Pictures Of France

Thank you to all the sources for these beutiful pictures! Please, feel free to comment on your favorite picture!

                                                                                                                                                                                              

Mon Ami Gabi & Odd Things

This past weekend I decided that I wanted to go to a French Bistro resturaunt, Mon Ami Gabi. It used to be phenomenal but went down in the past year and a half. We arrived very suprised at how crowded it was. A year ago, it would have been empty- and considering the reccesion and the fancy place it is, I was suprised. So thirty minutes late we arrived at our table. The bread was brought out and it was terrible. It was terrible. It was not nearly as good as   it used to be. It was terrible. It was terrible. Picture below, the street across from Mon Ami Gabi- Very nice.

                

So our waiter brought the bread with a beet mixture which was very tasty. But the butter was too hard and cold. OK, if you remeber my last post (just scroll down if you don't) then you heard about my recipe for hanger steak. Well, I ordered the hanger steak and it was good for the first few bites, but then was bad. My Nana asked me if she thought it was tough and I said, "I don't know..." She gave me a bite of hers and I agreed that mine was also bland and tough. The frites were a bit soggy and tasteless.

I was wanting to do a throwdown with the chef- my steak would win hands down. My Nana got a mashed cauliflower side which was very good actually. The cauliflower had taste. It wasn't terrible. For dessert, my father got peach sorbet. It tasted fine, but a bit artificial if you know what I mean. And my chocoalte flourless cake was good, I guess. But to be honest I do not remember it that much which is not good!

And the *oddest* part of the meal was while waiting impatiently for the valet service to get our car, a racoon scrambled out from somewhere and ran out into the allyway.

Oh yes! This is a Parisian blog, written by an American. I should incorporate this post more with Paris, or shall I say France? So this was a French Resturaunt, right? Well, I am thinking about what to say about that statement. And I must say that I would no tbe that suprised if the executive chef of that resturaunt was Mexican! He should study good French Cuisine better.

*As well, on November third, I went to the mall and "This is It," a Michael Jackson documetary was playing. I guess that the man or women doing the titling on the big board thingy outside the mall never passed third grade. He spell Michael as Micheal. And I know it wasn't just a clumsy misplacement, becasue on the other side where he also posted it, it was spelled Micheal also. Rather odd, also!

One Evening In Paris & Great Parisian Steak

One Evening In Paris ( As a Tourist)

Five p.m.- Leave hotel and go to your pick of gourmet resturaunts

Six- Arrive. In the meantime, the hour without going to your reservation, you could walk in a park, sight see a little... etc.

Eight- Yum! Dinner is Over! Sastify yourself with shopping for anything on one of the popular places to do so in Paris.

By Nine- In your hotel. I know this is early, but you can relax on your balcony that has a good view.

Note~ You should set aside $1, 000 to make this night perfect... or you could buy a cheap travel book for $9. 00!

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The Best Steak!

Yum! This is honestly the best steak ever! You have to try this!!!! The cool thing is that I created it it as I went along, and I think the hint is instead of using my favorite spice, Herb du Provence as it calls for by Barefoot Contessa aka Ina Garten, who it is inspired from, I made my own Provoncal butter. My whole family agrees that this is the best steak ever. We serve it with salad. This is amazing, easy, and the best steak ever, sorry I repeated that... I made up the recipe having very low hopes but it is amazing. The butter is the secret. You must try this!

 

Ingredients For the Steak

 

• 3 meaty pieces of hanger steak, about one foot each

 

• 1 teaspoon of: dried chili powder, salt, course peppercorns (you can smash them lightly with a rolling pin), dried oregano--- you can add some stuff to your likings, but be careful!

 

• 4 tablespoons of olive oil

 

• Salt and pepper For the Sauce…

 

• 1 tablespoon of red wine

 

• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter

 

• ¾ stick of unsalted butter

 

• 1 teaspoon of dried oregano, dried parsley, and dried basil

 

• 2 teaspoons of fresh lemon zest

 

• 1 teaspoon of fresh thyme

 

• 1 teaspoon of salt

 

• ½ teaspoon of pepper

 

• A small pinch of chili powder

 

Directions

 

 Mix the chili powder, salt, course peppercorns, and dried oregano together in a small bowl. Let sit while preparing the butter. For the sauce I make butter… Mix everything EXCEPT the red wine and 1 tablespoon of butter together in an electric mixer. Scoop onto a piece of parchment paper and spread out evenly, about ½ an inch. Let refrigerate. For the steak rub each piece with one tablespoon of olive oil. Then sprinkle with salt, pepper and the mixture of spices on both sides. In a pan big enough to hold the hanger steak, put in the wine and 1 tablespoon of plain butter in the pan and melt the butter. (The wine should be reduced to about half already, and should be paler because of the butter). Put the steak in the pan and cook for about 4 minutes on each side for medium rare. Put on a plate. Then, with the wine and drippings left over from the steak, add all of the butter from the fridge. When just about melted, Pour all over the steak and let it sit for twelve minutes. Serve warm and serves three to six, depending on portion size. Bon Appetite!

Some of you may recongnize this from my other Passport To Food Blog, but just incase you didn't make it I published it again!

Writing and A Personal Update!

Updated 10/20/09
Any ideas for a tittle of my book? Post in Comment Section1
Thanks!


Hello! Sorry for not writing in a while. I would like for you all to see some cool pictures, maybe you can send me "mini essays" on each picture and how it resembles (if I may use that world) France, or Paris. You can just tell me "the pic from the whatever the post is post". That is how we will assosiate Paris in this Post.

I haven't been updating lately because I was reading and working like crazy. I am very proud of myself becasue I can read a big book (like The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma) in basically four days! I read a 350 page book in three days, and the Mysterious Benedict Socity, book three, in about four days. I am only in Middle School, but hey! I like to write and I feel I am strong in my writing also, so sadly I have dedicated this most of this post to my writing, not to Paris (huhhhhh??????) I want to hear your comments about this story. Thanks you guys:) :) :)

Also, this past weekend I went to a wedding. It was the first wedding I have ever been to and it was fun. Ummmmm... what else have you missed????? Well, this is all I can think of, but if I think of anything else special that has happened in October, I will have to share with you! Oh yeah, and if my posts are too short or too long (probably not too long ;) you can just comment about them. Thank you!

-Sam

This is the book... enjoy and make sure to tell me critisism if there be any and comments. Thanks. I have a couple chapters layed out but I may change them according to your comments. Read!!




Chapter 1







A small wooden boat roughly swayed in the dark blue waves. Three men were in the boat. They squished together, their blue suits covered in raincoats. Their wigs were slipping off because of the pouring rain. They traveled for hundreds of miles. The whole time it was raining. Now, the waves had turned rough. Two men were steering with buckets. Their oars had gotten swept away into the ocean.


“Are we heading toward Britain?” one of the men had said trying to be heard over the deafening waves. He was steering the boat and was referring to the man with the golden compass in the palm of his crippled hand.


The man simply nodded his head. Another man smiled a mischievous smile and started steering ahead.


Thunder sounded.


The men’s coats flew backwards into the air, but they still stayed fastened onto the colonists. The man without the oar put one hand tightly on a chest in the boat. For a long time no one talked.






Loud and deserted…the ocean was loud and deserted. Loud because of the thunderstorm, deserted because there no one was in the ocean, but the isolation didn’t last for long. Soon, a big wooden vessel woke up the young patriot’s attention. They saw the ship from two miles away.


About a mile away, using their magnifying glass the patriots saw the ships name: East Columbia Tea. The man with the compass yelled out commands about where to steer as if yelling to a giant ocean liner. “North, north, north, north… west, west, west, west,” the young man yelled out commands that slowly turned into a whisper as the vessel moved forward. Then once he saw that his partners knew what they were doing he opened the chest. He took off three layers of cloth and dug around the chest for a while. It was a very big chest, but eventually he took something out.


“Wood softener,” he said to the two men steering. “Drop this into the water when I wave my hand, but make sure you open the bottle, and also, only drop it behind our small ship. It will break our ship if its liquid touches the hull.”


“Yes, sir,” both men said.


The “sir” handed the men the liquid and waved his hand. The freckled man with the breaking oar poured it into the water. Then, the boat steered around the East Columbia Tea ship. In about half an hour they all saw the ship sink. Wood had splintered every direction. Again, the men smiled but kept on steering straight ahead in silence.

Taste of Embarassment, Taste of Copyright

Picture taken by me, SBB, Copyright (C) 2009

Americans love French food, French people, French shopping, French sights, everything French! We marvel at stuff they seem not to care about. I bet most of the french people either found this movie (Julie & Julia) offending, or never heard of it. So, we are kind of, well, in a way gullible losers. Also, not to make you feel bad, but Americans eat. If someone in your bookclub says "Who wants popcorn," probably everyone will raise their hand, but not run up and stampede, same with children. But if the case is "Who wants Ice Cream?" then everyone will run up, or with children, stampede and jump and reach until they get their third serving of Ice Cream :) :) :) :) :)

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Recently, in my hometown, we had a foodie festival, if I may. All the resturaunts from the Bethesda area set up tents in downtown Bethesda (all in the same few blocks of each other... they get assigned tents) and give out tastings. For example, you could get Ice Cream from Ben and Jerry's. You couls get a little tortilla from Calafornia Tortilla. Even Mortons was there giving out delicious steak sandwhiches. Anyways, I was thinking about how this relates to somethings... it was on the tip of my tounge... THE FRENCH! This month as a matter of a fact, the French are having a chocolate festival in Paris. The French often have "fairs" like we had. It was very enjoyable, and very fun, but it made me wonder who came up with this clever idea out of the blue...???

I was thinking I should she some small print saying "Copyright French People Forever," but whatever! If I cannot travel to Paris every year, I mights as well eat some inexpensive tortillas and steak sandwhiches. Also, my friend told me that when they lived in Saint Louis, they had a 'Taste of Saint Louis," and this was "Taste of Bethesda." Then we realized that basically every town in the world has some type of tasting reunion every year.

"TASTE OF AMERICA**"

**Copied off of the French :)

E-mail me!

I would love for you to e-mail me!

If you have any questions, comments, reccomendations, I might even start to put up posts occasionaly of really good questions, comments, etc. To e-mail be about anything related to my blog, I can be reached at footstep24@yahoo.com

Thanks all!

This photograph was taken my me, SBB.

Copyright (C) 2009

Gourmet Chicken Salad

This really is a delicious salad: my mother and father said it was one of the best they had ever had. My mom loves salad, and my father devoured it so quickly! I made this off the top of my head, the best way for me to cook and invent recipes. Here is this healthy, easy Chicken Salad!

Ingridients:

• 3 chicken breast tenderloins
• 1/4 cup of finely grated parmesan
• 1/2 cup Italian Breadcrums
• 1 whole egg
• 1/2 cup of flour
• two shallots, minced
• 1/2 cup of white onion, chopped into thin slices
• 4 inch long cut of french bread
• Lots of salad
• Sesame Spray ( 1 calarie per spray, only use if needed)

Directions

• Pound chicken untill 1 centimeter thin. Arrange flour in one bowl, egg in another, and breadcrumbs and parmesan in another bowl. In a nonstick sautee pan heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil. While heating, make the chicken by lightly drenching in flour, then coating in egg, and then coating in breadcrumb mixture. Put in pan and cook for two minutes per side untill very browned.
• Let cool, and add onions, shallots and the bread cut as big croutons into the smae pan you cooked the chicken in. Cook for four minutes untill onions are carmelized and bread is flavor filled. The bread is not going to be crisp! Put salad in seperate bowls and add onion-bread mixture on top. Cut the cooled chicken on a diagnal line and even out beetween the three servings. Serves three. Enjoy!

I am not a salad person at all, but this recipe is phenomenal!!! Mmmm...

French Cafe

I seem to notice in the movies/pictures I have seen of Paris, or quaint towns across France that the table scape is generally the same. All tables are close together and usually round. My proof is that if you have ever been to or seen pictures of Paris in particular you will notice that the small bright, rustic wood tables are close together, and right on the street. I find this factor of life in Paris very interesting and cozy. Also, in the eight o' clock to four o'clock range you notice all the coffee being drunk, do you? I think this is why French people SEEM so relaxed.

But anyways, lets talk about cafes. In the United States a cafe generally consists of commercial brand baked goods. Some coffee that is fine, and some potato chips. The seating is casual with napkin dispensers thrown around places.

Compare that to a cafe in Paris (Not one in the Art Museum!) They are much nicer in France because they have cute tables, that are fancy at the same time. Also, they have fresh baked goods like warm croissants, rich brownies, etc. They give you glass silverware and glass cups. You want to go to a Parisian cafe more than you would want to go to Starbucks. Us being from the United States, we love Starbucks.

Julia Child would have hated to see McDonald's in general and she would despise even more that they were offering a "gourmet" snack of coffee and bakery treats. And we don't want to make her mad!

An American, Not in France

Hello. Welcome to my new blog. I hope you all like it. This blog is supposed to be for you to see how I would love to live in Paris, France. From food, to life, to travel, I will give you a tour of my France. I love cooking food, and I only eat fine food so if you enjoy that, you will love this blog. I would also like to share with you my stories, for I like to write also! I have many interests but mainly in the arts. Enjoy!