Some of my French food discoveries so far🥐🍽️

Salut !

I hope you're all doing well.🥰 I've been feeling a bit under the weather these past couple of days, but it's nothing too dramatic. I'm just taking it easy so that I can be back in the game soon enough.

Whether I would've been sick or not I decided that this week I can spend some more quiet time to recharge my batteries while journaling about last year's projects and preparing for this year's upcoming endeavors. It's also been fun to watch some old DVD's (High School Musical, To Catch a Thief, Jacques Cousteau...) because I'm trying to save the mobile data on my phone until I get Wifi in my place. I'm so glad I have these couple of weeks now to take things a bit more slowly before my courses start at the Sorbonne, so that by then I can be fully ready for all of the exciting challenges and encounters that lie ahead.

France being the culinary country that it is, I have been looking forward so much to tasting new things here and finding out about the French culture that relates to cooking and eating. So here are a couple of my observations and discoveries on food so far that make living here a lot more delicious.

• I consider myself very fortunate, that I've already had the chance to eat a very French lunch and a dinner at a couple's home. The first time I had the pleasure of eating with them, I discovered how good unseasoned radishes, boiled Brussel sprouts with small bacon strips and a simple vegetable purée can taste. And for dessert, we had macarons of course.😋 On another day at dinner I tasted the wonder of a fibrous vegetable soup and a cold rice and vegetable salad with beetroot. For dessert we ate the 'cake', so a sort of a bundt cake with dried fruit in it, that I mentioned in the last newsletter. Another new sensation that I got during that dinner was when I tasted water that had verbena branches in it to give it some flavor – it was really good! I also got to bring home some of the branches to put in my drinking water or for example in my closets to spread its nice odor.
• I love going to food stores here because they sell such different and interesting things! I often just stand there on the isles for way too long that's probably socially acceptable, but I can't help but to admire the selections they have. Naturally, you can get good baguettes from anywhere, and different types of 'brioches', 'madeleine' cakes, healthy and unhealthy biscuits, smelly cheeses and all the rest of it.
• If we talk about French delicacies, so far I've grown fond of especially crêpes and 'pain suisses', that is, a version of a pain au chocolat, but with a vanilla cream filling with mini chocolate chips (=pépites de chocolat) in it.🤓
• Overall, I appreciate that they use the Nutriscore scale in the product etiquettes here a lot more than in Finland. Obviously, it's always good to remember it's most important to eat everything with moderation, but I like that the Nutriscore rating gives me some sort of a ballpark estimate of how healthy the product is.

I can't wait to see what kind of other foods I get to taste here and the new eating habits I'll develop!

Have an elegant week!

Bisous,

Elle