24 Days

The cooking class last night was really fun. We didn't get recipes, but there really wasn't much of one. We tips on how to cut the veggies, then cut the meat and everything else. Then we put the peppers and onions and garlic into a kettle and let that cook with salt and peparika. The meat was baby lamb. That was cut up and then put aside for later. We cut a crust to place on top of the meat, and then made leaf chips out of basil leaves for a garnish. After that, we made a caramel sauce and chocolate sauce for the dessert. We made the appatizer out of some crunchy bread-like dough and peparkia, and rolled that up & cut thin rounds. Then we placed them on a pan and inserted sticks to make lollipops. Those went into the oven and then we worked on the dessert. We took really thin circles of pie-crust like dough and rolled the chocolate into that. Then we folded it and cut the edges to make it prettier. Those went into the oven after the appatizers, and then we took a break. It was Alain's birthday, so we all celebrated with some nice champagne and ate the appatizer lollipops outdoors on the patio. After finishing up that and talking, we went back into the kitchen to cook the meat. It was fried with butter and some other stuff (salt..? I don't rememeber). Then we learned how to 'present' our food on the plate. There was a rectangular cookie cutter for the veggies. Then mini sponges for any drips. After that, the meat was added and followed by a basil leaf chip and a sauce. It was so pretty! It looked like something you'd see in a cooking magazine or something! The next part was probably my favorite: we got to eat. :P! The nine of us (Luc, Alain, Claire, Simon, Thomas, Anne, Elodie, Cédric, and I) went out to the table (inside this time since the sun had set), and our food was served to us. Normally, I'm not a huge meat person; I just eat it because I have to, but this baby lamb was SOOO good! I would honestly eat it any day, any time. Ahh! It was cooked PERFECTLY. The veggies were reaallyyy yummy, too, as was everything we ate! I even wiped my plate clean with the bread roll (something I've never done before, but is typical of the French). After we were done eating, we talked for a while. Then we went back into the kitchen to make our dessert plates. First, we sprinkled cocoa powder in a diagonal line across the plate. Then we made a design with the extra chocolate sauce from earlier. After that, the crêpe-like dessert was placed on top along with a scoop of vanilla ice cream along side. We ate that and mmmmmmm :D! It was delish. We talked awhile after eating, and I got home around 11:30/11:45 last night.

This morning, I woke up and fell back to sleep a million times before I finally got up. I did not sleep very well last night. When I finally did get up, I got myself ready and then worked a little more on my room. I got sidetracked after a while and painted my toe nails. Then I looked through my history book and packed a little for next week. Then my host mom and I went to a thrift store to look for ugly furnature for Thomas's birthday. He wants money for nice furnature, but instead, a group of us is going to rent a little moving truck and dress up and then unload tons of ugly crap. xD! We found a few things, including 2 blue folding chairs, another blue chair, an aquarium screen and old wood things we can use as legs for a table. We decided we're going to paint all the furnature blue so it all kind of matches. It's going to be really funny xD! But anyway, now I'm at home and my host mom is at the Mairie. Pierre is still sick, so he's hangin' out in front of the TV.

I'll talk to ya later!
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<3Miranda

Word of the day: La Mairie = the city hall