It's just lunch, lady.

The week after Costco is a tough one to write about. And difficult to explain, unless I first describe the culture of school lunches in France. I wrote a little about this before, but I want to share a bit more detail.

You probably know already that school lunches in the U.S. are notoriously bad. Brown, frozen food reheated and served with ketchup, canned vegetables (if any!), and sugary milk. By comparison, the food in French schools is wonderful! There are chefs in each school district, the food is balanced and prepared fresh and served in courses. This takes place at the school, but "la cantine" is staffed by city employees whose contracts are separate from teachers or administrators. Here's a sample menu:

A little translation: Entrees are appetizers, Plats are main dishes, Garnitures are veg/garnish, Laitage is a milk product, and Dessert is self-explanatory. So here's the week of October 2-6 at Massillon:

Monday: Beets with vinaigrette, roasted chicken with zucchini, Camembert cheese and pears.

Tuesday: Tomato salad, pork stuffed with herbs, ratatouille (roasted summer veg), St. Paulin cheese, and praline dessert pudding.

Wednesday: No cantine because students have no school, or just a couple of hours in the morning.

Thursday: Boiled egg with mayonnaise, beef ravioli, semolina (not sure what kind of garnish that is!), local bleu cheese, and strawberry mousse.

Friday: Pearl salad (which I assume means salad with Israeli couscous or something), breaded fish fillets, pureed vegetables, cantal cheese and local yogurt with fruit. 

Sounds pretty appealing, right? There's always water, milk, and juice to drink, plus fresh French bread. This was one of the parts of French culture that I was most excited about; the kids having such a complete and balanced meal and encountering new foods at school. Naturally, it wasn't at all what I expected. 

For the first month of school I decided to keep both kids out of cantine altogether. Well, I had planned to introduce Lincoln to it the third week, but that was when the school asked us to move him up to second grade, so I figured skipping a year was enough excitement for one week. So finally in week five he stayed for lunch on a Tuesday. Well, that was the day I got a call at 2:00 p.m. saying that he'd been pushed down by another child on the "playground," which is a nice way of saying "the concrete courtyard lovingly nicknamed "Shawshank." Remember? 

Still, the following Thursday he decided to go again, with assurances from the school that the kid who'd pushed him had been given a talking-to. That night, he informed me that he'd forgotten to throw away a piece of cheese from his plate before carrying the plate up to the dishes counter. The lunch lady, rather than asking him to throw it away, grabbed him by the wrist, dragged him across the room to the trash cans, and made him throw it away. By Friday he seemed fine, and we chalked it up to another annoying difference between French and American cultures. 

Well, all that weekend Lincoln complained of chest pain. He couldn't sleep. He was o.k. when distracted, but as soon as the game of Uno ended, or the T.V. went off, or the karate class was over, his hand went to his chest again and he winced and gasped. 

My six year old was having anxiety attacks. 

Six. 

Because a woman employed to care for children can't keep her hands to herself, or use her words. 

That week he missed school for several days, saw his pediatrician, and went to the emergency room for an EKG to rule out a heart problem (which, thankfully was ruled out). Each of the three pediatricians we saw said the same thing: Cantine is a problem all over France, especially for foreign children. DO NOT make him go back. 

Fortunately, the reassurance that he didn't have to return to cantine and the knowledge that vacation was coming were enough to alleviate the worst of his symptoms, and he was able to finish the last day or two of the week. We are reevaluating the kids' schooling and thinking of moving them to a public school nearer to our apartment, so that they can avoid cantine and I can avoid spending four hours per day walking and busing to school. 

SO. That brings us to Saturday, October 14, when we were preparing to pack up the car and drive to Paris to meet my parents, hooray! And pick up our dog as well. During the week of Lincoln's anxiety attacks, I also learned that everything the airline had told me about a dog flying unaccompanied was wrong, and at several points it looked like he wouldn't make it at all. But thanks to the incredible generosity of my friends Kim and Angel, who'd fostered him all summer, the paperwork was signed off and he was good to go. Josh had meetings in Paris from Wednesday to Friday the 13th, so I got us mostly packed up and ready. 

Well, something in the hotel in Paris disagreed with Josh, and my never-allergic husband broke out in hives. We spent Saturday traveling to Urgent Care, realizing that they require an appointment, traveling home and then back there again, only to receive steroids and antihistamines that were completely unequal to the task. Saturday night was the expats' Halloween party, so Josh stayed home while I took a Ghostbuster (Sylvia) and a karate master (Lincoln) to an apartment downtown for pumpkin carving and a potluck feast. 

I brought deviled eggs, but not the cute and spooky ones!

It was such a great evening. I don't know how our hosts managed to pull it off - that many pumpkins, that may families, and yet it was almost totally relaxed and fun! 

The first half of October was a whirlwind for our family - but then, every week here has been a whirlwind in some fashion. After the Halloween party we came home for quick showers before bed, ready to drive all day Sunday and finally hug our Mom and Dad/Nana and Pappy again! And that's the real reason I barely blogged in October: I was having too much fun with my parents to write about it.

Kindness, everyday

I really want to tell y'all about our little date night at a new bistro in Clermont - a bistro that took over the former home of a burger joint called Emily's Diner - but I don't want to forget what a regular day feels like here. So let me tell you a bit about today, and a little bit about the day-to-day realities of trying to learn a new language.

It's a Wednesday, but the kids have had a cold for a few days, so it was Lincoln's first day of school for the week. (Remember, there's no school on Wednesdays until second grade). Luckily his cold is all but gone, while Sylvia's is still pretty bad, so Josh worked from home while I took the big kid to class. She's feeling pretty good, considering.

Dino feet!

 Since I was on my own, I brought my little wheeled grocery cart and took the bus from the school toward the local supermarket. When your fridge is 1/3 the size of the typical U.S. one, a couple of sick days means there's no food left in the house! And for some indecipherable reason, my bus stopped two stops before the one I needed and kicked us all off. So I walked through the park. It did not disappoint.

 Irises are my favorite, and whatever this variety or cousin of irises these are, they're incredible. Taller than I am, and so striking with the purple leaves - anyone care to identify them?

I made my way to Casino Supermarché and stocked up on crackers, such as they are, zucchini, bananas, apples, duck sausage - it was on sale and I needed fresh sausage for dinner tonight - and a bunch more random things. I was delighted to come across a display for "La Nuit Halloween!" Apparently American influence is growing, especially when creepy costumes and candy are involved.

It was a momentous trip in that I finally remembered that in France, one has to weigh and price one's own produce. If you bring it to the register without a sticker from the scale, you can't have it, and I allllllllways forget. Yay me! I came home, did a ton of chores while chatting with Sylvia about the Uno games and time outs she'd had while I was gone, and then she came along with me to pick up her brother. 

Back on the B bus! She charmed someone into giving up their seat, as usual, and we enjoyed the warm weather on the walk to Massillon. Lincoln, fortunately, had had a GREAT English class and was given a stack of Pokemon cards from a kind and generous older expat kid in the courtyard. We basically danced our way back to the bus stop, pausing only for the kids to beg for candy from the corner shop. Whoever decided to put a candy/doughnut booth on the corner between the college and the primary school is an evil genius.

Lunch was quick and uneventful, and the kids spent the afternoon drawing and stickering on paper while I put dinner in the crock pot, ironed a bunch of clothes I'd been ignoring, and did a few other household chores. Josh emerged from his home office, i.e. our room, a couple of times to talk or grab a bite, and before we knew it it was time to leave for karate class. 

The 9 bus this time! It's a fast ride but only comes every fifteen minutes or so, so we had to leave early with Uno cards, snacks, and water bottles in tow. Lincoln looks so cute in his gi, and a neighbor we've never met said "Good luck, Mr. Judo-kan" in English as we walked by. Then as we got off the bus at Bughes, a young girl struck up a conversation in French with me - she loves the U.S., helped me learn to pronounce "Bughes" correctly, and let us know when our stop was coming up. On our walk from the stop to the karate class at Maison des Sports, a woman bringing her own kids to class told me that her daughter overheard us, and she (the little daughter) loves America as well. The woman is from Tanzania and lived in the U.K. for a long time, so her English and French were perfect. 

I was so engrossed in conversation that I didn't notice Lincoln watching his feet as he walked directly into a wall-mounted mailbox. WHACK. He smacked his head hard, poor kid! He was ok so I made him go to class anyway, but he was benched for most of it. When he was done, he told me "It's ok. I needed to be there to watch and learn, even if I couldn't do the class." So mature. 

Meanwhile, since parents are strictly forbidden from watching the classes, Sylvia and I had an hour to kill. We busted out our Uno cards on a little table in the lobby and soon collected three more kids who were bored and waiting for parents or siblings. 

This is the part that's all about learning a new language. The most common advice I've gotten from my few French teachers has been "listen to as much French as you can." Whether it's TV, radio, podcasts, or actual in-person conversations, the more French I'm exposed to and/or using, the easier the learning will be. So Sylvia and I spent a good 45 minutes speaking in French to kids around 5 years old, naming colors for Uno when someone played a wildcard, asking whose turn it was, and celebrating whoever had won the last round. It was a special, unique moment in what can be a boring and tedious part of the week, waiting for Lincoln's class to end. 

We missed the 5:07 bus home and had to wait for the 5:22, so at the stop I once again struck up a conversation, this time with an older woman who is originally from Portugal and sympathized with my French struggles! The reputation France has for being unfriendly to Americans is, in my experience, 100% undeserved. People regularly go out of their way to speak to me, help us find our way, aid me in improving my terrible French. 

The kids and I walked home from the bus stop and had a delicious dinner from the crock pot - which they both refused to eat. Le sigh. Josh and I loved it, even with duck sausage and zucchini instead of pork and chard.

The little, boring, everyday days of this life are the ones I don't want to forget as time goes by. Irises and Pokemon cards, sniffly noses and a hundred small kindnesses. That's what I want to remember from this time of our lives.

Debacle d'Automne

What a weekend! Last time I wrote it was almost lunchtime on Friday, and my dishes for the school's annual autumn buffet were simmering away in the crock pot. Friday Fours - five hours with three expat four year old girls, traded off among we their three stay at home parents - was a great success, with only one injury (a fat lip) and about a thousand chestnuts collected and distributed into the backpacks. Many of those were collected on our way to one of our favorite parks, Montjoly. It has two playgrounds and a little hill with exercise equipment that the kids love.

We were on the bigger of the playgrounds when an older man arrived with his grandson. Chloe, one of the girls, pointed to the boy and said that he was in her class at Massillon! That's unusual in our little community of Chamaliéres, so I said Bonjour to the grandpa and started up a little conversation. Turns out that this grandson is the fourth generation of his family to attend our little school, and the grandpa lives right around the corner from the park.

I'll pause here to note that I am, in case you didn't know this, a history enthusiast and a huge fan of the musical Hamilton. After memorizing the cast recording thanks to a good friend who lent it to me in February 2016, I started reading several books of Revolutionary War history, and my personal favorite was "Lafayette in the Somewhat United States," by Sarah Vowell. The Marquis de Lafayette was born not far from Clermont-Ferrand, and at 19 he defied his King to bring supplies and chutzpah to the colonial uprising in North America. Without his courage and diplomacy, it's likely the British would have prevailed and the United States would never have existed at all. And he's an incredibly charming and compelling figure - as is his fictionalized personage in the musical, a role originated by Daveed Diggs. 

SO. The playground. The old man told me, in very slow and patient French, that he'd been to a funeral earlier that week, and that the wife of the deceased is a direct descendant of Lafayette himself! You should've seen me, twisting my brain into a knot as I tried to explain a rap-based history musical and "Somewhat United States" in a language I barely speak. But we had a nice moment. 

After a bunch more chestnut collecting and a quick stop home for potty and snacks, the four of us rode the bus back to school at 4:30 to collect the older kids and reunite the little ones with their parents. A couple of young men stood up when we got on the bus so that the three girls could sit across two seats. The men laughed and flirted with the girls in English, and then asked me "So they are your twins?" I laughed - no, no, these are not my three triplet preschoolers. I'm pretty sure I'd have grey hair if I had three all the time! The two non-Sylvie girls were happy to see their parents and siblings, and Sylvia asked if they can all come over for lunch every day. That's a no, but I'm looking forward to the next play date!

The kids and I rushed home to clean ourselves up and collect Josh, then headed back to school for the Fall Buffet. What an event! There were dozens of primary school families, dishes of food from all over the world of which the Scotch Eggs and Chinese rice and red bean balls were my favorites. At least a hundred kids running wild all over the enormous courtyard in near-darkness, while parents sit and stand and mingle about, drinking cassis- or peach-enriched white wine and switching around among a bunch of languages. We early-eating Americans jumped into the kids' buffet early, feeding our little ones at 7:00 LIKE ANIMALS. (Somehow the French children manage to eat at 7:30 or 8:00 and still get enough sleep at night). I reconnected with some families I hadn't seen much of since the pre-rentrée open house, and had a chance to talk with some closer friends while the kids occupied themselves.

Now for the debacle: My husband does not enjoy crowds, and after Lincoln's playground accident earlier in the week, he was really nervous about all the running around on concrete. So by 8:00 he was more than ready to leave, while the kids and I were having fun. I relented by about 8:30 and we walked toward the bus stop. The electronic sign said our B bus would be there in 8 minutes, but flashed "Pert" occasionally. When a C bus came - one that stops very near our house, but not as near as the B line - we let it go by since the B would be along so soon.

Then we realized that "Pert" stands for "Perturbation," or disturbance, and the B bus wasn't coming at all.

So it was 9:00, an hour past bedtime, and we were stuck at a bus stop with two exhausted kids, one crabby husband, and a certain blogger who had had about enough of the lot of them. I managed to call us a taxi and we took a ten minute ride with no car seats for the kids, punctuated by whines and gripes from the kid who didn't get a window, the one whose seatbelt hurts, etc etc etc. When we finally got home I fairly held the kids down to brush their teeth, then tossed them in bed and huffed and puffed myself into a restless sleep.

Luckily for everyone, Saturday was all about delicious food! I can't wait to tell you about it.

L'Anniversaire de Sylvia

I had been dreading Sylvia's birthday, ever since we learned we were going to expatriate in the month of July. Her August birthday was, ahem, planned for - with the rest of us born in January AND a February anniversary, neither Josh nor I wanted yet another party to plan in the winter months. But that meant last year that her special day was the second day of preschool, too chaotic a time to plan much of a celebration. And this year it meant we would have just left all of her friends behind, the first year that she was old enough to really want them around to celebrate. All spring and summer long she asked for a My Little Pony party with Gracyn, Shireen, Morgan, Niko, and her other friends from school and our Simpsonville neighborhood. She would ask Nana and Pappy whether they were coming. And the pit in my stomach would get a little pittier.

But there was nothing to be done about it, so as we settled into our French apartment and August crept closer, I planned a little gathering in the park.  Some of our new expat friends were traveling in August, but many were still around. Thanks to a happy accident, we wandered into a party supply store that had My Little Pony invitations - Sylvie was overjoyed! And a local chain store had all of the baking supplies I was missing; the cookie sheets and cooling racks and spatulas that didn't make it into our shipping container. The birthday girl chose a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and strawberry filling, and together we found all the ingredients we needed to pull it off. 

When the weather forecast showed rain and cold for the morning of the big day, I looked around at our enormous flat and decided to hold it here instead of the park. This place just begs to be filled with people, coffee or wine in hand and kids off making mischief in a bedroom. So we obliged.

It was beautiful outside when the day actually came, of course. Birthday girl with friends in our little courtyard.

So nice to see our big window framing happy friends!

And here they are from the inside.

When the day finally arrived, we had nearly 20 guests, many of whom we'd never met before. The expat community here, like most, is friendly and kind and happy for an excuse to gather in the slow summertime.

We made short work of the cake!

Naturally, the kids instantly found every toy that has 1,000 tiny pieces and strew them about the bedroom floors. There wasn't a single fight or tussle, just English-speaking kids of all ages, from at least three countries, playing together.

Sylvia's room

And then there was the piñata! She's been asking for that for a long time too, and luckily the unicorn she picked out has ribbons to pull - no swinging a bat inside our home! Mr. Sullins held it aloft and all the kids, ages 2-11, grabbed a ribbon to pull. With My Little Pony treat bags in hand.

I love this picture of Josh!

We had a small technical difficulty when the ribbons failed to break the thing open, though!

 Luckily there were no injuries, and with a little adult help, the treats were freed. This is a nice way of saying that I ripped a unicorn in half in a room full of children.

Birthday girl and friends, in the thick of the hunt!

 Here was where we ran into the one problem of the day. For all her piñata enthusiasm, Sylvia had never actually seen one in action before. So when the candy and toys came falling out, she started carefully looking through them to choose the ones she wanted most. Of course, the other, more experienced kids were (politely and appropriately!) grabbing treats by the handfuls - so when the floor was clear, the birthday girl had an empty treat bag and started to cry.

And that was probably the sweetest moment of the entire party. All of the kids, even the youngest ones, saw her crying and brought her treats from their own collections. The Kinder Buenos, mini chupachups, and plastic rings were a hit, and everyone wound up happy.

It was such a sweet, busy, fun party that I forgot all about my anxiety earlier in the year. Friends who have been here longest taught us the birthday song in French, new friends who'd just arrived came and were introduced around, and a bunch of us semi-newbies grilled the expat veterans about school supplies, first day schedules, and how to operate French appliances. Everyone left before lunchtime (morning party means no conflicts with nap times), and Sylvia declared it "her best France birthday!" And that was even before we started opening Legos, puppets, art supplies, and other thoughtful gifts late that afternoon. I needed another coffee for that process.

I'm so lucky to be Sylvia's mom. I am so proud of this brave, sweet, brilliant, hilarious four year old kid who can just roll with a thousand big and little changes. I can't wait to see what the next four years will bring.

The Food, or Why My Pants Don't Fit

I'm going to shock all of my readers (you are legion) when I say that I really like food. I know, I know. Take a moment to compose yourselves. But given that the very first post on this blog mentioned at least a dozen kinds of food, I figure it's time to share some of our culinary experiences in France so far.

French food is really good. Another shock! I hope you were sitting! But what I really mean is that American food is really bad. Not all of it, of course, but if I go into a restaurant chosen at random in the U.S.A., I will expect that the vegetables will be mediocre and out of season, the proteins are frozen, and at least one item will have been pre-made and poured out of a packet. In France, choose any random restaurant in any little village and you can expect the following:

• the produce is fresh and in season
• the bread was made this morning at a local bakery
• all of the meat and dairy is fresh
• the sauces are made in-house, from scratch
• 80% of the products being served are local.

All of this means smaller menus (generally) and more similarity among dishes from place to place. It also means that if you order a salad, it will be fresh, filling, and delicious. 

Chèvre chaud from our local brasserie - hot goat's cheese, honey, and walnuts

Duck salad with warm potatoes, in the tiny village of Murol

Salmon carpaccio salad from a chain restaurant in downtown Clermont-Ferrand - the only place that was open on a Sunday. This was my first meal in France!

Kids' menus are more popular than I imagined they would be! Unfortunately, the 'menu enfant' tends to mimic its American cousins - lots of fried foods, few vegetables, ketchup abounds. It's nice for Lincoln and Sylvia to have some familiar options, but often we'll encourage them to share an adult meal instead. "Le burger en partage pour les enfants, s'il vous plaît, avec les haricots verts." Here are a couple examples of kids' meals in France.

Calamari "beignets" with fries. That was a weird one!

Pastries, of course. Always pastries.

We do eat at home a lot, too! But I'm still adjusting to the French style of housekeeping and cooking. Our refrigerator is about 1/3 the size of the one we had at home, and the freezer is about the volume of a shoebox. One walks to the outdoor market on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings to buy fresh produce, cheese, meat, bread, and other necessities. Small supermarkets exist about every fourth block and contain small packages of everyday necessities - including excellent bottles of wine for 3-5 Euros apiece. 

All of this means that I'm shopping constantly, and still learning to resist the temptation to buy one of every single gorgeous vegetable on market day - there'll be another one in a couple of days! Fruits and vegetables rot within two days, too, which really grosses me out when I think about how long it lasts in the United States. Clearly it's been treated with some kind of preserving agents, and that's distressing. 

Making our favorites from home is a challenge. I don't have a transformer for my KitchenAid yet, so I can't make bread or some of my favorite baked goods. I tried pizza the other day, and it was alright, but shredded mozzarella and pepperoni are impossible to find. I did locate "for pizza" cheese in a Carrefour store, but it was 30% Emmental. Evidently in this region, Emmental cheese is for everything. It's shredded, sliced, and ubiquitous - and it tastes weird on pizza. I can find fresh mozzarella easily, but it's not what I wanted for pizza, either. Still, yum.

The one on the left was the best - and it had the cheese "for pasta." Still contained Emmental.

Ben and Jerry's is here too, but we haven't indulged yet.

 Now let's talk about the local specialities. First among them: TRUFFADE.

If your mouth isn't watering, I don't know you.

Sliced potatoes, cantal cheese, garlic, and salt. Cooked in a cast-iron skillet and served with salad, bread, and jambon - another ubiquitous food in Auvergne! It is heavenly, and it's available everywhere, even in the hot summer. Next up: les entrees.

Foreground - garlic butter escargots (snails) served en croute with a beautiful sauce underneath. Background - charcuterie plate with foie gras.

Entrees in French are appetizers. This was at a place in Place de Jaude, the tourism and commercial center of Clermont. As always, everything is seasoned perfectly - and Lincoln even liked the escargots!

Another local specialty - aligot. Mashed potatoes with melted cheese whipped in. 

Last Friday night, we went out to dinner with our good friends the Priors, and unfortunately fell victim to the French habit of eating dinner late. This would be fine for the adults, but the kids have been going to bed at 8:00, and on that night, dinner started at 8. At Josh's suggestion, we tried Le Kitchen - and it was wonderful. I didn't get a picture of our gorgeous salads, but the menu enfant had truffade for Lincoln, and beef stew with green lentils for Sylvia. Josh's and my food was even more impressive.

A very happy man, with a very rich dish containing foie gras.

Mashed potatoes, summer vegetables, and duck breast roasted with a 'yakitori' style soy glaze. Heaven.

The mademoiselle with her coufidou. The tenderest piece of beef I've had in France was inside that beautiful bowl!

We paid the price for keeping the kids up too late, and I wound up carrying a very tired Sylvia home on a bus rather than walking back to where we'd parked the car. Josh brought our desserts home and we had them for breakfast the next morning, which I foresee happening again in the future! 

The food in France is just as delicious as you'd imagine, and I'm off to go eat some more of it. If only I could include fresh bread, pastries, and unpasteurized cheese in a care package, I would! Since that won't work, you'll just have to come and visit.

Sweet!

Ah, January 15th is here! When I learned last spring that I would be due to deliver on January 13th, 2011, I was careful not to get too excited about that date in particular. First-time moms usually deliver late, so I knew I could go as late as January 27th and still have a healthy baby. I was ready for the long haul.

Well, it's a little tougher now that it's here! I mean, I am 100% committed to as natural a birth process as is safe and plausible, and I'm glad our wee boy is growing and moving well, and I am convinced that he and my body will prepare and deliver at exactly the right time. But week 39 (10 days ago now) brought a host of new, uncomfortable symptoms including carpal tunnel syndrome and a Herculean resurgence of overnight heartburn. I'm not sleeping, I weigh a LOT, and every Braxton-Hicks contraction has me a little more hopeful that labor is on its way.

So a little self-medication has been in order, lately. My birthday was a great salve - a couple of girlfriends took me to Tacoma for a great Thai lunch and an epic trip to Trader Joe's. Then one day I saw a recipe for homemade Oreo cookies and ended up with this:
Oh. My. The cookies are deep, dark chocolate, and the filling is the super-sweet white cream you'd expect from an Oreo - but I used butter and coconut oil rather than hydrogenated shortening. At first I thought the cookies were too sweet overall (despite my having reduced the sugar by quite a bit), but then, imagine! They kept disappearing!

Then it got even better - Mom came to town! She's been such a trouper, cooking dinner for Josh and me, getting me out to walk around, and coming along to the doctor earlier this week. And then best of all, earlier this week, Mama (Nana!) made a Deep Dark Chocolate Cheesecake. Hoo, nonny.It was so delicious I forgot to take a picture of a slice. And there are no slices left.

So just as long as the baby's signs remain strong, I am fine to handle whatever petty discomforts come along with an overdue little one. I'm content to know that sometime within the next twelve days I will be holding my perfect new baby boy - and in the meantime, I'll tide myself over with chocolate.

Feast!

Did I mention we've been staying with friends? Well they have been amazingly generous, managing to hang out and be friendly while still giving us lots of privacy and time to ourselves. Still, we're all glad to hear that Josh and I will be moving into our own place this week, and receiving our household goods shipment Thursday. It's time to be grownups again, and regular old friends with Irish and Steve. So tonight they made us a feast, to see whether I'd eat steak.

See, I'm not much of a beef person. After fifteen years eating no mammals, I've become quite fond of pork in its many forms, but after trying roast beef, sauteed beef, and a nice chuck burger, I had no passion for le bouef.

Until tonight.

See, tonight we didn't have your garden-variety beef. We had dry-aged, grass-fed good stuff, grilled to medium-rare perfection by Steve and accompanied by an incredible spread of marinated shrimp, wilted spinach, Alaskan king crab, and excellent wine. It was, well - see for yourself:Pretty great, huh? We added some spelt bread from a bakery in Tacoma and, well, you can tell I was enthusiastic.
So now it's my third-to-last night at Casa de Jordan, and I've got a full belly and a woozy winey head and a lot of hope for a successful move this week. It's time for sleep, and a long day tomorrow.

Tomodachi farewell

I'm just going to ignore the fact that I've published seven times for the entire month of September, and ask that you all do the same. Can we agree to that? Because I've had an intra-continental move, a sibling's wedding on the other coast, at least six different beds and many tough farewells in that time, and I think we should all start fresh. So.

Let's set the Wayback Machine to Wednesday, September 9th, which was to be our last dinner with our dear neighbors, Chikako and Toshio. Ever since we first met, they'd been telling us about an incredible tempura restaurant in Tokyo, Bill Clinton's favorite place. When they heard we were leaving, they oh-so-generously invited us to join them for dinner there. Um, OKAY!

So we met Chikako on the 4:16 train from Yokosuka-Chuo toward Tokyo, and landed in Ginza with an hour to spare before dinner. Chikako slipped away for a few minutes of luxury shopping while Josh and I took in the sights, and then we all explored the Sony showroom before walking to Ten-Ichi (link goes to English review site), Tokyo's premier tempura restaurant.The service was incredible. Women in kimonos led us to a waiting room and brought hot tea and towels while we waited for Toshio to join us. They took our jackets and umbrellas and made sure we were comfortable.
Once Toshio had arrived we sat at a table for eight, wrapped around a tempura station with the chef in the center and another party to our right. More tea, beer, and three salads were waiting for us there, along with a bowl of grated daikon and tempura sauce and a dish of salt and lemon for lightly flavoring the shellfish yet to come.
The salads were our first bites of dinner, and they were delicate and lovely. The first was Western-style greens and vegetables with a sesame ginger dressing. Next came mildly flavored pickled vegetables, and third was my favorite: sweet strips of jellyfish (I swear!) and more julienne veggies with some light, delicious dressing.

But then the real show began. The chef prepares one bite at a time, moving the diners slowly through a full meal of tempura. We had our neighbors to help us decipher what was what, but honestly, every bite I ate that night seemed more delicious than the last. Everything was incredibly delicious, even the first item, which I admit had me nervous at first glance.See why? I'm still not sure exactly what part of the prawn this represents - legs and belly? Some part of the head? Its dignity? - but I can say that there was no actual meat present. I wasn't about to insult our hosts so I popped the whole thing in my mouth with just a little salt and lemon, and oh, Internet. I wish I had the vocabulary to describe how delicious it was. It was kind of like the best popcorn you ever had, where you can still taste the oil but not feel it on your tongue, where the kernel is perfectly crispy without any chew at all. But add to that the taste of your favorite seafood, or really just the suggestion of it. That bite may have been my favorite of the evening.

But of course we were just getting started. Next came two different small pieces of fish, tail sections neatly butterflied and served with an inch of tail still attached and meant to be eaten like a garnish. The fish was perfectly tender and fresh, and the tails reminiscent of that first bite of prawn shell. Then came a shelled prawn, and then asparagus...
...and these, which were no bigger than sugar snap peas, but are actually tiny green peppers.
Bite after bite appeared on our paper-lined tempura plate, and sake arrived and was drunk, and conversation drifted between English and Japanese, and occasionally Josh and I would steal glances at one another to make sure this wasn't a dream. We ate tempura fried ginkgo nuts on toothpicks, and refilled our sauce bowls with daikon and sweet broth as the food kept coming.

Of course, it had to come to an end. The chef bowed deeply and more kimonoed ladies cleared our tempura plates and dishes, and brought miso soup and more pickles to cleanse our palates.
And then naturally they moved us to a different table for dessert: the most delicious fruit I've ever eaten, a mango that must have been grown by a little old man who has worked his whole life to produce the perfect fruit.
Josh and I were reeling after that meal, and we followed it up with coffee and a long train ride home with our dear friends.

We have led charmed lives, and have eaten our fill each and every day. We've been to California and New York, we've taken classes and taken advantage of friends' and family's formidable skill in the kitchen. But this meal was the best of either of our lives, and after a trying year in Japan, might just be one of the little voices from across the sea, calling us to someday return.