back and ready

I am back from France and ready for New Year’s Eve. I am working today 😦 but should be free early in the afternoon, or at least I hope. I will be starting drinking at home with few friends. After we will be heading to the Tiger Tiger – club bar and grill! 🙂 What a name! We will have a 5 courses dinner there and then stay for dancing. Dine and dance is the best formula for this kind of event.

Important fact to know, public transport are free and running all night tonight. Waouh!

HAVE A HAPPY NYE CELEBRETION TONIGHT!!!!! ENJOY!

sunday

Song of the day: paint it black by The Rolling Stones – sorry about yesterday, I didn’y put any music but I weren’t in the mood.

Today has been a quiet day. While the others went out yesterday night, I went to bed! Yes you read it: I went to bed. I caught up on my sleep and I woke as they were waking up this morning! 🙂 And guess what, it was my housemate’s bday on Friday and a friend’s bday yesterday so today I cooked for them: yoghurt cake with vanilla sugar and chocolate chips for dessert and gratin dauphinois and roast beef for the main course. It s gonna be good guys! sorry you are not all here but come see me and I ll do the same for you! 😉

slurp

Song of the day: groupe de garçons by Les amis d’ta femme – pay attention to the lyrics

Tonight I am not sure I will be able to add another day to my page about my trip to Guatemala as I am going to eat to La Gazette. This week, it is Moules – frites (mussels and chips) with a glass of Picpoul for £10! 😛

good to be back

Song of the day: Shut up and Drive by Rihanna – one of the best seller here that you can hear in every clubs…

Now that I am back I get back in the old habit. Today, at lunch, I go downstairs with one other colleague to get some food at the canteen when he told me he needs cash first. So, we went to the bank, and while walking back to the office, my colleague says: ‘let’s have one!’… and here we are, in the O’neill’s with one pint of cider for him and a half for me! 😦

miam

Song of the day: Indi Groove by chinese man – very good electro french music. Lisa, I am not sure that is the one I listened to at your place, but this one is good!

I am back! and I am not alone! 😉 I brought with me a 1.5kg roastbeef to cook soon, andouillettes, cheeses (creamy fatty brillat savarin, goat cheese, brie), saucissons, bottles of wine, chocolate, mustard, biscuits! I love France! 😛 And just to make you salivate, on sunday I had:

This is a good carpaccio de boeuf avec frites maison eaten at L’épicerie in Dijon. This is a restaurant where my sister likes to go.

Yes Papa, I know, we talk too much about food but i like it so much… I mean good food not cheddar and beans on toast. 😉 But I will talk about something else next time.

rain

Song of the day: Gypsys Queens from the Balkan Beat Box – very very good mix with lots of dancing music as we like from Kusturica’s movies

Today, surprise, surprise, it is raining. MacRain, we love it! 😀

Yesterday we held our 2nd bbq at home. The weather wasn’t like for our 1st but we had fun. Here is the invitation I sent. As usual, you will recognize my style:

Guys,

Last time was a success. We were able to keep the sun for a while without killing someone – only animals. We would like to try again Sunday. The details are the same.

So if you want to get burnt, sing around a fire, like rosé, clean a house, love fresh beer, do some laundry, want to eat a horse, do some train spotting, come with us. We provide fork, knife, hoover, sofa, food, washing powder, trains, barbie and all the needed tools

Oh before I forget, we need a volunteer for the sacrifice. 🙂

See you
Julie, Karen, Bernadette & Alex

c’est toi la quiche ! :P

Song of the day: Black Magic Woman by Santana – superb guitarist. shame on you if you don’t know him !

Yesterday I cook a quiche. I will give you the recipe today as it has been a long time since I posted one. I usually do quiche once a week at least because that is easy and quick to cook and can feed 4 to 8 people if you eat salad with.

THE quiche by Mamie Julie

Ingredients:
* a shortcrust pastry / une pête brisée
* 2 or 3 eggs / 2 ou 3 oeufs
* single cream / crème liquide
* grated cheese (preferably gruyere but cheddar will do) / gruyère rapé
* leeks and salmon OR mustard, tomatoes and diced panceta OR courgettes (zuchinis in the US), onions and goat cheese OR whatever you want inside / poireaux et saumon OU moutarde, tomates et lardons OU courgettes, oignons et fromage de chèvre OU n’importe quoi qui va ensemble 🙂
* salt and pepper / sel et poivre

Recipe:
– spread the pastry in your tart pan
– étaller votre pâte dans votre plat à tartes
– prickle the bottom with a fork
– piquer le fond avec une fourchette
– cook your garnishing
– trim your leeks, cut them in slices and boil them for 10mins and dry them. cut your salmon in pieces. put the total OR
– spread mustard in the bottom. cover this with slices of tomatoes and put the pancetta on the top OR
– cut your courgettes and fry them in olive oil with the onions. Put the mix in the bottom and add the goat cheese in big crumbs on top
– préparer votre garniture
– équeuter vos poireaux, couper les en tranches, faire bouillir pendant 10 min. Emietter le saumon. Mettre le tout dans le plat OU
– étaller la moutarde dans le fond, recouvrer de tranches de tomates. Ajouter les lardons au dessus OU
– couper les courgettes, les frire dans de l huile d olives avec les oignons. Mettre le total dans le fond et ajouter le fromage de chèvre en morceaux sur le dessus.
– season the total with herbs, salt and pepper
– mix the eggs, bit of cream and some grated cheese
– assaisonner et mélanger les oeufs, la crème et le fromage rapé
– pour the mix on top of your tart. this will be your cement.
– verser le total sur votre tarte. C est votre ciment.
– bake for 40mins
– cuire pendant 40 min

Bon Apétit ! 🙂

lundi c’est ravioli !

Song of the day: American boy by Estelle – this is the song you can listen to everywhere here. She is British and has a nice voice. It is not the kind of music I usually listen to but this one makes me dance and I have to say that she is not bad at all.

Hope the week has a nice beginning for everybody. Here it is sunny but called but they expect sun for this week end. So who’s up for a barbie this week end?

bbq

Song of the day: My Life by Dido

Today, I sent the following! Avis aux amateurs:

If you can’t be bothered reading my email, go to the PS at the end for the sum up

No it is not christmas yet and it is not a miracle… I know it is hard to believe but this is sun you can see in the sky! 😉 Yes, for real!!!! As we aren’t used to anymore, we want to do a sun ritual dance to ask him to stay with us for the coming month.

In order to do the suggested rite, we need to follow an old French-Mayan-Burgundian-Champagnan-Tunisian recipe. I will share it with you because you could be useful! 😉

Ingredients:
– pale skin meat to roast under the sun -> it will be you guys
– raw meat to grill in order to eat (because it is bad to roast under the sun with an empty belly my children!)
– liquid substance to refresh the skin -> booze will do it
– hot stones to cook the food -> I think we now call that a barbecue!!! YAY!

Method:
– come around 1sh on Sunday afternoon at 12 Maysoule Road, SW11 2BW
– bring some sunscreen
– stay for the afternoon and enjoy life

Let us know if you need anymore details,
See you,
Julie & Karen & Alex & Mourad (& Bernadette our future housemate because Mourad is leaving us on Sunday to live on his own)

PS: you lazy people…. I wrote a nice email and you don’t even want to read it. I am not sure I will give you the details. Nothing is easy…. Ok, ok, so the details: BBQ @ 12 Maysoule Road, SW11 2BW on Sunday at 1:00pm

cacou for my sister

Song of the day: Mother by Moloko – hey Lisa, it’s been a long time… 🙂

My sister asked me for My mother’s recipe of The Cacou. First question is What’s a cacou?

My answer will be: it depends where you are!
1/ When I was living in Marseille on the sea coast, I learnt that a cacou was a kéké i.e. a person who just likes to show off and is being boastful most of the time.
2/ A cacou in my region is also a clafouti i.e. a cake with cherries. The cake is like a crepe dough with flour in it and cherries.

This shows the issue in France where the slang is different from one region to another because it usually derives from the old local dialect/lingo. In the South, it is from the Provencal (degun means nobody for instance), in Paris it is from gypsy language (maraver means battre).

But back to where we were, the recipe! Basically, as said above, you need to do a crepe dough, add some flour and the cherries (with their pits) but in more details:

Ingredients:
– 500 gr of cherries with pits / 500g de cerises avec noyaux
– 80g of flour / 80g de farine
– 125g of sugar / 125g de sucre
– 1/4 of liter of milk / 1/4 l de lait
– 4 eggs / 4 oeufs
– 60g of butter / 60g de beurre

Method:
* mix the flour, the sugar and the eggs / mélanger la farine, le sucre et les oeufs
* add some the milk and the half melted butter. You should now have something harder than a crepe dough. / ajouter le lait et le beurre à moitié fondu. Vous devez obtenir une pâte un peu plus épaisse que la pâte à crêpes

* add the cherries / ajouter les cerises
* butter the cake pan / beurrer le moule
* pour the mixture in the pan / verser la pâte dans le moule
* bake for 40 mins in an oven already hot / cuire pendant 40 min dans votre four pré chauffé.

Bon Apétit !