Is It That Obvious?

Today, while the boys and I were walking to school, some construction workers called out to us. They yelled, "Hey, man. How are you doing?" in accented English. Our heads whipped around in disbelief because we weren't even talking. Hadn't been since more than a block away. I was even wearing the skirt and tall boots that are the French woman's uniform! How did they know that we were American? Why were they speaking to us in English? Turns out that they had heard us the day before and wondered why we were living in France. They thought it was great and were thrilled to share their few sentences of English with us.
My friend, Sabine, came over this afternoon so that we could exchange some cooking techniques and recipes. I taught her to make "American" lasagna as she and her children do not like the French version which calls for Béchamel sauce while she taught me how to make Cake aux Carambar.

Carambars are an absolutely amazing candy that we have all come to love during our lives here. We cannot keep them in the house because none of us can refrain from eating them when they are here. The kids love the fruit flavors but Josh and I think the original caramel flavor is the way to go. The cake uses melted Carambars for it's flavor and was absolutely delicious! I'm not sure how we will survive when these little yummies are no longer easily available to us!

Anyway, Sabine and I had a wonderful time cooking together. We were met time and again with the largest problem of "translating" recipes being simply converting the amounts. Sabine doesn't own any measuring cups or spoons as they are not used, where as I am just finally adapting to weighing out all of my measurements on my kitchen scale.
Quincy qualified in the butterfly to swim in a national swim meet in Paris! We will all be heading to Paris for the weekend to watch him swim. Congrats, Q!

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