France - Foie Gras

Just for an additional information to all readers before I start: I understand the controversies behind foie gras, and I don't eat this every day. I am simply a naturally curious person, and I have to say I agree with this view. As far as I'd like to understand the viewpoints of many, I'd like to ask that you understand and respect my decision to eat foie gras.

Well then, let's get to the topic. When I arrived in Paris and checked out the supermarket, I was surprised to see so many foie gras products ranging from 30% mixed with duck meat to whole foie gras. I got this frozen foie gras for about 7 euros.

You can find foie gras in many forms: sauces, terrine (some kind of paste), mousse, and of course, the escalopes (cutlets). For more information about the forms, check the Wikipedia. This one is in cutlets, and it's supposed to be served warm.

Well then, onwards to the serious business: the calories. Foie gras means "fatty liver", and by that name, you should know that foie gras is one of the most unhealthy thing in the world. Well, see the nutrition label for yourself. If you haven't tried foie gras before and want to try it, it's best that you don't read the label.

I'm happy that there are English instructions at the back of the packaging, by the way. It's rare to see English written on any food packaging in the supermarket :P

These look tiny, but they're actually quite big.

I heated them at the oven as the instruction said. Seems like I overheated the foie gras because some of the fats have melted.

I had the foie gras with rice, salt, black pepper and chives. Ah yes, although the packaging says this is 4 servings, I finished these mostly on my own. Well, I shared some bites with my roommate, but I ate most of them. Actually, it's so hard to even finish 2 blocks of these because it's very fatty and flavourful. Fatty foods make you feel full fast. By the third block, I started feeling bad with so much grease in my mouth (nevertheless they still taste really good).

Although I really really really love the taste. It's really unimaginable.

But I think I'd love to have this occasionally; if I keep having foie gras every day, I would not be able to stand it and might end up hating it.

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France - Crazy Easter at Notre Dame

I spent my Easter in Paris, and celebrated it in Notre Dame! Wow, that's cool! Well, it was actually VERY NOT COOL. Why?

1. I had to queue for at least 30 minutes just to enter the church, and it was cold outside (~10C, I believe).

2. I'm competing with these tourists from all over the world who just wanted to take pictures of Easter mass, the church, the archbishop, the pastor, the clergymen, and everything.

 I had to swim across the sea of humans.

3. I had to deal with visitors who were forcefully dragged by their family member(s) to join the mass for whatever reason it was, and they were just the worst distractions ever. I shall not explain further because it will trigger my unpleasant memory about that mass again.

4. The problem doesn't end with the mass. During Easter, Paris became overcrowded with tourists and knowing that pickpockets are everywhere around the corner of Paris, I had to raise my guard higher than before. I have seen moments of people realizing they have become the victim of those pickpockets.

Basically, if I ever had to be in Paris during Easter, I'd rather stay at home or go somewhere far away where tourists can't reach. I wouldn't blame the tourists, because if I were to live in neighboring European countries and I have this sweet long holiday over the weekend, I'd check out Paris.

Oh, and when they say "International Mass", it means everything is in French except during the readings, and only 1 reading is done in English; the rest of the readings were either in Spanish, Italian, or of course, French.

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Instant Noodle Around the World 16 - MAMA Pad Kee Mao

I often laugh at the level of spiciness in Europe. What people say "spicy" is either mildly spicy or not spicy at all to the point that I cannot detect the slightest taste of spiciness. Well, in English, the word "spicy" means "with spices", and this means when non-hot ingredients like turmeric, cardamom and cinnamon are added into the dish, they will still call it "spicy". In Indonesian, "spicy" means the heat coming from chili peppers that make you cry for forgiveness. Some mothers even use chili peppers to punish their children when they misbehave or when they talk back rudely (ouch). My mom never did that to us, though. I just heard stories from my friends. With the crazy price hike of chili peppers in Indonesia, I wonder if people still do that.

But anyways, after not having real hot, spicy food for a long time, this instant noodle almost killed my tongue.

The noodle was ordinary, and the chili flakes and the dehydrated vegetables were ordinary. But the green chili paste is definitely out of the ordinary.

The noodle looked harmless: there's no trace of chili flakes or redness in it.

But once you put it in your mouth... wow. Even I admit this is very spicy, and I normally have a high tolerance level for spiciness.

My Thai friend said that this noodle is for curing drunk people. I assume that with this level of spiciness, even those who lost their mind will be back to the real world. It's a little horrifying indeed.

Well, conclusion? The little devil inside me feels like testing it out on my friend if he/she ever gets drunk next time (and if I have this noodle with me).



...nah, just kidding ;)

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France - Shakespeare and Co.

France is known for her unwillingness to speak English. As a proof, in most food labels you can find Dutch or German translations of the ingredients list, but none in English. This fact made the first few weeks of my stay in France difficult - it's hard to ask for directions when I was lost (and even buying train tickets from the counter). 

Surprisingly, just across Notre Dame du Paris lies a bookshop called Shakespeare and Co., and as the name suggests, it sells English books.

Actually, I am not supposed to take pictures here because it will disturb the readers. Oh yes, this place is not just a normal bookshop. On the second floor, you can read the books that you bought in special corners, and when I came there, there seems to be a place where you can share and discuss what you read.

The decoration on the second floor is classic. There's a tiny room with a typewriter, with notes stuck on the wall by visitors all around the world. There's also a corner for telling children storybook.

I think the prices of the books are okay; not so cheap, not so expensive. More than anything, if you miss reading English books, this is the place to go. It's not a very big shop, but I like the overall ambience there: almost every visitors there love books - to be read, or to be placed on the bookshelf to boast.

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France - Saint Chapelle

It's been 2 weeks since the last time I posted something. Life in Paris is indeed really busy. Aside from the heavy workload at school, we are also a little bit pressurized to travel within our limited stay in Paris. 

There were so many stories to tell, especially when I experienced my first Palm Sunday and Easter week in Notre Dame du Paris. 

A week before Palm Sunday, I took off on a random journey on my own, not knowing where I was heading. I took the train and stopped at Notre Dame. From then onwards, I was on my feet. I went into places that not a lot of people go to. They are somewhat still considered as tourist attractions, but I think if you look at their ranks on travel tips websites, these probably fall outside the top 10 most-visited places.

One of the places I explored was Saint Chapelle.

Compared to Notre Dame du Paris, this church is probably smaller. The distinctive feature of this church was the dark / black tower. The sculptures are not as detailed as those in Notre Dame du Paris, but I don't think they are not beautiful. 

However, the interior of this church is completely the opposite of the plain, clam exterior.

Saint Chapelle has the brightest, most intensely colorful interior I've ever seen in my life. It's grandiose, lively, vibrant and most definitely charming.

The second floor of the church was filled with very detailed stained glass windows, each representing a different saint.

I feel very small when I was in this church. When I arrived at the second floor, I was amazed by the altar's decorations. Oh, and there is no mass held in this church.

But then I turned around to see people looking upwards at another direction with wonders. What did they see? I was curious, and...

just across the altar lies a unique stained glass, with few missing glasses off the design. This particular stained glass is called the Rose of Apocalypse. Each petal, according to the pamphlet, tells a verse about the apocalypse, as written on the Bible. The story of Apocalypse has never made me feel good; the more I read the details of the story of what each petal tells, the more I feel depressed and for a moment I thought my blood started to flow backwards.

But it is a beautiful church indeed!

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France - Cachou Lajaunie

One day in the supermarket I saw these on the shelf next to the cashier.

These look somewhat fancy, yet classic. I didn't know what it was, and I didn't have time to Google Translate it because I was on the line at the cashier, and it was my turn in 5 seconds after I saw this Cachou Lajaunie.

There's no English or Dutch translation on the packaging. Well, might as well try these. Recently I've been having troubles keeping myself focused for 1.5 hours non-stop in class. Delicious or horrible-tasting, this little peep will be useful.

I opened the package at home and gave these pastilles a try.

The flavour was so similar to what we call Pagoda Pastilles in Indonesia, with stronger cooling effect and perhaps less sugar. It's definitely licorice, but it's so different from the dropjes I had in the Netherlands, so there has to be something in it. My Italian friend really liked it. As for me, I' not really a big fan of these pastilles but these keep me awake in class.

Thanks to Wikipedia and Google Chrome's page translation function, I managed to find out the ingredients: licorice, sugar, starch, lactose, flavored gelatin powder, catechu, iris powder, mastic ressin, essence of peppermint.

Well, the peppermint explains the cooling effect. I'm not sure what iris powder tastes like by itself, but catechu? Cachou? Never heard of it before!

Thanks to this, I did a little research on cachou. Almost all professors who taught me said not to trust Wikipedia, but somehow my gut feeling says 95% of what's written on Wikipedia is correct. Well, it always never hurts to start from Wikipedia and then go on with a more refined research.

So, according to Wikipedia, cachou or catechu is an extract of Acacia that can be used as food additives to provide astringent sensation from tannin, or to provide colour. Catechu, in Indonesian, is also known as gambir. I don't think I've ever heard gambir used as food additives in Indonesia. More like it's a traditional cure for toothache.

I checked on Malaysian Wikipedia on gambir sarawak (still the same catechu) that catechu can also be used as anesthetics (which means eating this will result in less headache during calculation class for me? LOL). But apparently, in Malaysia and Indonesia, catechu is also a cure for early ejaculation. Actually, the moment I searched for gambir sarawak, the first few search results gave me "early ejaculation cure". Seems like this plant has a lot of functions.

By the way, I just realized how nice it is to understand a lot of languages. There are just search results you can read when you type the keywords in languages other than English :D

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France - University Cafetaria Food

Another thing I love about France is the awesome university cafetaria lunch menu. There is no other choice than the 3.10-euro 3-course meal, but for 3.10 euros I really think these meals are simply too awesome.

Amazingly, some people still express their insatisfaction towards the lunch meals. Ok, the veggies tend to be overcooked, but I think for most part the dishes are great. I've had far worse meals back when I was living in a dorm in Singapore. Overcooked veggies? Check. Veeery tiny portion of meat? Check. And the soups were as plain as they could be. And back then, we only had a microwave. We shared a common fridge, with a lot of fridge thieves that made you practically couldn't store anything delicious in the fridge for more than half a day (my friend's birthday cake was munched by unknown someone after leaving it for 1 hour in the fridge and the leftover pieces were left in the fridge). I'm not trying to complain about how sad my food history during the 6 years of middle school and high school was, but my point is, sometimes you'd just have to be more appreciative of things. I guess I learned it the hard way.

Well, back to the topic. Basically, you will get 1 dish with a type of carbohydrate (potatoes, pasta, couscous, rice or whatever is available on that day), vegetables (boiled green beans, legumes or sometimes ratatouille), and a type of meat (normally they offer 3 choices of meat). What's fancy is that the menu changes every day.

Cordon bleu and ham with sauteed potato and vegetable, with a mousse dessert and apple sauce

Bread and butter is free, and so is water (you can drink tap water in France).

Then you can get 2 side dishes of any types: salad, pâté, quiche, apple pie, soup, yoghurt, fruit or packaged desserts. You can choose any of the two, and if you get an extra item, you pay 40 cents. Sometimes I would get two appetizers instead of 1 appetizer and 1 dessert, and at times I would get 2 desserts instead. Well, it's good to try everything :)

Roasted chicken with rice and mixed vegetables, with pâté and vanilla pudding

White fish in cream with rice and ratatouille, with quiche and salad

Beef steak with green beans and pasta, with smoked duck salad and apple pie

Beef with couscous and green peas, with salad and terrine

Beef with white part of leek and couscous, vegetable soup and salad

Chicken with rice and sauteed vegetable, with quiche and camembert salad

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