Tricoquine in the land of the stinky cheese

Why bother?

I took a long journey since the last post to the French bar exam and back. I studied and stressed and made everyone crazy but in the end I triumphed and now life is returning to its normal schedule - metro - boulot - dodo.

I had started this post around Earth Day but never got around to finishing it.  Earth Day is one of those holidays like International Women's Day and International Human Rights Day in that it should really be celebrated all year long. But it was this article in the NYTimes that got me thinking, almost laughing out loud.

In previous posts I've mentioned our efforts to be a little more conscious about the impact of our consumption on our environment (whether that be our home or the Earth).  I like to think of our actions like this rather than using those loathsome environmental buzz words like "going green", "eco-friendly" and "carbon footprint". Because for me, it really breaks down into three things: an action (buying something), a purpose (what you do with it) and an effect (the impact of the purchase on the environment). We recently took a trip to Emmaus (like Goodwill or the Salvation Army) to look for some funky old furniture for our apartment. Not only did we leave empty handed but I left feeling gloomy and repulsed. There is nothing like rows of old vinyl couches and piles of outdated electronics castoffs to make you think hard about the impact of consumerland on the environment.   If that junk doesn't make its way to someone else's home, it will make its way to a landfill where it will rot and pollute the ground but never disappear or its will be incinerated and its toxic fumes will fill the atmosphere.

In many cases, the action is just as selfishly motivated as it is purely altruistic in form even if the end result is a net positive for all.  Take, for example, the use of household cleaners - my main concern is the impact these toxic cleaners have on my immediate environment - on my skin, in the air that I breathe, on the plates on which I eat. It just so happens that they are also better for the Earth - less pollution and less packaging waste (whether recyclable or not, don't forget that it takes energy to recycle!). Other decisions such as using compact light bulbs and line drying clothes are largely economically motivated but also provide a pleasing sense of personal virtue - save a buck, save the environment! A win-win game. When you think about it like this, your "sacrifice" for the environment is minimal and your gain is personal, economic and beneficial to the World.

Getting back to this article...the author tries to get her family to participate in an environmental "race" to see who lower their CO2 emissions the greatest using the tracker website CarbonRally. Aside from being amused that we Americans have to turn everything into a competition, I think the idea is great - your actions can be selfishly motivated (beat your neighbors by being more energy efficient!) and have a positive impact too. I had to laugh because it made me realize how much I have changed my habits since moving to Europe. Three quarters of the recommendations made are already ones I have incorporated into my daily routine, and mostly unconsciously. In France, line drying clothes is pretty standard, as is using cloth napkins, they're not in to to-go coffee, and supermarkets now make you pay for plastic bags. Here are some simple ways Carbon Rally suggests you can change your habits and I've included some of my own as well. What changes have you made?

1/ Avoid drinking bottled waters, teas, sodas and the like. If you do drink them, make sure to recycle the containers.

2/ If you can, compost your kitchen scraps and garden trimmings.

3/ Cut your paper consumption at the office by printing doubled sided. Better yet, set your default printing to double sided and you'll no longer have to think about.

4/ Turn off your computer when you leave work for the night. Turn off the lights in your office when you're out to lunch.

5/ Line dry your clothes.

6/ Clean the lint from your fridge coils.

7/ Power shower - knock off 2 minutes from your daily shower (or better yet, turn off the water while you lather up!)

8/ Go one week without using disposable coffee cups but don't deprive yourself, bring your own mug to Starbucks.

9/ Unplug the appliances your don't regularly use - even when they're "off", appliances like stereos and computers still use energy.

10/ Bring your own bags to the supermarket, pharmacy etc. Keep them in the trunk of your car, or if you're a citadine, fold one up in your purse. Chez Pim has a round up of some fun and fashionable bags. If you are a superstar, you'll even bring your own reused plastic or cotton bags for fruits and vegetables. Biocoop provides brown paper bags for fruits and vegetables that can be reused multiple times.

11/ Use cloth napkins instead of paper ones. They're much prettier anyways.

12/ Replace regular light bulbs with compact florescent bulbs as they burn out.

Snort out loud

You know when you read something that is so funny that it makes you snort out loud in a totally inappropriate setting like your office? 'Cause I know you all read Go fug yourself at work during your afternoon coffee break...

behold

Don't say I didn't warn you. It manages to be witty and pack in a serious amount of pop culture all at the same time. Love it.

Fruit leather, orange vomit?

Does that give you a good visual while I struggle to find time to understand the inner working of my new camera? (and the fact that I seem to have misplaced the old point-and-shoot).

I saw Aimee's picture of her fruit leather on flickr and had a wild craving for the stuff. We weren't allowed to have fruit roll-ups as kids and as a result, I developed a taste for the real fruit leather my mom bought at the health food store (blueberry was/is definitely my favorite). We had a couple of mushy apples in the fruit bowl and several blood oranges leftover from an eyes-to-big-for-the-stomach moment at the market. I greatly dislike mushy, mealy apples and when they've passed their crispy dipped-in-peanut-butter prime, I usually make a batch of applesauce. This time however, I thought I'd do something a little different.

I threw the raw chunks of two peeled apples and two blood oranges into the bowl that goes along with my immersion mixer, pureed them into an orangy mash, and spread out the mixture evenly onto a silpat. Popped the whole thing in the oven set at convection at 70°C (approx 150°F) and three hours later, I had fruit leather.

I'm not entirely convinced that all of this was worth the effort to make a 12 in x 8 in sheet of fruit leather that was eaten in about 10 minutes but it was certainly tasty, even though it looked like that plastic gag  vomit you buy at a joke shop.

Step 1: vinegar

In the last post, I mentioned my increasing interest in going greener. When we moved into our new home, we used the clean slate as an excuse to install energy saving florescent bulbs in all the rooms and when the regular laundry detergent ran out, I decided to try soapnuts. I'm certainly not on a crusade, but if you can save money and create a less toxic environment in your home with very little effort, then I see very little reason not to jump on the bandwagon.

I had originally wanted to wait until after finishing my exams to embark on the next step in our going green experiment, but I got off to an early start when I noticed some water spots on our stainless steel range that wouldn't go away. I searched the Internet for a solution. Enter white vinegar. There happened to be an unopened bottle sitting under the kitchen sink that I had purchased with a view to cleaning the coffee pot (and never got around to doing). A few drops on the microfiber cloth and it worked miraculously. No more spots. And to think they sell all sorts of special stainless steel cleaner when all you need is white vinegar at 50cents a liter.

Then I started wondering what else this little miracle cleaner could do. Cut grease, get rid of soap scum on shower doors, clean showerheads of mineral deposits, natural disinfectant, fabric softener etc? YES!

We have hard water in Paris and it shows on the shower door - I poured some pure vinegar in a spray bottle, misted the shower door, then wiped it clean with a microfiber cloth. NO MORE MINERAL DEPOSITS! Apparently, this treatment will also delay the formation of new deposits...

Then I unscrewed the showerhead and soaked it in some warm vinegar. Two hours later, NO MORE MINERAL DEPOSITS. It looks brand new.

I'm convinced, there is no turning back now.

Next up: the wonderful world of baking soda.

For those of you who would like to know more, two interesting sites - one in French, the other in English

PS: those of you in France can find white vinegar in the condiment aisle of the grocery store for approx 50cents per liter. I found mine at Franprix. 

PPS: An interesting article in the New York Times on "EcoMoms" and the new suburban eco crusade.

What happens over 7 weeks?

The blog may have been quiet over the last seven weeks but that does not mean we haven't been busy.

There have been:

1. Decadent meals, my most favorite of which was a rabbit ragù with polenta

If you can get past the "bunny rabbit" issue and flashbacks to the infamous rabbit skinning clip from Michael Moore's documentary on Flint, "Roger and Me", rabbit is another great white meat that is both low in fat and high in protein. Personally, I believe it is best eaten stew style because it does have a tendency to dry out. In France, rabbit is an economical alternative to chicken although the New York Times article linked above does note that rabbit is no longer widely available in the US and therefore expensive. At my local market butcher, I purchased a whole rabbit for 10€ and when combined with the ragù sauce, made approximately 10 portions. We ate the ragù for two nights and froze the rest in individual portions. It makes for easy meals during the week!

2. Kitchen nightmares

The kitchen has undergone some substantial changes over the last month and after great battles with Vogica, the high-end cabinet maker that we very stupidly selected to design our kitchen (that should get its own post!), our handles were finally installed two weeks ago. Anyone who did the math would realize that was nearly 9 weeks after the kitchen was first delivered! Never again...

We returned the overhead fan after realizing post-installation that the dimensions of the fan did not correspond to the dimensions on the manufacturer's website. We bought it from Mistergooddeal because their advertised price was 250€ less than a competitor -- only they bought a lot from Fagor which did not correspond to the manufacturer's dimensions and failed to mention so on their website. To our great surprise, they offered to take back the fan. Two months and many calls to their hotline at 34cents/minute (which never fails to surprise me in France!) , they finally came to pick it up last week. Now we have to wait another 30 days to get the same fan ordered from a different store.

3. Knitting

Those of you on Ravelry may have noticed that I finished the February Baby Sweater. As many Zimmermanics have noted, this is a fun and easy pattern once you decipher Zimmermman's "pithy" instructions and makes an adorable baby cardigan.

It will be shipped off tomorrow to little Molly who hopefully hasn't outgrown it already...

Details:

Pattern : Elizabeth Zimmermann's February baby sweater from A Knitter's Almanac (6 months size)

Yarn: Louet Gems Opal in Aqua (two skeins) and Rowan RYC Cashsoft DK in cream (leftovers)

Buttons: from Entrée des Fournisseurs, rue des francs bourgeois, Paris

And my Charlotte's Web shawl is patiently waiting for the ends to be woven in and to be blocked. I am dying to get my hands on lace wire blockers but cannot imagine how much it would cost to ship them to France.

 

In the meantime, I started a scarf for my friend Nathalie and so far, I think it is the most beautiful thing I have ever knit

Pattern: Muir from Knitty

Yarn: Malabrigo lace in colorway Pearl 10 purchased at Leslaines.com

With smoky amethyst beads

Unfortunately, between bar review classes for the French bar and the difficulty of knitting with beads in the metro, my progress has been slow, to say the least.

4. Being thankful for things going right

Ribbit and I have had a string of bad luck. Between the problems with the kitchen, the Turbo going out on our car (and 1500€ later, we didn't go to Budapest for New Year's as planned), and then the clutch going out on the car we borrowed from Ribbit's parents, and custom's seizing the boxes of wedding china shipped from the states, I was starting to think we had la poisse. But last Friday, things began to look better, the sun was shining, and I received an email from French Customs that if I would send them our marriage certificate they would detax my boxes, and Mistergooddeal sent an email saying the reimbursement check was in the mail and then...Ribbit called to tell me that good fortune happens in threes and tonight just happened to be a 130 million euro jackpot. After work I bought two flash tickets and won €9.60 (net win €5.60). I guess we might not have the poisse after all....

5. Going green

This seems to be a popular topic around blogland. Being from Oregon, thinking green comes naturally. After all, Oregon was the first state to pass a Bottle Bill and I remember paper recycling cans in all our elementary school classrooms. In France however, it is a little more challenging. We assiduously recycle our paper, plastic, glass and aluminum in the bins at home but have more recently switched to some Earth-friendly cleaning products. Andie is a great inspiration to all who may be thinking of making the switch.

Baby steps...

When our old laundry soap ran out, I stopped by the local biocoop and bought a sack of soapnuts (noix de lavage). I had been curious about these little nuts since I saw them in the cleaning section of the BHV. They grow on trees in India (and Nepal and other Himalayan countries) and have been used for centuries in Indian homes. They contain a natural cleaning agent called saponin and I have been pleasantly surprised with the results. I loathe detergent smells and in the past was resigned to purchasing expensive, perfume-free laundry soap. The soapnuts leave no residual smell although you can add several drops of essential oils onto the bag containing the nuts to fragrance your laundry. However, my favorite part is how soft the clothes come out. Previously, I refused to use fabric softener because of the perfumes and the residue it leaves on clothes.  But now even my towels are fluffy when they used to be hard and scratchy! (I sound like an infomercial, but this stuff really is great). Apparently, you can also simmer the soapnuts (used and unused) in hot water and create an all-purpose cleaner. But the best part is the price - at the local biocoop on the boulevard Voltaire, one kilogram of soapnuts costs 12€ and is good for approximately 100-150 loads depending on the temperature of your wash!

I also replaced our paper towels with washable microfiber clothes and bought a cloth dust-mop to wash our hardwood floors.

Next up...after my exams are over, I am going to try to make some of my own cleaning products with baking soda, white vinegar, washing soda formulas that are so widely available on the Internet. 

Any other tips for being more eco-friendly?

Knitta what?

On my way to work last week, I noticed this sight in the heart of bo-bo land, on the corner of the rue Oberkampf and the avenue Parmentier. What was it? A funky sock atop a cross-walk signal? A random act of knitting?  I shrugged it off in that blasé Parisian way that all foreigners must adopt to fit-in and continued on my way.

Over my morning coffee, I scanned my bloglines feeds and came across this picture on JuJu's blog. It looked like it had a similar street ethos as the creation on my corner - could it have been the work of the same masterminds? JuJu identified hers as the work of the Knitta Please gang who came to Paris on the occasion of Bergère de France's 60th anniversary.* Read more about it in Les echos (sorry French only). Sounds kind of commercial for a soi-disant gang of knitters but is very cool and creative in its ésprit none-the-less. This is not your grandma's knitting...

When I showed Ribbit the knitted graffiti on the way home from dinner the other night - he just looked at me and said "you crazy Americans".

Lexicon:

soi-disant (adj): so-called (although apparently this adjective is not recommended by grammar purists who instead insist that one uses prétendu)

*Bergère de France, for those who don't know, is one of the main purveyors of cheap acrylic yarn in France. 

Getting creative

It has been great fun to take in all of the feverish Christmas crafting in the blogosphere - knitting, quilting, sofies every piece more gorgeous than the next.

There is no Christmas crafting at our house, no Christmas at all for that matter, but that doesn't mean that the frigid temperatures don't awake our desire for knitted lovelies. My work schedule has slackened somewhat over the last few weeks and now that we are officially moved into our apartment, albeit still sans drawer pulls, I can devote more time to the gentle arts.

Last weekend I cast-off the Charlotte's Web shawl I sailed through at the beginning of Fall.

I am very pleased with the marriage of the different colors as I made a real effort to avoid the same color families but if you look closely, you'll see that from one skein to the next the second skein picks up on colors from the first and segways into the colors for the next.

I opted out of the cowboy fringe border and decided to play it simple. One of these days I'll get around to blocking it. Now that we no longer have carpeting, blocking something this big is quite a challenge since I'm not allowed to put pins in the mattress.  I have also been itching to get my hands on these blocking wires but in these dire times of mortgages and holiday presents, I can hardly justify their hefty price (and she doesn't seem to offer international shipping).

Renovating Part V: Ta-dah!

The counters are in! We still have no drawer pulls but at least we have a shiny work top!

Don't you think the counters look like a starry night sky?

Cool features:

• built in soap dispenser - key for an open kitchen. No messy bottles hanging around
• grooves in the granite for draining dishes (mostly pots too big to fit in the dishwasher)

Renovating Part IV: From the corners of my house

Boxes have been emptied and deposited into the recycle bin, floors have been swept, walls washed, mirrors polished...which can mean nothing other than -- we're home!

BEFORE

AFTER

The counter tops have not yet been installed, which means we are also missing our sinks and we must wash the dishes in the bathtub (very practical, indeed) and Vogica still has not come through with the drawer pulls or the baseboards but we used the oven for the first time last night and it is like driving a Ferrari compared to our former oven.

We left our old rented apartment without remorse, except perhaps for the lovely, spacious balcony which looked out onto a tree and flower-filled courtyard and the well-stocked Monoprix grocery store down the street. Nevertheless, I was happy to leave behind my piano-playing upstairs neighbor, the homeless guy who had colonized the sidewalk next to the Franprix (he had amassed so much stuff that a visitor to the apartment asked us "what's up with the brocante at the beginning of the street?"), the neighbor who stole my bike from the interior courtyard of our building, and the endless piles of merde and other trash on the sidewalk.

Our new home is just so great (*sighs*). We live on a tree-lined, albeit noisy boulevard, the metro station is sparkling clean, and the shops, restaurants and bars of the rue Oberkampf are in walking distance, including a fantastic bookstore and a heavenly flower shop.

Moving into a new place is not only having a new space of your own, but it means a different trajet to work in the morning, new smells (I could do without the smell of my neighbor's wet dog in the hallway, however), and new sounds - the avenue, the pitter patter of my upstairs neighbor on the hardwood floors, and even the rain sounds different here - it makes little bingy-plingy sounds as it bounces off our 150-year old window panes.

Lexicon:

brocante (f): a second-hand store for furniture and knick-knacks

merde (f): literally, shit

trajet (m): route, as in my route to work

Renovating part III mid-week update

We made it to mid-week. What a difference two days can make! The maçon and plombier have left and now it is up to the painter to turn this room into a sparkling masterpiece before the kitchen arrives next Friday.