consumed, lately

by forces within and without: me. i've been at college for one-point-five weeks, in class for point-five. the bullet journal has kept me out of trouble. by "out of trouble," i mean that i've taken my multivitamin every day, i haven't been late to anything (yet), and i did my laundry before i ran out of clothes. two small victories! and one big one! yes, that last is really an accomplishment, considering that i didn't pack enough clothes.

by me: a few books, more films (rare!), some good food. even more not-so-good food.

stay tuned

mangez !

• yogurt cakes are wonderful in their simplicity: eggs + leavener + a few ingredients all measured in a pot of yogurt. for example: two pots of flour, two pots of oil, one pot of sugar. no frosting! no frosting anywhere in france.
• goat cheese (chèvre) is great with apples and even better in the way my second host mother prepared it. this, too, is simple: slice an apple in half, top each half with goat cheese, bake! sprinkle with thyme.
• france has a bread law. a bakery can't call itself a boulangerie unless it makes its bread a) on the premises and b) with only four ingredients (flour, water, salt, yeast). this has deterred nobody, as i saw boulangeries on every street corner. however, crustiness is not standardized.
• french sandwiches are revolutionary, perhaps because of the bread. they're big and filled with cheese (always) + whatever else you desire. my favorites are tomato/mozzarella and cucumber/chèvre. obviously, you'll have several more options if you eat meat.
• honorable mentions: fleur de lait ice cream, buckwheat crêpes, savory tarts!
• lastly: i never thought i'd actively search for a website called cheese.com, much less actually spend time reading it, much less find its contents fascinating. and yet: here i am.

pillars

reims and troyes are old, very old, old enough that i found mention of both in first few chapters of the book i selected for my flight home -- crown and country* (david starkey, who has recently been in the news for being a "dyspeptic television personality" of a historian who advocates britain's inherent britishness; this book hits you over the head with that belief).

this is reims part ii, in which i do visit the cathedral notre-dame de reims (along with two others + a basilica), and in which i also eat a single shining macaron from la petite friande. this particular macaron is called "stade de reims," and sports the colors of a) the local soccer team and b) the famous biscuits roses of the city. it is, according to my host sister, the best macaron in the world. i don't disagree! however, i've only eaten two macarons total.

*it was starkey or a biography of john lennon. looking for sheer length, i failed to take into account that historical surveys of royals (and exclusively royals) are hopelessly dry, william the conqueror's bursting bowels notwithstanding. howard zinn, this is not.

read on for history + photos

for your health

or, six things i by-hearted (roughly translated, here) from the health advisories on french television, posters, and billboards -- while i wasn't even paying attention!

• eat at least five fruits and vegetables per day
• avoid snacking between meals
• avoid eating a diet too high in sugar, fat, or salt
• eat three dairy products per day
• practice a physical activity regularly
• water is the one essential drink -- even more so than milk

reims rhymes

a selection of words that nearly fit the bill, when pronounced with the slightest hint of an english accent: chance, dance, enhance, expanse, finance, france, glance, lance, perchance, prance, romance, stance, trance.

as french follows its rules much more closely than english does, i used to think that i had french pronunciation down. that only lasted until i arrived in champagne and was confronted with... rhymes? reams? romes? this is a common question asked by anglophones on the internet, it seems. we like to imagine that the title of this post would rhyme.

the answer: see an explanation of the proper pronunciation and an mp3 here. anyway, what's in a name? that which we call reims --

lesson #2

"bastille day" is battlestar galactica 1.03. (watch it!)

the 14th of july, on the other hand, commemorates both the storming of the bastille (1789) and the fête de la féderation* of 1790 -- a massive party which, uh, commemorated the first anniversary of the storming of the bastille (and the unity of france, end of the estates, et cetera). all that is to say that nobody says "le jour de la bastille"; it's "le quatorze juillet" or "la fête nationale."

so it is bastille day. but like, it isn't.

*bonus! from wikipedia, re: ça ira, ça ira --

the title and theme of the refrain were inspired by benjamin franklin**, in france as a representative as the continental congress, who was very popular among the french people. when asked about the american revolutionary war, he would reportedly reply, in somewhat broken french, "ça ira, ça ira" ("it'll be fine, it'll be fine").

 **ben franklin has a special place in my heart, for multiple reasons.