An uncharacteristically productive Saturday

Turns out the secret to revising for nearly five hours non-stop is to spend it in a café and have two strong café crèmes (complete with biscuits and chocolate) with good music and a friend who won't let you leave before she does.

My hands are shaking a bit. I should probably be more worried than I am.

The café in question is something of a haunt for the anglophone Eramus students - a bookshop called, inventively, Le Bookshop. It's full of English books at eye-watering prices but serves the cheapest coffee of any of the (many) cafés I've sampled in the three months I've been here. It's in the Old Town so the downstairs, where the majority of the bookshop and the tables and chairs are, is underground, all stone and vaulted ceilings and generally very attractive. They host a weekly conversation evening which is meant to be really good for meeting the locals, even though it takes them some persuading to speak in French, and not English! Definitely going on my to-do list for next term. Plus, there are plenty of wall sockets and their wifi is about a hundred times faster than what our halls can offer us, so that's a huge draw. But for me, the main attraction (apart from the dishy waiter, naturally) is their coffee. €1.90 for a café crème that always comes with two little biscuits and a tiny square of dark chocolate. Nom.

Dinner tonight was simple - bread with Boursin and ham on top, and a few petits pains grillés with the last bit of houmous. Carb overload, I know; but as the plan is to go to this bar (which has become the closest thing to our regular) in about an hours' time and have a couple of well-earned drinks, I think having plenty of bread to line the stomach is probably a good idea. Besides, I think I'm still feeling full from the burger I had at 10.30 last night with Chris and Ellen. Only in France.

Po-ta-toes

I have my father to thank for many of my traits. The ability to burn in cloudy weather. The gift of the gab and with it, the ability to talk myself out of or into seemingly any situation. And finally, my insistence that "if a meal doesn't have potato in it, it's not a meal."

My father's from Ireland, can you tell?

All of the people I've lived with have found my deep-seated belief that potatoes a meal make amusing. The Spanish people I was fortunate enough to have shared my kitchen with back in first year seemed pretty impressed by how many different ways of eating potato I could find in the ten months we lived together. Speaking of which...

As you can probably imagine, being a student and part-time potato fiend has its drawbacks. They take a long time to boil, it's not easy to make mash for one person and they're never as good as your mum/dad's. So discovering gnocci was something of a revelation for me.


[source]

Look at them! Beautiful, potato-y pillows of goodness. The French seem really keen on frying them so they turn into mini-roasties, but I prefer to cook them the more traditional way. I think what I love the most about gnocci is the fact that they are so insanely quick to cook. About five minutes in a pan of boiling, salted water and they all start to congregate together (they're very sociable) and float to the top. And that's it, they're ready.

What I've been doing recently is then draining them, but keeping them in the pan, then adding some bacon lardons and tomato sauce. Once the bacon's cooked, I take them off the hob and - I really do think this is the secret - I add a bit of Boursin. It doesn't have to be a lot, but it just adds even more depth to the flavour of the sauce and makes it beautifully creamy. Best served in a bowl with a slice of fresh bread to mop up all that yummy sauce. Or just to enjoy the bread. Well, when in France.

It's so filling and warm and is just perfect comfort food. I made this last night, after I came home from my lecture. I was tired but I didn't want to eat straight away, so I decided to wait a bit. About an hour after I got in  I was hungry, but I wanted something quick so I wouldn't be eating dinner too late. And good old gnocci saved the day again.

Plus, it was a meal with potato which meant it was an actual meal.

"An owinge owinge..."

I'd like to thank the little old lady who was eating clementines on the tram today. There is nothing as tempting as the smell of oranges as they're being peeled, and nothing as satisfying as eating one that is perfect in every single way: sweet, but with enough sharpness to cut through the sugar and perfectly juicy. First thing in my shopping basket once I hit Monoprix was a bag of clementines and I am pleased to say, this one is absolutely divine.

"Houmous on bread, it's the future. I've tasted it."

The fastest and most immediately satisfying lunch/snack (depending on how strong your willpower is) has to be this:

It really has become my most recent food obsession. Grilled 'petits pains' dipped into a tub of plain houmous. Incredibly more-ish but, all things considered, not actually all that bad for you. I first tried this last Friday, when I went to the zoo with some of my friends here and we had a picnic. I can't believe it had never occured to me that grilled bread + houmous = three bites of heaven, but it is.

Thursdays are pretty hard going for me. I have one lecture from 11.15-12.45, then have a coffee and panini in the canteen with my friend, then I go home for a couple of hours to pick up the work we're going to do when I come back onto campus to meet her and our other friend at 3.15 after their lecture. We have a two hour natter - I mean, work session - before our (give me strength) three hour lecture from 5.15-8.15. Needless to say, by the time I do eventually crash through the doors at about 8.30 the idea of cooking anything is pretty unappealing, but if I eat a big meal just before the lecture, I'll get even sleepier than can be naturally expected of a person in a hot lecture theatre being droned at about "les sciences du langage" for three hours. The solution seems to be to have a coffee before I go to the lecture, something sugar-y to give me energy in the break we're given halfway through, and then have something like this when I come back in. That way, even if I cannot summon up the energy to cook, at least I've eaten something.

A heads-up for anyone thinking of coming to France: make sure you come with an open mind when it comes to carbohydrates because this really is a country built on bread. And what good bread it is, too...

Oh, and, happy December! I'd be opening the first door of my Advent Calendar, only I haven't got one. If it's not Dairy Milk, it just doesn't feel the same :( Psst, Mum that's a 'subtle hint' for  my triumphant return...

Musings.

I am one of life's procrastinators. If I'm given a job, I will leave it until the last minute so I end up rushing around like a mad thing, hair plastered to my forehead, eyes wide and hands shaking from an overdose of caffeine, frantically trying to get whatever job it is that needs to be done, done. This has a nasty tendency to carry over into my uni work - which is why, instead of starting my revision for the exams I have next week I spent tonight reading this incredible, hunger-inducing blog and thinking about... Well, this one, actually.

When I started the blog, I had every intention of documenting my adventures in the kitchen, but as is so often the case with me, after a while I sort of... gave up. Found better things to do. Reasoned that the food I cook is pretty repetitive and I can't afford to make really fancy, exotic meals (and at the moment I can't due to the useless kitchen - see post below...). But then I realised that being a "student foodie" doesn't just mean cooking really sumptuous, yet cheap, meals.

Because when it comes to it, what I really love is food and the experiences that come with it. Going for a really fantastic meal where you and your friends don't actually say anything because you're so busy enjoying eating it. Finding a place that nobody else knows about and sharing it with the select few. The incredible way that food can take us right back to our childhoods. Going to a restaurant where the food is just okay and the décor a bit naff but it doesn't matter because you're with your friends. Spending an hour talking to your friend about bread, and planning (only half-jokingly) to open a bakery.

The point is, I am a foodie, not because I can come up with exciting new recipes and revolutionise the way we think about cooking, but because I just love food. So this blog is having a bit of a change in attitude. Same title, same student with aspirations above her means (at least for the moment) - but this time, it's about my relationship with food.

And on that note - I'm going to get stuck into my pasta alla genovese, which, incidentally, was the first meal I blogged about. What can I say - it's a student staple ;)

Kitchen woes

It's been nearly nine months since my last post, in which time a lot has happened. I took, finished, and passed my exams, had an awesome time at my university's Summer Ball, spent a week in Paris with the parents, attended my first ever festival, and made cupcakes. Lots and lots of cupcakes.

First attempt at making and frosting cupcakes. I'd like to point out that I have improved. Something about frosting 75 mini-cupcakes will do that to a girl.

And where am I now? In the south of France. Montpellier, to be precise - for my year abroad.

The mini Arc de Triomphe just opposite Peyrou.

Montpellier has a lot to recommend it: beautiful architecture, gorgeous weather and one of the youngest populations in France (something like 60% of the Montpelliérain are under 25) - but the kitchens in halls are truly atrocious. For a culture that is so defined by cooking I have never seen halls so ill-equipped for doing precisely that.

Each floor of the building has about 20 rooms, and I'd estimate that about half of these are studios, so have their own small kitchen corner. The rest of us have to use the communal kitchen. And what a sorry thing it is, too. For the ten to fifteen people who don't have their own facilities in their room, we get to go to an opressively dark and antisocial kitchen and cook on one of the four hot plates. It's worth noting that in the three plus months I've been here, there's been maybe three weeks where all four are functioning, and there was one horrid week where none of them worked. We also have two sinks. No oven, no microwave. Just four rings which may or may not be working, and two sinks.

Back when I was a lowly first year and in my halls it's not like I used the oven a lot, but it was nice to have the option there. It was nice to know that if all I wanted was an oven pizza or a quiche or to make potato wedges I could. And the old saying "absence makes the heart grow fonder" is so, so true. I have never missed the presence of an oven more than in these past 3 months. I've had dreams where I assemble an amazing roast dinner and then get to this ridiculous kitchen and have to cook all of it over the one ring that's working - the small one, too - and in a frying pan. I wake up in a cold sweat.

So is it really any surprise that for the past three months, after the novelty of spaghetti/rice with meat and tomato sauce wore off (I'll give you a clue: it didn't take more than a week), I've been daydreaming about an opportunity to come home and use the oven? Baking cakes, helping my mum out with the Christmas dinner, making stews - I'm not entirely sure whether I miss my parents or my parents' kitchen more. Now that they've had underfloor heating installed, I fear it may well be the kitchen that I miss.

I am aware that sympathy for someone who gets to spend a year in the south of France as part of her degree is not going to be particularly forthcoming, but please, won't somebody think of the kitchen?

Sink number two is just around the corner, but this is the kitchen. It makes my inner foodie weep, it honestly does.

Easy like a Sunday morning

I think that there is no better way to start my Sunday than by a long lie-in, preferably with people bringing me cups of coffee, gloriously buttery toast and allowing me free reign of the remote control. However, I am living the student life, so the coffee and toast has to be made by me - quelle dommage!

But, I had the next best thing this morning - half a carton of eggs left to me by my housemate and the offer, nay, the instruction, to use them up before she comes back from visiting her father. As you can imagine, it was a real struggle to think of something to cook, and after I puzzled for about thirty seconds, I got the necessary accoutrements together to make a fluffy cheese omelette.

Like a lot of things I cook, I judge whether it is a success or a failure based on how much like my mother's the end product resembles, and omelettes are absolutely no exception. My favourite dinner when I'm home is when Mum can't think of what to cook, none of us have anything in mind, and there's plenty of eggs in the fridge. Cheese, ham, bacon, occassionally potatoes and onions to make a traditional Spanish tortilla - omelettes would certainly be a contender for my last meal on earth.

The key with making a perfect (read: my mother's) omelette is to make it really, really fluffy, keep the pan well-oiled but the heat not too high, and to wait for the open top to cook before you fold it, and flip it. Getting a good non-stick pan that's not too wide across is also important, as if you get one that's too wide, you really need an obscene quantity of egg to be able to cover it from side to side but also have a bit of depth. Luckily, my housemate has provided us with a pan that is absolutely perfect for this.

So, with your pan on the hob and a glug of olive oil in it, spread all across the pan so the majority of the pan is covered, you need to beat your eggs, seasoned with a little pepper (2-3 for one person), and preferably prepare any fillings so it's nice and quick to throw the fillings in once it's ready. Once the eggs are beaten, pour them into the pan and as soon as it starts to cook around the edges, take your fork and drag some of the edge into the centre, then tilt the pan so that the raw egg covers the space. Keep doing this, working all the way around the pan until there's a pile of fluffy egg in the centre. This is why it is crucial to keep the pan on a medium heat - if it's too high, the egg will cook too quickly and you won't be able to make it gorgeously fluffy. Once the top's cooked and there is no more runny egg, add the filling, then get a fish slice under the omelette, and fold it in two. Press down so that any remaining raw egg seeps out and can be cooked, then once you're happy everything's cooked, carefully flip the omelette to cook the other side. This is where experience pays off! Once that's cooked, slide it onto a plate and enjoy - preferably while watching "Saturday Kitchen" on the iPlayer ;]