Neighbors, Cooking and Coincidence

Holiday decor is appearing

I made a pot of soup the other day and invited some neighbors to a simple meal. John and Catherine who are in the Maisonette, and my upstairs neighbor Sophie joined me for cauliflower cider soup, salad, dessert and thoughtful conversation liberally punctuated with laughter.   I am so happy to have met John and Catherine and will be very, very sorry to see them leave later in December.

This year's Christmas tree of the streets

I decided to make my old-standby--pumpkin cake--for dessert.  As I have mentioned before, cooking in France presents all sorts of challenges. Different ingredients, or ingredients in unfamiliar forms (vanilla sugar instead of vanilla extract), and no familiar measuring devices make baking a little difficult.  I understand why people simply just get their baked goods from the patisserie.  Cooking in this apartment adds another layer of challenges.  There are no pans.  There are no mixing bowls.  There is no electric mixer, either of the stand or hand variety, so it was back to old-fashioned elbow grease to beat the eggs.  And the ever-present too-hot, too-fast oven issue means I can never relax and assume anything is cooking evenly.

Along the pedestrian street

But I persevered.  I never did find a tube or a bundt pan, but I found something else.  It's for a savarin, and is shallower than a bundt pan, so I needed to reduce the amount of batter, which I couldn't measure anyhow!   I sort of approximated my ingredients to about 75 percent of the original recipe's.  I ended up mixing everything in a salad bowl with the one whisk I did bring with me. Having made this old stand-by for 40 years, I know what the batter is supposed to look like, and this came close enough. The cake, which normally takes an hour at 350 was done in about 25 minutes.  It tasted like all its predecessors, even if it was a little smaller.  We polished off the best portion of it after the soup and I gave a couple of pieces to the Rabats and to Marie at the tabac.  I didn't want more temptation than necessary singing its siren song.  Nobody got sick or died, or if they did, were too polite to tell me.

Simple and elegant

The kitchen, after all this inventing, looked as if Hurricane Hilda had struck.  No matter, it gets cleaned up one pan, one utensil, one swab at a time.  

I finally met my next door neighbor, Carol.  When I asked her where she was from in the States, her reply was, "Most recently, Maryland."  I asked her exactly where, and it turns out that she moved here from Frederick. my old home town.  She couldn't believe it when I told her I had been raised and gone to school in Thurmont.  What are the odds?  Carol remarked that we probably knew the same people.  

Coincidence?  I prefer to think that the Universal is at work.

Shoppers along the Pietons

Some have added personal accents

The weather has turned a bit warmer and we are advancing toward Christmas.  Decorations are beginning to appear in earnest now and the Magie de Noel (Magic of Christmas)  kicks off this weekend.  I am starting to be filled with some real Christmas spirit.

Stanchions along Rue Verdun bedecked in greenery