Creme de la Creme

Yesterday Emily and I made delicious creme brulee! Now this isn't your typical creme brulee. Instead of caramelizing the top, we did a recipe that puts a cookie on top. An amazingly delicious Belgian cookie.

Speculoos Cookies and my little Ramekins

It called for a Belgian cookie called Speculoos. Emily bought some while she was in France, so we had the real thing (By the way, Emily also has a blog. It's called Movies and Mayhem. Check it out here)! The recipe was also French, which meant we spent the morning converting measurements and translating before we could get started.

Emily bought an amazing little creme brulee cookbook while she was in France, so this shouldn't be our only creme brulee adventure this semester. If you don't have time to run to France or Belgium to pick up cookies you can try the american version which happens to be sold at Walgreens. I'm definitely going to try and find these once we run out of the ones Emily bought. They taste kind of cinnamon-y, almost like a graham cracker (except classier? lol). At least that's the best comparison I could think of.

Here's the recipe we used:

Pots de creme a la vanille et speculos (Makes 4-6 servings)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 Cups Whipping Cream

1/2 Cup Milk

Just under 1/3 cup sugar

4 egg yolks

Vanilla (just under a tablespoon)

4-6 speculos cookies

Put milk and vanilla in a saucepan on low heat.

In a separate bowl whisk the egg yolks and sugar together. Add the whipping cream and mix well. Little by little, add the hot milk/vanilla mixture to the cold mixture in the bowl. Put in the fridge for at least two hours.

Set the oven for 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Put the contents of the bowl in your ramekins. Place the speculos cookies on the top of the mixture in each ramekin.

Bake for 60 - 75 minutes.

When we put the ramekins in the oven we placed them all on a cake pan together, so we wouldn't have to worry about them wobbling around or getting to messed up when we took them out.

This is what they should look like when you take them out of the oven.

Put in the fridge for at least one hour before serving (2 hours is probably a safer bet). Then you're done!

Emily showing off our finished creme brulees. They looked just like the picture in the book; we were so proud of ourselves :)

Now Eat!

We had so much fun making these!

Currently catching up on: Modern Family

I've Loved You So Long

It's been awhile since I've been to international cinema. Every time I've thought about going this semester something has come up. Tonight it worked out that I had nothing going on and they were showing a French film I've been wanting to see!

The movie was I've Loved You So Long (Il y a longtemps que je t'aime). It's about a woman who is getting to know her family after being in prison for 15 years. Kristin Scott Thomas does a wonderful job playing the main character (Juliette), but I really, really loved Elsa Zylberstein, who plays the sister (Lea). I just thought her character seemed so real. I wasn't really sure where the whole movie was going to end up, but I actually ended up really liking the last scene.

Well I don't want to give anything away, but I liked the movie and I loved hearing people speak French again. Click here for the trailer if you want to see more!



Also: I realize it's been a while since my last post! But I promise I will be better!

Currently watching: Modern Family

Omaha Beach

Ok so I am officially home. My Paris adventure was AMAZING. Since I got kind of busy/lazy about posting the last couple of weeks I thought I'd tell about one of the highlights of my trip that I never got to mention-- Normandy. I got the chance to take a day trip to Omaha beach one Friday and see the American Cemetery. It was a great experience.

First we went through the visitor's center. The visitor's center started with a short film that told you a little bit about the war and some of the soldiers. It gave exerts from there old letters and told you a little bit of their personal stories. The rest of the museum gave you more history and let you see things in context of the bigger picture.

These are some of the the different soldiers and their stories.

After I finished going through the Visitor's center I went to see the cemetery. My friends and I arrived just in time for the guided tour. Our guide was great. She told us a lot of the stories behind the different names. Since our group was all girls she made sure to take us by all the nearby woman graves and tell us their stories. There are only four women buried in the American cemetery.

The markers tell the name of the soldier, and their rank, but they never say the soldier's age. They decided to leave it out because all the soldier were so young when they died.

The cemetery is marked with crosses and stars of David depending on what the soldier listed for his religion. They used to also mark there religion on their dog tags as well. This, of course, was very dangerous for the Jewish soldiers. They know that many falsely registered as Christian to protect themselves, so there should probably be more stars in the cemetery than there are right now.

This is the memorial reflection pool. On a calmer day you can see the entire memorial reflected in the water. When they first built it people kept throwing coins in the water. The government did not want to make money off of the deaths of soldiers so they painted the bottom of the pool to keep people from throwing coins.

This is a close up of the statue in the center of the memorial. It is framed by two olive trees to symbolize peace.

We finished the tour by looking at the wall of the missing. Many of the relatives of these men never stopped looking for them. Our guide told us about one woman in particular that never lost hope. She eventually found him-- in the cemetery. I am not sure about the whole story (whether he was buried under an anonymous grave marker, or under a wrong name or something like that) but, he had been buried under a cross, not the Jewish star he should have been under. Then we said goodbye to our nice tour guide and went down to the beaches. It was weird to know you were standing in the same spot as one of the most infamous battles of World War II.

Anyways that's about it. Normandy was a great trip. I'm glad I got a reminder all the sacrifices those soldiers made for us.

Currently: Excited that Vista is out of my life... my computer is running 3x faster

The fall of the Berlin wall

Anyways, as you probably know yesterday was the 11th of November so everyone was celebrating the end of World War I, and last week was the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. I am so glad I got to experience these two events in Paris. In the US I don't think I would have appreciated these two days as much. It's amazing to see the way everyone in Europe remembers these important dates.

Me in front of the Arc de Triumph on Nov. 11th. They had a huge flag up, and they also had something going on at the tomb of the unknown soldier.

Everyone here has been anticipating the 20th anniversary of the Berlin wall for a while. One chocolatier, Patrick Roger (I've sampled some of his chocolate before, delicious!) even built a chocolate Berlin wall to commemorate the occasion. I attended a free city wide celebration in the Place de Concorde.The event was amazing. They had amazing music playing while they projected images onto some of the buildings behind the orchestra. Some of the images were just stuff like shots of the musicians up close, but they also projected old photos of the Berlin wall. It was a really moving site actually.

Some of the images they were showing at the memorial presentation.

Everything was light up, there were tons of people, and they had a whole orchestra there. They had all the cellist in individual stands/box things that were covered in graffiti (like the Berlin wall) and they would spotlight them at different times throughout the songs.

So the video is kind of hard to see. There were a lot of people and it was dark, but the audio is worth listening to (I think you actually see some of it towards the end).

Anyways, I was so glad I took the time to remember some very important bits of history these last two weeks. It has definitely been a highlight of this trip.

Another picture from the Place de Concorde, there is a tiny French flag in the background (Although, I'm blanking on what building that is right now).



I love this picture by Cartier-Bresson of the Berlin Wall. I learned about him in my photography class. He is amazing.
(http://www.ttx-net.sk/georgie/Cartier-Bresson1.htm)

Currently: Really tired, despite all my naps today (train rides are a good place to catch up on sleep, lol)

A few of my favorite things

Ok so instead of inundating you with my usual marathon stories of the events and historical artifacts I've seen recently I thought I'd simply write a list of my ten favorite things about Paris study abroad so far (By the way I considered not making the title the obligatory Sound of Music reference, but yeah...couldn't resist).

1)Favorite French habit

Fresh bread and cheese at the end of dinner every night. Yum.


Look at all those yummy cheeses.

2)Favorite Dessert

Chocolate. All this fancy foreign chocolate has ruined me.

3)Favorite Day Trip

Monet's garden. I went twice.



4)Favorite Museum

Right now it's a tie between the Tate Modern in London and Cite de l'architecture & du Patrimoine. Haidy and I wandered in the last one this afternoon, and I wasn't expecting much. But it was just so fabulous.Maybe that's why I like it so much; I've always loved surprises. However I still have many, many museums on my list.

5)Favorite Snack

Sea Salt and Vinegar chips. I got some at the train station in London and fell in love.

6)Favorite Parisians (aside from my wonderful host family of course)

Dog owners. They take their dogs everywhere here. It's hilarious.



7)Favorite place to sit

By the Pompidou center. There are always tons of people doing street performances or some other crazy thing. Very Entertaining.

8)Favorite Walls

Fontainbleau. Ceilings are pretty awesome as well.



9)Favorite fashion trend

Scarves. Seriously I wear one almost every day.

10)Favorite Pastime

Wandering. You never really know what you'll run into here.



So basically I just wanted an excuse to post a picture of this cute little teapot store (I actually encountered a cuter one, but my camera was MIA so this one will have to do).


Currently: Enjoying the sound of rain outside my apartment and catching up on SYTYCD

Parc Monceau

I have decided I am in love with the park by my apartment.I have probably already mentioned this a thousand times. When my host mom first told us there was a park within walking distance of our house I expected something similar to the parks near my neighborhood. Something with a playground, a few swings, maybe an area for soccer or some sitting areas. Instead I got the Parc Monceau. I realized this was no ordinary park when I first saw the gate leading into the park area.

The park is always filled with people. On the weekends there are so many people on the paths that you are pretty much always in danger of being run over by a determined jogger. I've already seen two weddings there. When Haidy and I were last there it was Jewish New Years and the local Jewish community was all there celebrating. Of course, there are always familys as well. All the kids bring their bikes and scooters (which seem really popular here, and to think people thought I was dorky when I rode mine...lol).

Two little girls who walked past me as I was doing my homework the other day

It is also just a beautiful place to walk around. There are statues, flowers, and even a pond.I got curious about it's history and found out that this park was one of the projects that Haussmann worked on when he was renovating Paris (Which I actually just learned about in my photography class today, otherwise I would have no idea what that meant). Anyways, I thought I'd share a couple of pictures. I'm hoping this will be a good place for me to do my homework ( and hopefully make it seem less homework-ish, lol).

A few people stretching and doing tai chi or something like that

Currently listening to: The soundtrack of Ensemble C'est Tout

Les Choristes

I saw this movie called Les Choristes (The Chorus) the other day and basically it was the highlight of my week. It's about a man who becomes a prefect at a boys' reform school. He tries to help them by earning their trust and teaching them how to sing. I won't get anymore specific because I hate giving things away, but I just had to say how much I loved this movie.

http://www.msm-gymnasium-krefeld.de/tricolore/index.php?id=36

Pepinot!

My favorite character is Pepinot. He's an orphan who sits at the school gate every Saturday waiting for his father to come get him. However all of the kids are equally adorable (minus this one creepy boy who reminds of one of the children of the corn)and it tells a great story as well. I've been trying to get my whole family to watch it, lol. I think they are sick of it.

Currently: Bruised and sore from paintball yesterday

I want to go to there

Just posted on BYU Paris blog! We had to do a post on something we want to do in Paris. Then when we get to Paris we are actually going to go do it and write another post on our reactions. My post is on the Sacre Coeur Basilica. For some reason the font kept acting up on me, but you can see it and you can read it, so I refuse to mess with it anymore.

Currently listening to: Phoenix

A movie that ends with a casino heist and doesn't star George Clooney

So this week was interesting. I went to another French movie, Bob le Flambeur. The International cinema was having a film noir week. Now I wish I could say that I am extremely cultured and was entranced by the cinematography or something like that. But honestly the whole time all I could think about was how can the main girl be considered so attractive, yet her be so mullet-y. Seriously it was distracting. But the ending was interesting. It wasn't your typical finish to a casino heist film. People died, the romance was definitely not true love, they didn't get away with it, and they didn't predict every move or plant fake cops ala Oceans Eleven. However they still kept it interesting and I thought it was an interesting plot twist, if not the most positive one.

Anyways I also saw BYU's modern dance concert, In Motion this week. I usually think that I am pretty open minded about that kind of stuff, however I just didn't get the final dance. For the last number they came out wearing tutus made of plastic grocery bags while surrounded by fog. Just as I was getting a handle on this the dance transitioned into a scene where a majority of the company was sitting on the floor while holding a balloon; this was followed by a giant ribbon acrobatic ensemble, and well, you get the idea. I felt like there was some big metaphor I wasn't getting that would tie it all together, but no one ever clued me in if there was. There rest was good though. There was a fun prop dance, and a couple of bench dances, as well as this one dance based around four women from Shakespearean plays. I didn't know all of the stories but it was still interesting to see them portray the characters. Although the music reminded me of one of those semi-electronic instrumental songs that they like to play in the background of eighties movies (Lady Hawk, anyone?).

Lara also shared an amazing bread recipe with me this week. It had a topping that was olive oil mixed with rosemary, Parmesan cheese, and garlic. Sooo delicious. Fresh bread makes me so happy; it's ridiculous.

Reading: Sister Carrie

Movie Marathon

In honor of my French classes I've decided to start watching some French films ( maybe they'll help me with my pronunciation!). Anyways I started today and the first one on my list was Persepolis. It was made in 2007, and won a couple awards. It was really interesting. Persepolis is an animated film. It's actually an adaptation of Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel Persepolis. The story is autobiographical and follows Marjane's life growing up in Iran and Europe. It was completely fascinating. It discusses politics (of course!) but it also gives you a unique view of Marjane's personal journey. Through Marjane's eyes we see that Bruce Lee is her hero, Abba is for Wimps!, the Vienna underground is not the ideal place to try and find yourself, and guys are the same no matter what country you're in. I loved Marjane as a little girl in Adidas shoes proclaiming herself a future prophet and I also loved her as a serious young women protesting her university's double standard for women. Even though the film takes place in Iran and Vienna it is all in French, except for the memorable sequence where Marjane decides to call herself to action by singing Eye of the Tiger. Plus Marjane helped animate the whole thing herself (The film is a collaboration between her and Vincent Paronnaud). It's definitely something to try if you don't mind subtitles.