The Margarita Chicken Marinade that Made Me a True Believer

Happy Wednesday folks,


I can't take this smile off my face, it's 60 degrees here in Paris (tomorrow it will be close to 70!) 


So yesterday was Tuesday, and yes, we all know - Tuesdays are terrible. I read a study that said Tuesdays were actually worse than Mondays, because on Monday, you are still beaming from your weekend buzz. One of my favorite ways to keep a Tuesday more exciting is simply to make an extra special dinner to look forward to. This week- it was Margharita marinated chicken, latin rice, and a simple salad.


Marinades are kind of a new thing for me. I know that may sound a bit ridiculous, but even in culinary school, aside from a few restaurant services, we often seared the meat as it was (with salt and pepper of course) and then braised or roasted it to richen the flavor. When I start experimenting with food, this time being marinades, I can become a bit obsessive until I achieve exactly what I was looking for. You can try a recipe anytime and fail miserably. The trick is to figure out your failure, what you could have done better, or completely eliminated sometimes, and do it again and again until you perfect it. The first marinade I tried here in Paris was for steak and chorizo fajitas. I did everything wrong. I wasn't careful to use the right proportions because I didn't have the proper measuring tools, I didn't leave it to chill long enough and after doing some research, I realized that meat marinades need to be a lot more potent than chicken marinades. How would you say - Epic fail? Yes, it was but it just drove me to continue on my quest.


I decided I needed to take a step back and start with a simpler marinade on something that was easier to work with- Chicken. Chicken was a major staple in the Cuellar household growing up. It's healthy, it's easy to pair with other food, and when made correctly, very simply - it is juicy and delicious. What can I say? Colombians love their pollo haha :)


In our apartment here in Paris, we love margaritas....year round, not just in the summertime. I saw a recipe for Tequilla Lime chicken, and thought about how good that would be with a margarita. Then I thought, what if I use what makes a margarita so good, into the marinade of the chicken. I'm not a huge fan of spicy food (yet), so this marinade adds so much flavor to the chicken, without the ahhhhhh of the spice. Please, feel free to add pepper flakes or jalapeno to this if you prefer some spice in your life ;)


Margarita chicken (2-3 servings)

• 1/4 cup gold tequila
• 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (3 to 4 limes)
• 1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice (1 orange)
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh garlic or simply crushed (3 cloves) 
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 chicken breasts, legs, thighs (really works with any chicken, just make sure to leave skin on)
• Optional: a handful of chopped cilantro
• 
  

Combine the tequila, lime juice, orange juice, garlic, salt, and pepper in a large bowl or zip lock bag. Add the chicken breasts. Refrigerate overnight or for a minimum of 1 hour before cooking. 

Heat a grill and coat with olive oil. Remove the chicken breasts from the marinade, sprinkle well with salt and pepper, and grill them skin-side down for about 5 minutes, until nicely browned. Be patient and make sure the pan is hot enough, you want to hear a sizzle when the meat touches the pan.

 Turn the chicken and cook for another 10 minutes, until just cooked through. Pour the marinade over the chicken as it cooks, but stop doing this 2-3 minutes before the end of cooking.  Remove from the grill to a plate. Cover tightly and allow to rest for 5 minutes. Serve hot or at room temperature.

A pic of my buddy Claire searing some chicken nicely on a different night. My friends from culinary school apparently have to go to work when they come into my kitchen haha!

My mouth is watering looking at this chicken again

This is a very important step- Serve with a margarita!!! 

I left this part up to my creative mixologist boyfriend who used fresh squeezed orange and lime juice in the delicious margarita you see in this pic. It was hands down the best one he's ever made! 

                                                          Et voila! Dinner is served. 

I am also very into making homemade guacamole as an appetizer or great accompaniment to this type of meal- more on that later. Please send me your marinades...I am obsessed!! And I will keep writing about my trials with them. I have also gotten to the point where I absolutely love my rice, it actually makes me think of my mom, aunts and my grandmother's farm in Colombia. I'll write about this rice and the guac next time. 

I'm off now,but trust me on this marinade- I nearly was shouting at dinner it was so good! 

Happy Hump day y'all :)

Learning French in Paris

Hello everyone!

I'm back, I'm back! (I don't know how many times I can say that before it gets old) But no really, I've missed blogging and I thought now was an appropriate time to reappear. I was inspired this evening as I was asked for a recommendation for both a French tutor and a French school all in one day. I began to recall the very long process that I went through to take learning French seriously.

I'd love to tell you that I started to study months before I moved to Paris in preparation, but that's just not the case. First, I'm going to tell you something that may sound obvious, but people often forget or don't like to admit- learning a new language is hard. It also doesn't help when you meet those people that pick up languages instantly, and have you even seen this guy that knows eleven languages at the age of 20??

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/21/student-speaks-11-languages-alex-rawlings_n_1292149.html

I have to admit that I had a very healthy head start before I got here. My parents spoke to me and each other in Spanish while I was growing up, so I feel pretty comfortable speaking Spanish although I've never studied it. That also gave me a leg up as I studied French for 5 and 1/2 years through college. So I should have come here and immediately picked up the language? Well, maybe, but that's not what happened.

I'll tell you what actually happened. I started taking French courses 3 times per week at Paris Langues for 6 hours per week total. The course was incredibly expensive for an au pair salary, but still manageable.  I wouldn't have minded so much if the teacher did something very simple- speak English. In a class of 8, I often found myself lost and wanting things repeated or simply clarified in English but also not wanting to slow down the entire group. In addition to that, all of the other au pairs had the luxury of speaking French at home with their families and kids all day where on the other hand, I was specifically hired to only speak in English with my family. I walked in expecting to have a clear advantage, and left the course early disappointed in myself and feeling robbed.

My next instinct was to find a better way to continue classes cheaper and with a better teacher. The town hall offers very reasonably priced classes at different levels all over the city. The problem : they are all booked 6 months in advance. Of course they are! It was too good to be true. I decided to take a break and try to teach myself. I bought vocabulary and grammar books and never opened them. I didn't have the motivation to teach myself. You need motivation to learn a language, and I as I could still get by with English and broken French, I was having a hard time finding it so I took a break. And yes, it's true, French people don't want to talk to you in French if you aren't a native speaker. They will immediately switch to English when they speak to you, and you literally have to bully them into speaking French with you by continuing in French. It's a fun game I especially like to play with snotty French waiters when you ask them for a table. This is how it usually goes: You walk into a cafe and ask for a table to eat dinner in French. The waiter's face begins to move into a contorted sour face like he just ate a very tart disgusting candy or just realized his lunch did not agree with him. Then you have a choice - you can get scared, stutter, switch to English...maybe even run away OR you can pretend that you don't notice the disgust in their face and continue speaking in French louder and more confidently. It will take a few embarrassing situations before you get there, but I promise, you get there.

Little by little, you continue on, and you meet a lot of people when you live in Paris. And everyone asks you the same thing when they meet you - how is your French? It sounds like a harmless question, but I soon found I felt an incredible guilt as I tip toed around my answer. How can I be living in the best possible place in the world to learn French and not take advantage of it? People are also not afraid to make you feel terrible about not knowing French. I got tired of it, and by then I also knew that I'd be enrolling in culinary school where my text books were in French and I would be working afterwards in a French kitchen with French natives. Game over- I had to fix this problem.

I got a private tutor who was fantastic and very reasonably priced (I can recommend her if you need one!) and now have moved on to using a free conversation exchange website to meet a number of people for coffee or even just online to practice French in exchange for helping them with their English. I started to watch French TV and movies with subtitles, listen to French music, read bi-lingual books and yes, I even cracked open my French text books - I finally found the motivation that I was searching for. Suddenly, speaking and practicing French wasn't so awful because I could actually form sentences and my accent was getting less embarrassing with every roll of my R. The truth is, if you really want something, you will make it happen. If you don't want it, you'll make a million excuses. I am not fluent, but I'm much happier with myself for at least attempting to do the impossible- speak French with French people.

Wherever or however you'd like to start to learn French, here are some resources that helped me:

http://www.parislangues.fr/

http://www.france-langue.fr/

http://www.alliancefr.org/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french/

http://french.about.com/

http://www.paris.fr/ (townhall website- best to find one online and go in person)

Good Mexican eats, new friends and summer road trips, Ole!

Hello friends!

I'm back, I'm back I tell you!! I know I've been gone for a month or so, but I've been pretty busy trying to plan out the next year or so of my life. Add in French bureaucracy and that will basically add 10 more photocopies of your passport, 300 forms to fill out in French and of course no real person to call or contact with questions unless it's between the hours of 3pm and 5pm...somebody kill me now !!!!(Adam Sandler from wedding singer voice) Anywho, let's catch up!

So when you first live in Paris, you naiively think that you can stroll into any cafe and effortlessly eat a fantastic meal whenever you like. If you take this approach, the truth is, you will eat some good meals, some awful meals and a lot of mediocre meals. When you're paying Parisian prices, you soon realize that you need to put a little more effort forward because as my new friend, Meg Zimbeck told me, there is a big difference between a good meal and a mediocre meal in Paris. So where does one begin this culinary voyage into good eats in Paris? I, like most of you, rely on the almighty word of Google to do pretty much everything in life. After a little bit of digging, I stumbled upon David Lebovitz's blog and immediately fell in love with his rants about eating a baguette when you're single to the best Mexican restaurants in Paris. We're always hard pressed to find good Mexican food, so we tried Candelaria as it came highly reccomended and I was drawn to the simple and chic decor and location of this place in the Marais. Needless to say, we fell in love immediately...



Very simply there were 6 choices on the menu divided between "Toastadas" and "Tacos." Mexican beer was available in bottles, jarritos of juice and soda and of course you needed to end your meal by biting into their plus sized gewey brownies filled with big chocolate chunks. It was very simply perfection.




The place is tiny with this small bar and one large table, but the size does not keep the crowds away. While enjoying our tacos we had the pleasure of meeting Meg Zimbeck, food writer and contributer to Paris by Mouth She told us at night, the place heats up with unique cocktails (a good cocktail is hard to come by in Paris), and a hidden back party room pictured below.





It was Rory's 32nd birthday, so after lunch we biked to St Michel to continue our Mexican bar crawl at our other favorite Mexican restaurant, Mexi & Co. for their amazing 10 euro pitcher of frozen margaritas.





When we left, Rory surprised me by taking me to the lovely classy Canadian pub where we first locked eyes, The Moosehead. Now you may be thinking "meat market pub" but really it wasn't too different from meeting at church or a book club. Just look at it...





And I digress....

We biked home and I can tell you now that I'm starting day #2 of my hangover from this weekend's birthday celebrations. I'm not even 30 and embarrassed to tell you how bad I feel even today from the alcohol intake. I guess I'm not the rockstar I imagine myself to be in my head.

In other news....today is my last week with the two little rug rats I care for. It's a mixed bag of emotions, excitement for summer vacation to start along with some unexpected nostalgia for the boys' innapropriate daily comments of how they want to put poo on the ceiling, their shoes and their mom....their innapropriate peeing along main intersections in Paris where little old ladies yell at them and then at me....and of course their innaprorpriate cursing at their music teacher one day when they told her that her butt smelled bad (in a much more innapropriate way) and she stormed out the door 2 minutes after walking in. Ahhhh...the memories. I will miss them dearly.

So summer starts officially for me Saturday, when Rawr and I will head to Edinburgh for a few days, then Raasay, an island in Scotland, with his college mates to do things like "coasteering" and "water absailing" (extra points if you know what that means!), and then home to Golspie in the Highlands where Rory's family runs a farm. The fun does not stop there, we'll fly back to Paris then straight to Pampelona for the last two days of the Running of the Bulls festival, rent a car and drive back up to Paris along the Atlantic coast stopping for wine in Bordeaux, oysters, La Rochelle, and up through they Loire valley and Tours for castles and beautiful countryside flowers.  And there you have it, our summer plans in one blog. I promise to post lots of pics and stories from our trips.

Edinburgh


Raasay


Golspie


Pamplona


Bordeaux



La Rochelle



Loire Valley





I will have more news hopefully by the end of this week, so will post again soon. Now I'm off to spend my last week with the boys. Have a happy Monday- it's summer finally!!! :) :) :)

Grand bisous,
A

Poop with me once and it's your fault, poop with me twice and it's my fault.

Hello dear friends,

Yes....the title says exactly what the theme of today's blog is about. Poop. Apparently, it seems I've used this theme before considering there is dog poop all over the sidewalks of Paris, but unfortunately (for me), today's theme is about human poop. More specifically, little boy poop.

I know I usually want to tell you about a cool new adventure or place or food I've tried, but I think as quoted in one of my very favorite movies, Vanilla Sky, "the sweet is not as sweet without the sour." And I have some sour to share with you. I wanted to give you some insight to the trials and tribulations of being an au pair. I get a lot of questions about what I do, where I work, who I work for, how I like it, how I stand it etc etc etc. If you caught that barely watchable Scarlet Johansen flick "Nanny diaries" you have an entryway into the life of an au pair, but a lot of that was exagerrated and not enough of the day to day minusha was really shown.


By nature, I was never really the type of gal that was dying to be around kids, have kids, or even be near them in a store for longer that 3 minutes. I didn't naturally have a nurturing gene that thought it was adorable when they accidenally knocked over my soda in a cafeteria. Actually, I was the person that wanted to spank them, have them give me a full apology and then take their allowance to buy me a new soda. So why become an au pair you ask? Well it's simple really. I wanted to move to Paris and it was the quickest, easiest, and most concrete way I could get to France and stay there for at least a year. Needless to say, I really barely had a clue what I was getting myself into.


Yes, I suppose you could compare me to her.

Before I moved over to the other side of the pond, I wanted to make sure I had some sense of what it was like to be with a child or children for more than 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. Luckily, I have some friends that do have the mom gene and had children for me to kidnapp, I mean babysit a few times a week. I'm not going to tell you it was easy, because when I was holding my friend's 7 month old on my hip, while trying to unscrew his formula and bottle with one hand as the dog was eating the lunch I prepared on the table while trying to keep an eye on the other 2 year old boy, I said many quiet prayers to keep it together. I guess the funny part that surprised me was how much I laughed during the day. Kids are funny. No, no - kids are hilarious. The sentences that come out of their mouths...well, let's say the website shouldn't be called "Shit my Dad says"....it should be called "Shit my kid says." One little boy I've babysat once asked me at the dinner table why I  had big woman parts that he didn't have with a facetious grin on his face. Another time while I was booking it to the bathroom after doing the pee pee dance for too long, another little boy screamed " EEEWWW...you're going to pee or pooh in there!!!!" What can I say? The kid had a point.


Some kid

Hilarious moments aside, there are some terrifying moments. On a few occassions, I've had the kid sprint across a side street or attempt to walk across a main intersection. Your heart literally stops and you see for 5 seconds that your life and the lives of the entire family could completely change if you aren't on top of your game 100% of the time. I've been very lucky, but learned that you have to be very serious and extremely stern in punishing this type of thing.

Another terrifying moment is when you realized that the newly potty trained kid you are watching just took a dump in his pants.....at the park. This one actually just happened to me for the first time yesterday, and let me tell you- it was a doozie. First of all, the "doo" dance isn't like the "pee pee" dance. It involves more zig zagged walking and grabbing of the bum. I was pretty confused when I saw him do it actually and it took him a solid 15 minutes to admit to me what happened. Even more lucky for me was that he decided to sit next to me until he was ready to tell me.



As we went to the public bathrooms next to the park to change him into his new outfit, an even more embarrassing thought occurred to me. How exactly am I going to explain this to his parents? I'm not sure about you, but I've had the good fortune to never say the words "Today - he poo'd his pants" to my boss. And what's the correct terminology anyways? If I was speaking to any other adult, I'd tell them that the kid "shit his pants" or he "took a dump." I didn't want to be crass or vulgar with my boss, so after much thought, I came up with "He had an accident." Little did I know that would backfire on me when his dad, who happened to be wearing a suit that day no less, asked me to clarify. I gave up flustered and said, "he went to the bathroom in his pants. Poop. Yes, poop. He went poop in his pants." Damnit.

I don't want you to think this job's all shit. (get it, get it??) I have to say, I've rather enjoyed my time as an au pair. Even though the pay isn't wonderful (ok, I think people at McDonalds here make more), I still have the luxury of walking around Paris all day until 3pm, and still even make it home for dinner sometimes. In addition to having plenty of time for French classes and now a tutor, I have two of the best French teachers in town. While I speak to them in English, they speak to eachother in French in front of me and teach me new words each night. I also still remember the exact moment another little girl I used to take care of in Paris told me that she loved me for the first time. About a month after that, when I was going through an emotional period of getting used to Paris while missing everyone at home, I was reading a book to this same little girl. You may remember it - Shel Silverstein's "The Missing Piece meets the Big O." Go read it again if you don't remember it, it speaks so much more to adults than kids. (Actually, you can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCmZ2jrQooE)  I got to a page that made me tear up and proclaimed "I'm going to cry!" half laughing and crying and this little girl began to carress my cheek and said "it's ok Alissa, I love you." They're really not kids, they're sensitive little people with big honest hearts.



It's bed time for me here. Sweet dreams to you and all the little shits in your life.

xoxoxoxo,

A

Normandy: Honfleur, Deauville and Omaha Beach

Hello friends,

It's 11:12pm  here in Paris, my beloved is beside me snoring, and I am sitting in the dark on my pc bored out of my mind with no good TV to stream through my laptop (I'm all caught up on Glee, Modern Fam, Kardashians and 30 rock). Thus- I decided to blog. I've been meaning to do this all week anyways!

At the beginning of this week, I looked closer at a text from my boss and realized that I had another 8 days of vacation. This is getting ridiculous - 10 days in DC closely followed by 15 days off in Paris- but hey, I'm not complaining ;) So every day this week, I've been walking around the city (2 hours a day roughly) getting my bearings, discovering new quarters, and of course many wonderful shops, restaurants and parks along the way. That's really enough for another blog, so I digress.

Last weekend we slipped away to the French countryside (finally!) to get a closer look at Normandy. Rory has been obsessing over WW2 Documentaries, films, magazines, podcasts and books for the past few weeks so we felt it was necessary to just go see it. We rented a car and drove up about 2 hours Northwest of Paris. Many a toll, and two almost fender benders (ok, ONE of them was not Rory's fault), we made it to Honfleur. Honfleur is an old fishing port that became super touristy simply because of it's colorful architechture, charming shops and portside restaurants.









We ate some moules, scallops, goat cheese salads at a portside restaurant where the old French waiter that slightly resembled Gerard Depardau pinched Rory's ear for not being fluent in French yet. Rory wanted to go drinking with him after lunch, but alas he had to work. We walked along the adorable town that reminded me of Portland, Maine and purchased some local cider. It was getting to be late in the afternoon, so we went on our way towards Omaha beach. About an hour later, we arrived at Omaha beach, one of the prime landing American/British landing sights on D day. I'm not quite sure what I expected, but what I got was a quiet, green, untouched beach surrounded by cliffs and silence. We made our way to the WW2 Cemetary and were humbled by the numerous graves and complete silence and peace while walking around.








We made it there just before closing time, so we had to get on our way to Deaville.

Deaville, known as the Hamptons to Paris, was just another gorgeous quiet spot in Normandy. The beach is large (like really really big!), clean, empty because it's off-season and just gorgeous. I get why they compare it to the Hamptons. There are large casinos (ok, maybe that's not so Hamptons), high end fashion shops, and tons of bakerys and restaurants that lure you in at every corner. We talked about moving there too, then realized that we'd have to resort to hobo-ism to be able to pay for a night out as most of their restaurants averaged over 100 euro a meal easily. On our last day there, we sat on a bench eating a baguette in our sweatpants while we were surrounded by Parisian tourists in their Sunday best. I could have held a photoshoot out there people. I'm not kidding. I've never seen so many winklepickers in my life.


If we hit the lottery and are able to summer in Deauville, I'd pick this house for one of my summer homes.




The Deauville film festival is the 2nd biggest film fest in France, second only to Cannes. Here are some of the celebs who have strolled on Les Planches - their famed boardwalk.



And of course, Rory had to take a pic with his idol- Sean Connery.



So we're back in Paris for the week only to head out this weekend for Easter to Burgundy to visit Rory's godfather and see Lyon along the way. Next weekend, we're planning a camping trip on the beach in Brittany with some friends - so excited!! So much of France covered in 3 short weeks, I feel so lucky to have all of this within arm's length, I promise I won't take it for granted!

My parental units will be arriving in 2 and a half weeks! I can't wait. I'll be able to do all the touristy stuff (read: wait in ridiculously long lines with people squaking in 100 different languages) that I've been putting off and show them around as best I can. We're planning weekend trips back up to Normandy and London so I'll have plenty more to share.

Until next time, have a wonderful day- the weekend is nearly here!

Woot woot!!!

-A

New Salad Nicoise with Grilled Goat Cheese

Hello again :)

I am back sooner than you expected!! So while in Paris, one of my goals was simply to cook more. Cooking and baking in general puts me at easy and is incredibly theraputic to me as to many of my gastronomically inclined family and friends. I am so excited to share with you a recipe of one of my new favorite salads that I've recreated here.

So while I was back in DC, my friends often asked me "what is your favorite restaurant in Paris?" What do you say in the gastronomy capital of the world? I often told them about an Argentinian steakhouse where we were known to clean our plates, but that didn't satisfy my eager friends. They wanted to know what PARISIAN food I liked in PARIS. Ok ok, I give up, I give in....here you go.

Last weekend after a few drinks at the New Cafe Oz around the corner, Rory was craving a familiar salad from our local cafe where we call the owner "Puppy Dog Eyes" (He literally resembles a Blood hound and gives us sad eyes every time we pass by his cafe without stopping in. We have no idea how he stays in business considering the cafe next door -the guy who we think is a Russian spy, but that's another blog- is always more packed and he often has noone at his place for hours at a time).  Rory makes it a point to wave to him and then brag to me that Puppy Dog Eyes waved back at him...he thinks they're best friends. Either way, he makes the best Salad Nicoise that Rory has tasted to date in Paris. After tasting it again that night, I decided I needed to rush home and replicate it. I love that about salads in cafe's or restaurants about town. It's really so simple to recreate it, mix and mash it up to your liking. They put in the wrong olives, you put in the right olives. They have a good dressing, you can create a better dressing. The list goes on.

The end story is this. I created this salad from a mix of my two favorite salads in the whole world with a little help from Epicurious and a French expat in DC for the dressing (that credit goes to you PLF!!!)

New Salad Nicoise with Grilled Goat Cheese
Serves 6 people

INGREDIENTS:

Vinaigrette

• 1 garlic clove, peeled, halved and minced
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Salad

• 1 cup breadcrumbs ( I can never find proper breadcrumbs in Paris so I'm forced to cut up toast)
• 3 4-ounce logs soft fresh goat cheese, each halved crosswise, halves pressed to 1/2-inch thickness
• 1 large egg white
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 6 3/4-inch-thick slices ciabatta bread
• Additional olive oil
• 2 5-ounce packages mixed baby greens (whatever greens you like best)
• 2 small cans of Haricots Verts
• 2 tomatoes chopped
• 1 English cucumber chopped
• 3 cans of Tuna
• 1 jar of olives (your favorite will due, I prefer Kalamata)
• 3 boiled Eggs
• 2 cups of Basmati Rice
• 3 1/3 cups of water

PREPARATION:

For vinaigrette:
Place garlic and oil in small glass measuring cup or ramekin. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and microwave 30 seconds. Transfer garlic to small bowl. Reserve oil. Using fork, coarsely mash garlic. Add vinegar, and mustard to mashed garlic. Whisk until smooth. Gradually whisk in reserved garlic oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate. Let stand 1 hour at room temperature and rewhisk before using.)

For salad:

• Dip each cheese round into egg whites, turning to coat. Coat each with breadcrumb mixture. Transfer coated cheese rounds to plate. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to 8 hours.
• Boil eggs then cut each one into fours.
• Add rice and water to 4 quart heavy pot and cook, stirring, 2 minutes. Then bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low and cook, covered, until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat. Let stand, covered and undisturbed, 5 minutes. Fluff rice gently with a fork. Add salt and pepper to taste.
• In the meantime, wash lettuce. Chop up cucumber and tomato. Mix salad greens, haricots verts, cucumber, tomato, boiled eggs (when ready), olives in bowl.
• Brush Ciabatta bread slices on both sides with olive oil. Grill until beginning to toast, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer to plate.
• At the same time and even same pan as the bread, 1 tablespoon olive oil in heavy large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add cheese rounds and cook until golden and crisp, about 3 minutes per side. These burn pretty quickly, so watch out. Transfer to bread on plate.
• Toss greens with 2 tablespoons vinaigrette; Divide salad among 6 plates. Sprinkle rice over each plate. Sprinkle tuna over the rice on the salad. Drizzle cheese rounds with remaining 2 tablespoons vinaigrette and serve.
• Pour yourself a glass of champagne and enjoy the most delicious salad you've had in awhile!

This is the Epicurious Goat Cheese salad that largely inspired half of this recipe. 

This is a googled image of a typical Salad Nicoise. Yes, there are usually anchovies on them,  but I left it out simply because I forgot to buy them at the store today haha. Feel free to add if you love anchovies (yes, I'm talking to you Veronica).

So ta da! That was exhausting, please excuse any errors in my recipe. I hope you try it out, Rory told me it was "the best dinner I've made to date" but then again, he pretty much tells me that after every meal I make. This weekend we're renting a car and heading up to Normandy. I'm so excited to finally see some of the French countryside with this gorgeous 70 degree weather we're getting here. I'll make sure to post some pics of the trip.

Bon Appetite!!

A

The District

Hello hello hello!!!

I must admit to you that today I write to you a bit tipsy so please excuse my mispellings (more than usual I imagine). I am sitting in the Dulles International Airport in Washington DC waiting to board my flight to Paris and reminiscing about the best vacation I've ever had in my life! I was lucky enough to spend 10 days with the people that I love most in my hometown while showing my boyfriend, Rory, around DC through the eyes of a local (i.e. I kept climbing monuments to a minimum). I introduced Rory to my family, my best friends and the best eats around town. Needless to say, he was a champ and won everyone over with his easygoing personality, ridiculous comments and of course sweet Scottish accent.

I want to tell you about all of the amazing things that we did on this trip:
-visiting the museums in DC that my father dragged my siblings and I go as children every Saturday (and sometimes as adults)
-smelling the cherry blossoms on a frigid and very windy typical DC spring day
-eating the greatest DC native doughy crusted pizza at Lost Dog with a full pint of Arrogant Bastard
-tasting (read: chugging) endless wine at Virginia's best vineyards with 30 of the best people I know
-playing hardcore tennis with my closest friends/family and being surprised to learn that everyone in my life is really insanely good at tennis






But...I won't go on. I don't want to talk about that too much because I'll probably get too emotional at the airport thinking about how much fun I've had these past 10 days. Instead, I want to tell you a story about a big old man that I met at the Moosehead in Paris just about 6 months ago. No, this is not Rory that I'm speaking about. (Rory is a small old man ;) ) But anyways....just about 6 months ago, it was just your average Sunday night in Paris. I was new to town, hoping to make friends, and anxious to hit the town. Because I am typically impatient, and unwilling to wait for people to come to me, I found myself at the Moosehead to watch the Redskins game and hopefully meet some new friends in Paris. The Moosehead is a Canadian sportsbar (where I met Rory a few weeks later) that I frequented on Sundays to keep up with my Redskins and eat the best chicken wings in the city. Hallelujah to the chicken wings.

So, per the usual, I am having a pint, waiting for the game to start an a large group of old balls (code word for old men, sorry for being so crass) approach me and chat me up as they are DC natives. We end up at a table sharing chicken quesadillas, wings and lots and lots of Guiness. As it turns out, one of these old balls knew the parent's of my high school friend and we bonded quite quickly. His name was Steve (I'm kidding, I have no idea what his name was, but it's much easier to tell this story if he has one) and Steve has lived all over the world. He told me his favorite place to live, was Bath just outside of London which was interesting to me as I've never heard anyone say that- this guy has lived EVERYWHERE. After we got to know eachother, he began with his pep talk: "Alissa, you will live in Paris and love it. It's an entoxicating city with so much to do, you will never be sitting down. In six months, you will get really really really homesick. You will cry a lot, think about moving home and maybe you will move home. However, if you stick out this homesickness, stay strong and positive, you will be walking down the street one day, look around and realize that you are home. Paris will be your new home and you will realize that you are now different."

I was in tears when he told me this. He was right, and I am just now experiencing this change. Now, please don't get me wrong. I love Washington DC more than most people, I love the size (just big enough to be interesting and progressive, but not too small to be boring), I love the free museums and festivals, the history, the political scene and protests, the closeness to mountains, beach and city, the fantastic restaurants and trendy bars, and the general charm that is often overlooked by Europeans that "only want to visit New York or LA". DC will always be home in my heart, and I am genuinely hope to be back eventually. That said, Paris is now my home. I had an amazing time in DC, it felt so natural and I know I can always come back to it when I need it (which we have decided is twice a year at least), but I am looking forward going home to our apartment in Paris where we can cook dinner together, throw our weekend parties with new friends, explore our neighborhood and generally enjoy being young and in love.

It's almost time to board my flight. I'm sad to leave and yes, there's definitely a tear in my eye (I blame the red wine). I didn't get to see everyone that I wanted to see, but I will be back. I promise. I can't be away from DC for too long, there is a Lost inspired magnetic force that won't allow me to stay away for too long.

I love every beautiful person I got to see these past 10 days. Thank you for bending your schedules for me, it means everything to me to spend my time with you. I wish I could take you all home with me in my suitcase. But, alas, British Airways would charge me at least 400 euros extra with these damn weight charges.

Love you all.

xoxoxoxo,
A