France Lockdown — Day sept
23 Mar 2020 — my daily ramblings from Paris
When I first came to Paris many moons ago, one of the highlight of my trip was seeing Mona Lisa for the first time. Luckily, few weeks ago I took a friend who was visiting from Singapore to see Mona Lisa again. Little did we know few weeks on that the Lourve will be closed until further notice. Not only the Lourve, but many Paris main attractions are taking a break. The symbol of Paris and Love, the Eiffel tower is also closed.
My dream in Paris is to live in an apartment with the balcony overlooking the tower. I want to have wine and cheese and enjoy the view. Hopefully my conversational French would have a reached an acceptable level by then.
I heard this saying from a close friend —
One have to kiss the tongue that speak the language to learn it.
I truly miss my French classes and my wonderful teacher. Now I have to wait for the lockdown to be over so I can resume my classes. The aim is to order a cup of coffee at a cafe or buy one croissant and one pain au chocolat at my local boulangerie without getting a nervous breakdown.
I can’t wait to restart my Parisian adventures again. A walk down the river seine, queuing and eating the best falafel in the world at La Marais or sipping a sinful cup of hot chocolate at Angelina Paris. I could write an entire article about this particular hot chocolate but that’s for another time. Let me know what are some of your favourite things to do in Paris (and France).
Thank god for books especially now. Reading for me is escaping to a new world without ever leaving your home. Through the pages you get to experience multitude of emotions and adventures. The gloomy heavy sadness when a lover cheats the protagonist, the excitement of stepping onto the stage for the first time for a ballet dancer, the fulfilling experience helping someone achieve a lifelong dream or traveling on a London tube late night with dyslexia.
I read a wide of genres of books. What hooks me is the authors ability to hold your hand and bring you forward as the mystery unveils.
Vivid imaginations are spread elaborately on pages.
It tingles your senses to let in various characters and plots into your inner being. Magical experience. Hope during this lockdown you get an opportunity to pick a book next to you and jump on a magic carpet ride.
Trying to find what to cook everyday can be daunting. I feel like a housewife in distressed waiting for the husband and the children returning home and expecting something delicious (substantial) to eat. :-)
We’ve been toggling between rice and pasta since lockdown. Its an Indian household and we can never be far away from rice. I remember one of the first thing we bought before the lockdown was a 10KG bag of basmati rice.
Today I wanted something creamy and simple to make. I’ve been watching lots of one pot pasta dishes on YouTube for inspiration. Today the menu was Creamy tagliatelles with courgette. Last Tuesday I bought lots of courgettes at the open market near the Mairie. I also had two bottles of milk that we might not be able to finish by the expiry date.
It’s easy peasy… you can try it too..
Start with a big pot. Since this one pot pasta you are going to cook the pasta together, so no need to boil them separately.
Thinly slice few springs of spring onion and five cloves of garlic and shallow fry them with extra virgin olive oil using low heat. At this stage you want to perfume the oil gently. For any cream based pasta its best to keep the flavours mild, you don’t want anything to overpower the creamy goodness.
Add sliced sausages and thinly sliced courgettes and cook for few minutes. Pour the milk enough cover the vegetables. I added one teaspoon of French mustard. The mild echo of heat is necessary to cut through the richness of the cream later. Once the liquid starts boiling add your pasta, I used dried egg pasta tagliatelles. Egg pastas are richer in taste. Cover the pot and cook until the pasta is al dente. I added a cup of water because the milk was getting thick as the pasta releases starch. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with grated Comte cheese at the end.
Yum….
Happy reading and cooking.
“Sept” is seven in French
