une goutte dans la mer // a drop in the ocean

In one of my initial posts, I joked around about needing to find myself a sugar daddy. Maybe I shouldn't be joking anymore and actually go and get myself one?

I kid, I kid.

A couple of weeks ago I attended the first course of a set of cooking lessons. We made a dinner of fresh fish from Normandy, ginger-garlic rice, stir-fried zucchini (or was it cucumber?), and oeufs à la neige for dessert. There was also, of course, the requisite wine and cheese and bread.

I didn't really learn too much new stuff, but since we started out simple, it's not a bad thing. I'd never made oeufs à la neige before, but I'd had experience with meringues and custards with all my baking escapades. The combination of fish and rice was absolutely succulent, and as an added bonus, reminded me a little bit of home while managing to be inherently French (I think it was due to the presence of my-weight-in-butter in the sauce).

Oeufs à la neige, translated literally as "snowy eggs" but probably better known as "floating islands" or "floating meringues," is a dessert in which you have pieces of meringue (poached with milk) floating in a sea of rich vanilla custard. It is then topped with caramel.

The lighting provided a wonderful atmosphere for dinner, but as for taking pictures? Not so much.

But as good as the food was, the reason for which I brought up cooking lessons immediately after I mentioned my need for a sugar daddy is thus: Mme B. has a very, very cool apartment and access to baking supplies that I can't imagine in my wildest dreams.

How cool?

Well, to start with, she lives on the top floor of a very snazzy building with two layers of code access protection and its own concierge. Upon arrival, Mme B. pointed to some chick schmoozing with the concierge, noting that she was "a former Bond girl." Yes, James Bond. She lives in a building with a former Bond girl. How cool is that? (Well, apparently not so cool, because according to Mme B., the Bond girl is a little folle.)

But that is not what I am jealous of.

Mme B.'s top floor apartment has two walls which are mostly made of glass and are effectively just two huge windows leading out to two huge balconies. On one side, you have a view of the entirety of the famous Jardin du Luxembourg. It's like a perfectly manicured forest, spreading out almost as far as the eye can see. On the other side, you have a view of the rest of Paris. Sitting at her dinner table, I was treated to a flawless view of the Eiffel Tower...during the light show. And the apartment was huge and well-decorated and everything.

To add, Mme B. has the most beautiful set of scales ever in her kitchen. And she is also the owner of a huge jar of vanilla beans. I've never had a chance to use a vanilla bean in my life. FYI: I don't know how much vanilla beans go for in France, but in the US, their cost ranges anywhere from $5-$8...each. Mme B doesn't bother with vanilla extract.

I'd have pictures, but like I said, the lighting wasn't so cool.

Family, I love you. But I am going to get myself adopted or find myself a sugar daddy or something so that I can live a life like this too. I don't want to come back. I want to stay here and play with vanilla beans while sipping wine and watching the Eiffel Tower for the rest of my life.

Kidding again! But the vanilla beans...