Better butter

I've discovered why I love French cooking so much (and perhaps why the French love cooking): butter. The butter here is amazing -- I just made myself some chicken in a beurre blanc that I'm sure I could have never made at home. The chicken came out perfect, oozing with the brie I stuffed it with, and I wondered why I ever thought that butter was "the enemy." It is certainly not. The butter here tastes like someone forced two butter sticks into one -- it is such a silky and luxurious taste that after my meal, I feel like I've already had dessert.

It's not a greasy taste like the one I've always found in American butter, it's much more rich. It's like a stick of cream. Cream that makes ordinary chicken taste like ... well ... butter. In short, if I had all the money in the world, I would have all my butter imported from France. It's that good.

I think I'll like cooking at home quite a bit! I'm trying to pair these butter-licous meals with something somewhat more acidic to cut down on the heavy and bloated feeling often associated with butter. Tonight I've done tomatoes and peas in a balsamic with a red wine, but I think a simple vinegarette on some salad would suffice. I'm thinking of getting a huge bottle of balsamic tomorrow since I've almost already gone through the little bottle in the cabinet, and the balsamic can make a mean vinegarette when mixed with some olive oil and dijon mustard.

Today's lunch was also quite a feast. I cut open some of the baguette so it lay on a plate open-faced. I coated each side in some berry jam, covered that with thinly sliced apples, and covered that with some brie slices. Off into the microwave it went for 20 seconds where it became an oozing delicious concoction for my taste buds before I headed down the street to the centre pompidou for the exhibition, "elles."

Out of my groceries, I've so far used:
1. 3 tomatoes
2. the baguette
3. 1/5 of the cucumber
4. 1 chicken breast
5. 1 apple
6. 1/8 brie wheel

Tentative list of supplementary groceries for tomorrow:
1. balsamic or vinegarette (roughly 2 EUR at ED)
2. more butter? (roughly 1 EUR at ED)
3. more of this ridiculously cheap and delicious cab sav? (1,69 at ED)

I'm loving the gastronomy here. I feel like a princess even though I'm eating some of the cheapest foods around. Good thing I like cheese, wine and bread!

I think it will be pretty hard to adjust back to American life. Many times I've thought, 'I could really use a bagel right now' but then realized I would still take the fresh baguette smothered in goat cheese over the bagel any day. When I think that I would like some Yogurtland right about now, I see the nutella across my desk and think again. I know that food will be relatively cheaper in the US -- certainly restaurants are -- but I'll miss the few things that are so accessible here. Until then, I'm trying to frequent the boulangeries as long as I can, hoping that they will spring up in America one of these days. I suggest the same to any student in Paris.

Easy and cheap meals I've found to be incredibly satisfying:
Baguette and Cheese
Do-it-yourself nutella crêpes
Apples (they come in season in the fall/ winter) with cheee or nutella
tomatoes (they come in season in the summer/ fall) and cucumber with vinegar
Pain au chocolat with a banana
Petit beurre crackers and jam (or cheese, or nutella...)
Tomatoes and Mozzarella (only ,60 EUR/ ball at Carrefour or ,90 EUR at Monoprix)

I feel like all the above are good ways to save a little money here while still living what would be an expensive lifestyle in the US. I bet you all of those meals cost more on average than they do here. For the vegetarians, living like this is pretty easy. For us carnivores, we have to learn where to invest our pretty penny.

Total Damages today:
0,00 EUR!