We moved to Sète almost 6 years ago, and into our current apartment over 3 years ago. But we're still (slowly, right?!?) moving in!
Just these last few weeks, we:
What next? And When?
The first time I made chicken meatballs, it was an act of desperation - I had tough chicken, and didn't know what else to do (here's how it started). I never thought I'd make it again, but it turned out to be a hit! It was messy to make, but once frozen, it made lunches and dinners a snap! I kept modifying it, and finally decided I had changed it so much, it had to be captured 🙂
It's now about half chicken and half veggies. Here's what the veggies look like...
Chicken Meatballs
In a food processor, "chop" very fine:
2 small onions
1 small zucchini
5-6 medium carrots
Double-handful of celery leaves
Move to a large bowl
Mince (chop in food processor) 5 chicken breasts (boneless, skinless) - best to do this in 2 batches.
Mix in:
1 large egg
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 teaspoon salt
Mix everything together - it will be a *huge* bowl
Form into small, slightly flattened meatballs, and freeze in a pan on layers of plastic wrap. Once frozen, transfer to a container to store.
For immediate consumption, pan-fry on high. When browned, flip and brown the other side.
~~~
The Norwegian option: add ginger and nutmeg to some of the mixture. Serve with gravy and lingonberry jam (cranberry sauce will do in a pinch).
~~~
This made 80 small meatballs, plus a few bigger ones 😉.
The really big ones can replace hamburger patties. Others are good in curry, stew, stir fry, spaghetti, wraps... It seems to work better to add the spices when cooking rather than when mixing.
~~~
December 2022 supermarket max-pack price for chicken - 2.5kg for 30€ ($5.60/lb). Things are getting expensive!
~~~
For a smaller batch, use:
1 small onion
1/2 to 1 small zucchini
1-2 medium carrots
small handful of celery leaves
2 chicken breasts (boneless, skinless)
1 egg
dash of salt
What's the best part of early winter in France? Why, the FOOD, of course! Building up to Christmas and the New Year, stores are *full* of interesting choices! There are complete aisles dedicated to foie gras, more for chocolates, another case full of giant birds! And the special whiskies and champagnes arrive! There's just no other time of year to fully appreciate the French specialities cooked at home.
Tonight being the Winter Solstice, we decided to go all out 😀
I found this pre-stuffed bird - different mushrooms, no lactose... I'm cooking it with carrots.
And! Asparagus (from Peru, just so we can celebrate ahead of Spring!)! Baked potatoes, and mushrooms on the side.
All accompanied by Champagne and Picpoul de Pinet 😋😋😋
(I tell a secret - we didn't get to the Picpoul this time)
Today is *cold!* As I was walking to my last English conversation workshop this afternoon, all bundled up, but still cold, I told myself that I would soon be in warmer weather!
Here's what today's temperatures are in a few select cities (Celsius of course)...
In my department (Hérault), we have a yellow warning this evening for snow and ice (but Sète usually isn't quite that cold).
After my workshop, the lovely Renate gave me a ride home, so I got to avoid the sprinkles and wind 😀.
I saw this* recipe by my e-friend, Francesco Strazzanti, and *had* to try it!
(https://youtu.be/YrwrYr5rJ8w)
~~~
* as usual, I had to modify it just a bit 😒... I used 2 mandarins instead of the Sicilian orange, and a shallot instead of the red onion.
When we first moved here, I wrote this post, giving all the (positive) reasons to choose Sète - "Why Sète?" Now, to be fair, I felt that I should give the (other) side - "why not?"
I like big cities, that's for sure! Sète has only 45k population, so it's the smallest town I've lived in. Over the 5 (almost 6) years I've lived here, I've noticed a few drawbacks, almost all due to size (I believe).
1) While there's a huge artist population, there is no art supply store - you have to go online or go to Montpellier for that.
2) All your immigration and integration tasks have to be done in Montpellier. Sometimes that meant leaving my place by dawn just to make sure I was at the préfecture in time for an early afternoon appointment.
3) The bus system is great, but it stops at about 8pm. It runs later in Summer (that's defined as mid-July through August). I've had quite a walk home at times! In Summer, the schedule just goes out the window - you catch whatever bus comes, when it comes.
4) It's very crowded in Summer, which isn't all bad, but it means you can't drive anywhere or count on finding a parking space once you arrive. Once, we drove to the beach on a Saturday in August - after 45 minutes of stop and go, we gave up and went back home.
5) The rental situation is just awful! It's a lot of work to find something, and you have to have a good (according to the French rules) dossier. I saw an ad for a great apartment, and it was gone the next day.
6) Currently, TGV trains go through Sète, but that will change in a few years. They're running a new TGV line from Montpellier to Perpignan. This means we will have to take a TER to one of the TGV stations and switch.
7) The approach of city government seems to be to support more cars instead of alternatives. In just the last year, they have completed 2 new parking structures, expanded an existing lot, and started another structure. They've begun a new residential neighborhood by the port, with no expanded bus plan.
8) There is no good way to get to the local airport - you can drive, or you can take a bus, train, tram, then shuttle. Getting home late means you need a taxi or you stay overnight in the airport hotel.
9) The noise and air pollution is getting worse - it's difficult to walk anywhere around our place without encountering a lot of unpleasant car fumes.
~~~
As far as the tourist season goes - I actually like it! Walking along the streets, hearing multiple languages, being asked for directions... Heaven! I don't live right in the center, where the festivals go late and loud; I'm close enough (now) that I can walk home. Most of my friends use a car in winter, but switch to the bus in summer. I've been late for appointments (pure horror for me), but everyone is very laid back here - 15 minutes is not late.
~~~
So, would you like to live in Sète? We still do enjoy it, given all the positives, and even the negatives 🙂.
Last night we went to Montpellier for the light show! This is something like a parade, but reversed - the crowd moves past the displays instead of the floats moving past the spectators 🙂
Here is the "cat show" from the préfecture
~~~
Montpellier isn't the only French city that has this - Lyon's is very well known.
We took the train from Sète just for the evening.
The various shows lasted less than 10 minutes each, and started at 6:30. There were 10 locations scattered around the city center.
You can see videos from previous years here:
http://www.montpellier.fr/4210-coeur-de-ville-en-lumieres.htm
We had a good one this evening!
 |
| From the kitchen balcony |
 |
| From the living room window |
Really??? Who does this?!?
For info, there was a good 5 feet in front of this car...
I miss well-marked parking spaces. And I really miss having a garage!
The other day I walked past a fruit stand, and a pineapple caught my eye - it was from Costa Rica! Well, of course I had to get it! But then what?
This!
Pineapple Sauce
1/2 cup Pineapple
1/4 cup Brown sugar
1 cup Water
1/2 tsp Ginger
1/4 tsp Thyme
Cloves, 1-2 taps
Cayenne, 1 tap
1/4 tsp Salt
At end, stir in and simmer to thicken
1 tsp Cornstarch in a slurry
~~~
Very good with:
Cod - simmer covered, 5 minutes, then remove and stir in cornstarch slurry
Green beans - cooked separately for nice color
Rice
** Don't do what I did! My first try at the sauce, I wasn't paying attention, and I burned it 🙄 - smoke everywhere, and there was just no saving it. I started over...
I have wanted to add some fermented foods to our diet for a while now, but almost everything I've seen in that category is something we either can't have (yogurt, kefir) or already know we don't much like (kimchi, vinegar-anything). Well, tempeh was something new to try! I found a package in the Bio store in the next town, and found this recipe (which, as usual, I had to modify a bit)...
Teriyaki Broccoli Tempeh
200 grams Tempeh, 1/4 inch strips (marinate)
1 Onion, chopped
2/3 lb Broccoli, chopped
3 Garlic cloves, pressed
Olive oil
Cooked rice
Mix Sauce, and marinate tempeh overnight in the fridge:
1/4 cup Soy sauce
1/2 TBS brown sugar
1 TBS Molasses
2 cloves Garlic, pressed
1/2 tsp Ginger
1 TBS Oil
~~~
Brown tempeh in oil on medium, 3-4 minutes per side.
Add sauce, stir to coat
Add broccoli, onion, garlic.
I added some extra teriyaki sauce (bottled)
Cook and stir occasionally for 10 minutes
Serve over brown rice
~~~
It was pretty good, but not something I would go out of my way to make (unless eating tempeh regularly becomes important). Also, it was very filling! 100 grams is a lot for a serving - that's what a steak haché (hamburger) size is here, which is fairly small by American standards, but I guess tempeh is denser...
This was based on:
https://www.eatingbirdfood.com/teriyaki-tempeh-and-broccoli/
The other day, I bought my usual max-pack of chicken breasts (2.5 kg). I froze some, poached a couple for lunch meat, and set aside several more for dinner and apéros.
Well, it's a good thing that we tried the lunch meat first, because it was tough as an old bird! This is so unusual here, it threw me! There was no way I could serve this batch of chicken for apéros (I was planning on my chicken nuggets), and we struggled to think of what to do with the already cooked stuff (besides throwing it out 🙄). I finally just chopped it up fine - we tried it in wraps and quesadillas, but even that was not completely pleasant. I will probably put the rest in the freezer, and use it a bit at a time in soups or casseroles.
For the rest? I asked for help in a cooking group, and got some great ideas - soups, enchiladas, slicing it fine, marinading, pounding flat for roll-ups...
I don't have a pressure cooker, meat grinder, or tenderizer. But we had talked about getting a mini food processor for Rick to use when I'm away, and I wondered if that could work for the meat... I ended up buying a mid-range one, and I tried it out today - with good results!
 |
| Lunch - chicken meatballs, ~fried rice |
I decided to try the grater, with a fall-back to the chopper. It worked! I ended up throwing out about a quarter cup of connective tissue at the end. Here's the rest
I cooked some chopped onion and green beans in the leftover oil, then added some precooked brown rice - it made a delicious pseudo fried rice, and a perfect lunch!
The food processor is certainly messy; that's the main reason we didn't have one till now. But it saved our bacon (or rather, our chicken) this time, and will let us prep food without too much chopping by hand. And that's what we need 🙂
It's been nearly a decade since I wrote about feeling Sparkly, getting a sparkling clean house all by myself...
Well, a few weeks ago, I decided that a decade (ok, OK! Eight years 🙄) was long enough for that experiment! I started it in an apartment in New Mexico, which was relatively easy to keep clean, and very satisfying to see. Since then, we've moved to France, and moved again, still in France. The French places we have lived are just not easy! Besides all the normal cleaning (including stone floors and exposed plumbing), there's an unbelievable amount of dust (it has its own thread on one French forum I'm in), and! Mold! It's a constant battle!
In the middle of a cleaning routine, I often found myself swearing and angry, and generally banging around. It was not pleasant. Eventually, I proved beyond a doubt that having a list, a calendar entry, and cleaning supplies does *not* mean that your apartment gets cleaned...
It was time to move on. I found a couple of companies that advertised housecleaning, but when I talked to them (already a difficult hurdle for me), as soon as they heard that I wanted regular cleanings, boom! Ah, non, we don't do that 😕. I guess the third time is the charm though; we signed a contract a couple of weeks ago with a cleaning service - Isabelle has now been here twice, and the place is getting back into shape!
We're starting to work out a routine - she's here 2 hours per week, so she takes care of the basics (dust, vacuum, mop, kitchen, bathroom), and I get special projects (de-mold, de-calc, de-frost 🤭). We're both busy the whole time, and this is just a one-bedroom apartment!
The nice thing is that it's a schedule that we're paying for, so there's no incentive to cancel or delay-delay-delay.
Speaking of paying... France has a very interesting outlook on these sorts of small jobs. The temptation is to pay for them under the table, and the work doesn't count when "done on the black." From the worker's point of view, it doesn't count towards the pension, and there are no benefits like top-up health insurance, meal and fuel subsidies, vacations, or unemployment. It's also illegal, of course, but they keep 100% of what they're paid. From France's point of view, there's a whole group of people who are at a disadvantage, living on the edge. The government eventually pays for this situation in one way or another. Plus, the government doesn't get their tax money from undocumented work.
What's the solution? People are given an incentive to hire workers legally - the government subsidizes these small jobs by paying half of the bill! Fifty percent off! The workers get all the benefits, plus a take-home pay that is about what they would get on the black. We who hire them pay about what we would for a cash job. France gets tax dollars and keeps an intact social contract - no big surprise costs for suddenly disadvantaged situations.
The method (known as CESU) for this is somewhat in flux. For us, the company we signed up with took care of all the paperwork - we now have an account with them, and with URSSAF (I'm not going to even try to say what that acronym is for, but just know that it's a government entity that's needed for this). They bill us at the end of each month for 50%, and URSSAF pays the rest to them, and enters a credit on our tax account. At tax time, it shows up as a credit we've already taken. Seamless, right? (Any hiccups may be blogged about at the time).
Meanwhile, here's to celebrating!
~~~
The company: Shiva
My head is full of different languages! (So watch your language 😉)
On Monday, I had the first (of just three) English conversation workshop, so that wasn't too challenging. But Tuesday, I started Spanish conversation! It was encouraging though, since even though we left Costa Rica over 8 years ago, I recognized words and phrases that others spoke, and a few came back to me in mid-sentence 😁. I've also started Duolingo for Spanish, and it's coming back quickly!
On Wednesday, it was back to French! My Sète group had a little walk planned; they took the bus to the top of our mountain, and I drove to meet them. Then we all walked to the forest, talking all the way (ok, some of that was in English...).
Here are some photos from my walk
The rest of the week was full of chores, also in French (as usual, so that also was not bad at all).
Here's the Bluefin Tuna* Steak dinner we had tonight - it was yummy!
Marinated in white wine, crushed garlic, ginger, and thyme. Mine was seared 90 seconds on one side, 60 seconds on the other. Rick's was seared, then simmered in the marinade along with the green beans. Served with caramelized onion, brown rice, and some chopped mango.
The wine made the green beans a little ugly, but they tasted good...
*This is Thon Rouge in France.
It's been a busy week (already!)...
Monday - I finally found a company that will do regular housecleaning. I had talked to two others, but as soon as I said I wanted someone to clean weekly, Non, non, we don't do that 🙁. Well, we got that going (to be covered in a separate post, because it's actually more interesting than it seems).
Tuesday - my local association (club) celebrated 50 years! I went to the party 🎉 - there were lovely snacks, sangria, and of course conversations. The weather was *amazing* so I walked there and back, and several of us also spent a fair amount of time out in the courtyard.
Wednesday - more arranging housecleaning, plus figuring out our Florida ballot.
Thursday - today! I finally got to the framer's! I used the last of my old 10-trip bus pass to get there. I laughed when I saw the stamps - we first used it in September of 2018! And of course, we stayed off the bus completely for 2020 and most of 2021...
At noon, I walked through the covered market (Les Halles), and measured the air quality (I have a gadget). It looks *very* well ventilated, so it is back on our list of favorite eating places!
Somewhere along the way, I managed to find a beautiful bluefin tuna steak! It's what's for dinner 😋.
I took the bus back (which had a huge detour, but it luckily didn't skip my usual stop), then went to the grocery store (veal stew tomorrow night!).
Yes, I am a bit tired! But happy to have so much done!
We've lived in France for over 5 years now, and last week, we finally modified our wills! But why do it at all? We had wills on file in California - we were set, right? Yes and no.
Once you're a resident of France, the French inheritance laws and taxes govern your world-wide assets. So, our chore last week made us a lot less anxious 🙂. We had an appointment with a notaire in a nearby town, recommended by a friend.
It was an easy drive, and the appointment took less that half an hour - we followed up with a nice lunch out and a stroll around town.
 |
| Marseillan roundpoint with anchor |
 |
| There's Sète across the étang |
~~~
Our wills - we each wrote it out by hand, and the notaire took care of filing it. These revoke all previous wills. Total time was about 15 minutes; total cost was 150€.
~~~
What to do, when...
When one spouse dies, the survivor
- takes the death certificate to the notaire
- modifies any ownership papers (house, car, accounts)
- files taxes (owes nothing) within 6 months
At both deaths, the administrator
- takes the death certificate(s) to the notaire
- works with notaire to settle everything
I had some pretty ripe bananas that I threw into the freezer before one of our trips this Summer, and finally thought of what to do with them!
Our usual process when things like this happen:
Me - these things are taking up too much freezer space, but I don't know what to do with them! Banana bread?
Rick - well, I'm not a fan of banana bread. How about frying them, like maduro?
Me - hmmm! Yeah!
Me - hmmm. This thawed banana is awfully squishy...
Dashes of:
- salt
- coriander
- chipotle
- ground cloves
- ground ginger
Rick - mmm! This is good!
🙂
Scotland in summer is full of flowers!
Here's the famous thistle, the national flower of Scotland, in its natural state
And here it is, in its symbolic state
These stunning wildflowers (Rosebay Willowherb) lined the roadways and railways all across Scotland; they formed enormous drifts of brilliant pink
Here they are, setting off the heather-covered hills. Heather only blooms for about 6 weeks...
 |
| Let's take this road! |
Posts
All Comments
