Mon temps libre

I just thought I'd share some of the things I have done in my free time lately. On Friday, I went to the local theatre in Celleneuve called Nestor Burma. It is literally about 30 seconds from Paticia's place. The film I watched was Philomena with Judi Dench and Steve Coogan. Although it was the English version, there were French sub-titles (sous-titres). The film was great and the price was right. Movies at Nestor Burma only cost 5€. This is the third film I've seen there and I hope to go to another next week titled Lulu femme nue en français. Going to the cinema is a very popular pastime here and I have seen 6 movies since my arrival - 3 en français and 3 with sous-titres en français. That's more movies than I've seen back home in the last six years! I also think it is another fun way to try and learn a little more of the language.

On Saturday evening, I met a group of more mature students (over 30 yrs.) from the school in the centre ville.  It was a beautiful evening and we sat outside on the terrace for a beer before heading into a traditional French restaurant for dinner. The two women, Majia and Maria are Finnish and James is English.

I'm sad to report that my meal was less than stellar. I ordered the magret de canard (fillet of duck breast) and it was very tough. C'est dommage parce qu'il j'adore le canard (It's a shame because I love duck). Both before and after we came out of the restaurant, the terrace was absolutely filled with people. There wasn't an empty chair or stool in sight. They talk about the economic crisis here, but there was no evidence of it that night. 

This afternoon, I took another cooking course at L'Atelier de Valérie. Our crew of 6 with Chef Valérie  prepared un plat - poulet (chicken) mimolette (cheese) et potiron (pumpkin) en millefeuille (thick pile). Initially, I thought it was going to be a savoury version of mille-feuille, the traditional French slice made with layers of puff pastry.  However, millefeuille without the hyphen, and in this case, was layers of pumpkin, chicken, mimolette with a persil (parsley) garlic, rosemary and olive oil mixture in between. 

As in my previous class, we sliced and diced all the vegetables etc. and did some preliminary cooking of the potiron and the chicken in skillets. Then we began to create the millefeuille. In the photo below, you can see the first layer of pumpkin, followed by the chicken covered with the parsley sauce and finally, the mimolette cheese. These layers were repeated 3 times. 

This is what they looked like prior to going into the oven....

... and this is what they looked like after.

While the millefeuille was cooking, we began to prepare the Risotto crémeux. We used a large casserole dish to cook onion, celery and potiron in a mixture of olive and sunflower oil. The arborio or carnoli rice was added and cooked until the rice was pearlized. Then hot chicken bouillion was added to the mix. We took turns stirring the rice while Valérie liberally added salt and a variety of interesting peppers to the pot. Once it was almost done, she removed it from the heat and covered it with the lid.

 At that time, we whipped some cream (35%) softly and then folded it into the risotto. 

Our lunch was ready to be served. Each plate had some of the garlic, parsely sauce drizzled on the side, a millefeuille and a bowl of creamy risotto. Take note that the millefeuille is at the front of the plate. According to Valerie, the meat or main dish is always served closest to the person.

Cette fois, nous avons mangé sur place en table avec un verre de vin rouge. Après, nous avons eu un café et du chocolate. (This time, we ate on site at the table with a glass of red wine. After, we had a coffee and some chocolate). Everything was delicious. I was even able to bring home a container of risotto for Patricia to try this evening.  

A serendipitous thing happened at this class. One of the women who no longer works gave me her number and offered to meet for coffee and chat in French. Lucky me! I'll give her a shout this week and see if we can get together. Maybe she can even explain some of the things Valérie talked about that I didn't understand. 

Talk you you again soon!