The Failed Mushroom Hunt

A few weeks ago, my housemate, Edwina, and I had been checking out this website she discovered called Meetup. It's a site where people in various cities create different interest groups and go on outings together. We were just seeing what was going on during the upcoming weekend, and there was a mushroom picking outing! Anyone who knows me well knows that I'm a little bit obsessed with food, and naturally I got SUPER excited about this mushroom hunt. I was going. And I was taking Edwina with me. I finally got her excited about it after my rambling on about how fun it was going to be. We were both imagining coming home with bags and bags overflowing with mushrooms. I even researched recipes and went out and bought ingredients. I was pumped.

Of course the day before the outing I came down with a cold, and the next morning woke up with it being even worse, but I was determined. I WAS GOING TO COME HOME WITH MUSHROOMS! So out we went bright and early to catch a train to meet the group.

It started off badly.....the people were kind of weird and we ended up having to wait another hour for the next train because ONE person missed the train. That was a rough beginning, but I still was happy because I was going to be picking mushrooms soon.

However, once in the forest, it became obvious pretty quickly that there were no mushrooms. None. My mood dropped as the minutes passed. After about half an hour Edwina and I were ready to call it quits and head home. I still had a cold and Edwina had a headache, but the problem was we had no idea where we were. Only our "guide" did. There was no escape. What began as a mushroom hunt turned into a 5 hour 20km+ (12+ mile) hike. I was dying by the end, and let me tell you, I was not the only one. The older, out of shape people (most people there), had not realized this was going to be a never-ending hike either. We were not a happy bunch of travelers.

Positive Note:
We did see a 13th century old mansion that was bombed by Germans as they left France at the end of World War II which was a neat thing to see.

The next day, I went to the a produce shop and bought mushrooms and just pretended I picked them. It made me feel better.
:)

With Love,
Christine

The Butcher Adventure

Last Wednesday, I had a plan. I had no class, so I was going to go shopping early and make a big batch of slow cooked bolognaise sauce that I could have for dinner, and have frozen for future meals. I had bought almost all of my ingredients at the local Franprix. My last stop was the butcher shop on my favorite food shop lined street, rue Cadet. I walked over to the shop practicing in my mind how exactly I was going to order this meat which they grind for you on the spot.

When I got to the shop they were closing up for lunch. Nooo! I started looking all around on that street. There HAD to be at least one other butcher on this street that I had missed on all my walks on it. I turned around, and there was a very small one right behind me. Perfect. I ran in, looked in the very small meat case, and told the woman what I wanted. She told me in broken English that it wasn't beef, it was "cheval". For the life of me, I could not remember what this word meant. I knew that I knew it, but it just would not come to me. I looked at her with a squinty-eyed, bewildered look on my face, and she said "ox". Oh! Well that's close enough to beef I thought, and the woman next to me told me it was good, so I went ahead with my purchase and began the walk home.

As I was walking, I finally remembered what cheval meant. Horse. I nearly stopped in my tracks. No, that can't be right I thought. As soon as I got home, I pulled up good ol' Google Translate and put it in. Sure enough, horse was the translation. Well shoot. I had already bought it....and the horse was already dead.....and in a pasta sauce I might not really taste it....so I figured I might as well go ahead and cook it up.

The first bite was tough. All I could think of was little ponies prancing about in a field. In all reality as a whole, it wasn't bad. A little irony tasting, but edible. Not something I would want to eat again really, more because of the mental taboo than anything, but as a result of that big batch of sauce I made, I still have a freezer full of it!

The finished sauce

The day after making the sauce, I went back over to where the shop was and looked at the sign outside. It says "Boucherie Chevaline" = Horse Butcher....and they have little horse sculptures at the top. No wonder they couldn't give me beef!