Café au Lait... The Parisian Way?: Vivre a Paris pendant quatre mois... Homestay, food, etc

This is my plate after I devoured my food. Detailed Images below entry

Vivre a Paris pendant quatre mois...Living in Paris for four months

When you reach a certain point in your life, living with your parents and family becomes a challenge, to say the least. You grow older, become an adult, and start desiring to be your own person. That's normal. However, it's much easier living at home with your parents, then living in a different country, with someone you don't even know, for more than 2 weeks! Leah and I are participants in the St John's study abroad program Paris Semester 2013. However, instead of staying on campus and "dorming", Leah and I are doing what is called Home stay. Home stay is when you live with a host family for whatever length of time the program is outlined. This experience can either be a positive experience, which is the goal, or it can be a negative one. Let me just say that while yes it has been a positive experience, it isn't east to say the least. Don't misunderstand me, our host mom Madame Dupetit is great. She's about 72, sweet as can be and helpful in anyway. However, it's a task adjusting to a new life, and being an extended guest in someone's home. Sometimes, one might overstay their welcome if you catch my drift. We want to be as cooperative as possible with rules and her way of life. It's just going to take longer to adapt then 11 day's I'll tell you. But, I'm open minded. I'm not closing myself off to any experiences that are to come. I mean it's only been 11 days. Things take time and like I said, we want to be apart of this family, if they'll let us. It's just a little unsettling to say the least. Let me say that one of the mega plus points in homestay is that we get authentic French meals every night.. well for four nights a week let me say. The other nights Leah and I have to survive on our own which has not been very delightful I'll just say, but we're trying. Hence parents and loved ones, the need for some Euros ($$$) but I digress.

So for four nights Monday/Tuesday/Thursday/Friday, we eat with the family. This is a little weird because when Madame and her daughter, who lives with her, and John, another foreign exchange student, were eating dinner on Wednesday night, Leah and I were in our rooms looking like some children who were sent to their rooms for misconduct . Lol. It's going to take some adjustments, it's hard. But other than that, it's been ok, again it's only been 11 days.

Here a few pictures of what we've eaten thus far. BTW, i just got my camera on Saturday, so our meals last week when we first arrived are not going to be posted up. The meals are from Lundi- Jeudi, (M-Thrs) with the exception of Mecredi (Wednesday). Tonights meal will be posted up later if Lee lee lets me. Everytime I try to go on the internet on my NEW COMPUTER, it keeps restarting so I have to use lee's. Posting about excursions and lunch later today. Stay tuned and...Stay Tasty! - Coocabelle

This is post is heavy with images and details.

This is what we had on Monday 21 Jan. 2013. Madame forgot the name of it but as you can see, it's half way finished. It's like a potato bake with pulled meat or almost ground beef textured. It was really delicious. I believe we had bread, bien sur ( of course) and a side salad but we finished the salad.

Here's an other image of dinner. Yum!

Now this here... let me tell you was Délicieux! OMG! It's like a crème brûlée without the brûlée toped with raspberries. It's has a real creamy flan like texture but not like a gelatin. Tasted similar to like homemade whipped cream, smelled live wonderful!

Here's another look at it... Just look at it!

This is dinner the following day . Tuesday 22 Jan. 2013. Madame wasn't feeling well so her daughter A. cooked us a meal that night. It's funny because earlier that for lunch I had like a pasta salad with Salmon and what do we have for dinner ladies and gentlemen... Pasta and Salmon. Hold on though, this was really delicious, my family back home knows i love some smoked salmon and thats what we had. It was a pasta wiith a creamy dressing with salmon fillets mixed in. Then we topped with Norweagean smoked salmon. Yummy Yummy!

Here's a closer picture of my plate I mean look at it, there was celery and other types of flavors but not too strong so that it didn't over power the fresh taste of the pink salmon on top! This was my favorite thus far.. Or so I thought.

Then after the pasta dish or plat , we had a lentil salad which was interesting... not my favorite but not disgusting either. It was very different. There's this vingarette salad dressing I believe she used. It had a very vingeray ( not a word but work with me people) which I think was due to the duh vingarette dressing lol.

And for dessert....crème glacée à la vanille et aux fraises- Vanilla Ice cream and Strawberry Sherbert. Enough said. Two for the price of one. The sherbert was like ice, like an Italian Ice texture, but it was awesome!

Again, just look at it, melts right on the screen doesn't it ?!!

Now, let me tell you... This right here.. This meal right here was soooooo goood! A. made this last night 24 Jan 2013 because Madame was still a little under the weather. I thought the Salmon was my favorite, nope! It's this and everyone who knows me well knows that my favorite dish is Steak, anything that resembles steak, we got a thang going on lol.

Also with this the steak, which was medium well, look at the pink in the middle if you don't believe me, was paired with a casserole that reminded me of scallop potatoes- cheese and potatoes, with cauliflower. Now Leah hates cauliflower but this girl didn't act like it last night. I tell you, I will be getting the french name of it later to post up, mom you got to make this

Here's a closer look of the dish. Just look at it!

This is my plate, and btw, I had seconds it was just so good. I just wanted everyone to see how the plate looks with all the dishes together. So again ladies and gent's ... Just look at it.

I saw A. scrapping some of this on her potato dish and steak/ roast beef so I did it too, not knowing what it was. It smelt like nutmeg. And it was.. muscade which is nutmeg in French. I was little hesitant at first but I'm here to try different things and to my supris, it heightened the flavor!