So while I procrastinate making my blog post about Carnaval (it's a lot of pictures and takes forever to upload, okay?!) let me tell you an embarrassing story that happened to me today. On Tuesdays I do a language exchange with a family. I pick up the daughters from school and speak to them in English and French for a couple hours, and then their parents speak with me in French for a few hours over dinner. We try our very best to only speak French.
Before dinner, Anne-Gaëlle, the mother, asks me if I like canelle, which is cinnamon, because we would be having it for dinner tonight. While she occasionally cooks traditional French cuisine for me, she often cooks other ethnicity's foods so I figured she was cooking Moroccan tonight as they use a lot of cinnamon. Here's how the conversation went, but all in French:
Me: Yes, I like cinnamon.
Anne: How do you say it in English?
Me: "Cinnamon"
Anne: Oh, okay!
Me: Yeah, Jeremy likes to put it in his coffee.
Anne: Oh, really?
Me: Yeah, and I'll put it in my hot chocolate or tea.
By now, the whole family is looking at me with slightly odd expressions.
Mathieu (husband): Do you cook it first?
Me: (Starting to think something is off) No....
Anne: That's interesting. How much do you put?
Me: I just add a pinch on top....(no one is saying anything)...it's actually good...(silence)...a slight sweet spicy flavor...
Anne: Oh! Oh! Canelle!!
The whole family starts laughing and Anne-Gaëlle goes into the fridge and pulls out a package of what looks like giant gnocchis and the container reads quenelle at which point I start cracking up too. I heard canelle (kah-nelle) instead of quenelle (keh-nelle) and she had heard C'est la même which means "It's the same" instead of cinnamon. I have to admit they held themselves together very well while listening to me talk about how Jeremy and I enjoy putting uncooked dough into our hot beverages. Kudos to the kids, at their age I would have been making all kinds of faces.
Quenelle lyonnaise is a typical French dish that comes from Lyon. It's a dough made from flour, butter, eggs, cheese, and nutmeg formed into large egg-like shapes and poached in a sauce that's a mix of béchamel with a little bit of ketchup. The non-vegetarian version involves adding fish, typically pike, to the sauce and then forcing it through a sieve to avoid all the bones. Can you imagine putting that into your coffee?
Before dinner, Anne-Gaëlle, the mother, asks me if I like canelle, which is cinnamon, because we would be having it for dinner tonight. While she occasionally cooks traditional French cuisine for me, she often cooks other ethnicity's foods so I figured she was cooking Moroccan tonight as they use a lot of cinnamon. Here's how the conversation went, but all in French:
Me: Yes, I like cinnamon.
Anne: How do you say it in English?
Me: "Cinnamon"
Anne: Oh, okay!
Me: Yeah, Jeremy likes to put it in his coffee.
Anne: Oh, really?
Me: Yeah, and I'll put it in my hot chocolate or tea.
By now, the whole family is looking at me with slightly odd expressions.
Mathieu (husband): Do you cook it first?
Me: (Starting to think something is off) No....
Anne: That's interesting. How much do you put?
Me: I just add a pinch on top....(no one is saying anything)...it's actually good...(silence)...a slight sweet spicy flavor...
Anne: Oh! Oh! Canelle!!
The whole family starts laughing and Anne-Gaëlle goes into the fridge and pulls out a package of what looks like giant gnocchis and the container reads quenelle at which point I start cracking up too. I heard canelle (kah-nelle) instead of quenelle (keh-nelle) and she had heard C'est la même which means "It's the same" instead of cinnamon. I have to admit they held themselves together very well while listening to me talk about how Jeremy and I enjoy putting uncooked dough into our hot beverages. Kudos to the kids, at their age I would have been making all kinds of faces.
Quenelle lyonnaise is a typical French dish that comes from Lyon. It's a dough made from flour, butter, eggs, cheese, and nutmeg formed into large egg-like shapes and poached in a sauce that's a mix of béchamel with a little bit of ketchup. The non-vegetarian version involves adding fish, typically pike, to the sauce and then forcing it through a sieve to avoid all the bones. Can you imagine putting that into your coffee?
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