on another continent entirely. It is very hard for me to be away from my support system - here I have no family or friends.

When he came to NYC to work, he already spoke English. I'm learning French as I go, while I am here. He came to the USA for a job working in the industry he loves, and I can't even begin to try to find a job doing what I love until I can speak enough French to do so. In the meantime, I have been fortunate enough to find a job but I am so 1st day of Kindergarten nervous. This job is out of my comfort zone (nor did I spend over $100k on my education to do something else entirely).  It is only women that work there and women can be so cliquey. Will I be the oddball? Will they sit around the table eating their baguettes and speaking in French while I sit there alone? I am sure I am over-thinking this whole thing, but I can't help that I am nervous.

Not to mention that to get to work, I need to drive. Our vehicle is a manual. Trying to learn to drive stick has been an experience on its own. My guy has ZERO patience. I cannot accept constructive criticism. Plus, I'm kind of a big baby. Pair us together and learning has been, well, not so fun. Finally, yesterday, we went out twice. I think we were really successful!! It finally clicked for me (much easier to learn when his veins aren't popping out of his skull with frustration because then I really can't take him seriously).

So in the end, I don't know what I'm waiting for.. a prize, a nod of acknowledgement, or maybe it has more to do with me. Maybe I, myself, am looking for the satisfaction I need to feel acclimated to life here. I need to be the one to study my French harder, to not be afraid to go out and meet people, to join a running club or a yoga group. Maybe I need to open the doors to my tiny, lovely apartment and stop acting like Miss Havisham, locked up in here, afraid of the unknown outside my doors.