Bagel Bagel

I really had cravings for bagels for a while. And living in the country, without a Picard nearby is not really convenient.  Those bagels that we find in this frozen food store are not really good though.  In Paris, you can easily find tasty bagels in Le Marais District, hand made ones.  But Paris is too far for me.  So I've decided to make some today. Good thing I bought philly cream cheese.

I basically followed this recipe (sorry it's in French): Recette de bagel maison

 I added onions, sesame seeds and sunflower seeds.  

This is not difficult to do, except you need to boil them first before cooking them in the oven.  Hope you will try this at home, totally worth the effort.

On a complete unrelated subject, I am in the process of renewing my Canadian passport.  They made things easier for expats.  They have a simpler form that enables you to renew quickly without having to ask a reference person, such as a lawyer or a doctor to sign your form and no need for a birth certificate.

The hard part was to get ID photos that are at specific size.  I had to go in Lille to a photographer.  I really need to find another one, because the one I went to was not too keen to take the photo because of the odd size. At first, the employee said that they don't do this ID photo size, and I said but I did take a photo 5 years ago at your shop.  So he managed to let his colleague do the picture for him.  If you know a good photographer that is nice enough to do ID photos for Canadians in the North region of France, let me know.

Another money pinching tip and a green action

If you have a laser printer, you can have tons and tons of old toners you don't know what to do with them.  Some office supply stores can take your toners in exchange of discount voucher, like Office dépôt in France, they take your toner for 1 euro, you get a discount of 1 euro if you buy something there.  But if you want cold hard cash, I have found a great website : "toner vide dot fr" They are located in Pas de Calais, France. You can use this service if you live in France.

 I never thought that trash can worth that much.  They gave me 2,50 euros per empty toner, but it has to be a brand.  You register online, you put the empty toners in a box, and you weight it.  They will send you a prepaid sticker for La Poste and you don't even have to pay for transport.  I was skeptical at first, but I received the "enveloppe T - colis postal".

On the negative side, they would send you a cheque minus some toners that they have rejected, they even sent me pictures of the so called broken ones.  Anyways, I got 57 euros for 34 empty toners! yeah!  It is better than discard them in a trash bin or at the déchetterie.

Can't believe that I got cash for those toners that were sitting in a box for a year.

 

Penny Pinching

I've told you about my fixation on British TV, these days, I enjoy watching Superscrimpers.  I would never see that kind of show in Canada.  The show gives you tricks to spend less. With the economic crisis in Europe, tips on saving money are always good to take.

From my point of view, money was never an issue in Canada.  People work and work, young or old.  In France, wages are lower but the commodities are quiet expensive. But the French government is partly to blame:

-Tough laws on labour : really hard to hire and layoff employees, the employer must give a redundancy payment to the employee  when leaving the company

-The cost on salaries are so high and a company has to think twice about hiring someone.  You can see often small shops prefer to close for holidays than hire someone to take care of it while the boss is gone.
Some companies are forced to pay for lunch for employees if they can't return home to have lunch at noon.

 - The government gives a lot of money for children:

Allowance/Month

first child : 0 euro / 2 children : 127,05 euros / 3 children: 289,83 euros / 

and for an additional kid: 162,78 euros

And for back to school, kids can receive up to 350 euros to buy school supplies

I saw on TV a French mother complaining about not receiving this allowance earlier.  She received 1000 euros for her 4 children.  She still managed to complain even after having that much cash from the government.

-French people are encouraged to save up their money with "Livret A", you can save up to 15000 euros with an interest rate of 2,25% per year.

Saving is good, but spending helps the economy rolling. 

-Summer and Winter sales in the stores are regulated by the government.  Stores cannot put on sales items whenever they want.  According to region, they last a month with specific dates.  
 

-The government doesn't allow all stores to open on Sundays. Some grocery stores open on Sunday morning, some exception are made, for Paris or other touristic cities.

The list can go on and on.  But a government that has so much control and spends too much is not helping this economic crisis.

But some habits are getting to me, I am being more careful on money since I've been living in Europe.  They are really more careful about using their electricity, they consume less than Canadians.  Most French households don't have a clothes dryer.  I'm telling you, Canadians are very spoiled.  

White Peach Tart, best tart ever

In response to a comment about on post, about food that expats miss the most, 

"As someone who is not an expat it drives me nuts to hear people talk about the food and things they miss. It's another country, it's not suppose to be the same!!!  As a realist I understand that I have no idea what I'm talking about and I realize that it would be a complete shock to suddenly not be able to get things I take for granted."

I totally agree that expats must adapt to their host country, but tast of food from where you grew up is necessary from time to time.  I have more than adapt in my life in France.  I have learned from my French family how to cook French cuisine.  A lot of French do their own jams (confiture).  They also pick some blackberries in the woods or wild pears and apples.  I have picked up a lot from French habits.  Some are good some are not!

Here's a another tart recipe I want to share.  I have made the dough from scratch this time.  Delicious!

Pâte brisée - Shortcrust patry dough

250 g of flour

125 of butter

70 g of sugar

2 egg yolks

50 ml of cold water

pinch of salt

Mix every ingredients together with a food processor until you form a ball.  If it's too sticky, add a little bit of flour.  Let it sit in the fridge for 2 hours.

Then roll to form a nice flat round dough. 

Filling

5-6 white or yellow ripe peaches

I don't recall having white peaches in Canada, but these ones are so flagrant.

1 small cup of cream

1 egg

3-4 t.s. of sugar of vanilla sugar
Whisk all the ingredients together. 

Cut the peaches into quarters and sprinkle with the vanilla sugar.  Make sure your peaches are ripe enough.

Align nicely the fruits on the pie crust and pour the cream and egg mixture on it.

Cook in the oven at 180 °C for 40 minutes or until brown.

You can glaze with a table spoon or two, with apricot jam when the tart is cooked.  It will give a nice shine to it  You can do this with prunes or any fruit you like.  If using prunes, make sure to add enough sugar to balance the acidity of the fruit.  It is a nice way to enjoy summer fruits.

It's hot in here

Whoo! after several months of bad weather, it really feels like summer now.  We've been on a heat wave for a few days in France, pretty much all over the country.  We've been hiding from the sun in our cold  house.  It is a house built in 1821, all in brick, so it is always relatively cold in here.  It doesn't seem like Air Conditioner is mainstream in Europe.

We didn't get the chance to go swimming in the sea.  People were stock on the highways for hours, just to soak in the water.

                                                                       photo: lavoix dunord

We just wasted our weekend hiding from the heat and watched movies at home.  I managed to go jogging a little bit, in the evening.

On a unrelated subject, the work environment is so much better since the "nabot" left.   He even grinned when he learned that he was let go.  Good riddance. 

Food, my favorite topic

A recurring topic in expat blogs is the food that expats are missing from home.  As a food obsessed, I must say I do miss some food in Canada.


But yesterday, we went to the Netherlands, so I stocked up on goodies: blueberries, peanut butter, caesar dressing and so on.  They don't exactly eat like North Americans but we can easily find some food that we've been craving.

We headed to the Zeeland province, in the Netherlands.  The weather was nice, we took a nap at the beach, the water was too cold to swim in it.

And the Netherlands is also the land of Horticulture so I couldn't resist on going to a gardening centre.  Look what I found: Lemon grass.

 

My little garden is almost complete with asian plants now.  I have my thai basil and my lemon grass. 

Annoyance part 2

Gosh! isn't that annoying to get up in the morning and be already stressed out.  I thought that France was on holiday in August.  Since we work at our house, we could get calls at any time.  Our clients are mostly farmers and they don't understand that office hours are from 9am to 5 pm, period!   I have to admit that these clients are the worst, they never pay on time but they expect everything to be free.  Some of our most annoying clients are calling 5 times in a row, expecting us to pick up the phone.  I know, it's not professional not to answer, but when you send a technician for maintenance and he shows up right away, we never hear of the clients after that, no cheque no nothing. 

And yesterday, at 5pm, one other employee called and told us he won't be able to make it today.  Because while he was driving on the highway, the hood of his car opened and smashed the windshield, while rolling at 130 km/h.  He didn't get injured but insisted to get a day off.  This is scary.  I've never heard of this before.  Never get a clio people.

Let's hope no farmer is calling today, because I won't be answering the phone!