Well, some exciting things underway. Bill and I have already booked our 1 week vacation to Florence (edit: oops! I mean Paris), plane ticket, airport transportation, etc. Unfortunately there is not an opening for the accomodations we wanted, so we have to keep looking for that. But there are a lot of good deals in good places in Paris, and we're looking for places with kitchens so that we spend less on food and just go shopping and make our meal at the end of the day instead. Trying to cut corners where we can, since everything costs money nowadays. Anyway, most of the places we're looking at are in the 4th or 3rd arrondissements in Paris, which is very close to the city center. I'm very excited to finally put my years of French into action, if only for a week.
In any case, more progress on my oil painting today, and I have more pictures! Speaking of which, just so you all know you can enlarge all the pictures we see to full size (which is quite large) if you click on them. So if you're having trouble seeing details you can see things in more detail than you could possibly want if you click.
Side-by-side comparison -- new to the left, old to the right.
Bill took this side view of the cup and paper towel painting, cleverly entitled "Cup and Paper Towel." As you can see, I basically painted over the paper towel and started again with it. It is more proportionate now -- the little imprints in the towel were much too big before and looked more like marbles. There is more of a background in the... well, background. Those stripes are supposed to be light refracting off of the glass. And the cup's dimensions have changed -- some of the "arches" of the glass underneath the lip moved to the left in the "away" side of the cup. But hey, even Michelangelo had to change his initial lines.
There's a picture of me in front of my painting. So yes, it's actually mine!
And just a straight on photo. That's the one annoying thing about oil is that it is very reflective -- which is a pain when you are trying to view a Leonardo or a Raffaelo in the museums but there's too much light in the room. My painting is probably the most "gray" of all of the ones in the class -- everyone else's contains much more black. I don't think there is any black in my painting at all. I might change that, I'm afraid of it becoming too "washed out."
Anyway, I had better finish up soon because we move onto our next project next week. I can't believe we've been here almost 4 weeks already!
I was very proud of myself yesterday. At Food Club we had our most adventurous menu yet. We started with chicken liver pate (my teacher firmly believes the French stole it from the Italians... she believes a lot of things the French got credit for the Italians did first), which was quite good. I think Bill and I ate half of them by ourselves. Then we had a bread-and-tomato soup, which I liked but also had a hard time with because the soggy bread made my stomach turn a bit. But if you hadn't told me there was bread in it I would have liked it a lot more, I bet. Then the main course was rabbit cacciatore and broccoli raab. The rabbit was a little disheartening before we cooked it, since when she took the pieces out of the package I was piecing it back together in my mind... but once the meat browned it lost it's "bunny" connotation and turned into "food." It was really, really good. I've never been a fan of broccoli raab, but this was probably the best recipe for it I've tasted. So David, we'll make that one for you when we get back. And of course, we had biscotti for dessert -- interestingly biscotti just means cookie... I forget the full name for the biscotti we recognize as "biscotti" at home in Starbucks, but you have to specify here.
Good news from home! Mom now has a mezzaluna thanks to our good friend Ellie, so she can join in the Italian cooking style! I have no idea where you could possibly find a mezzaluna in America, so it's really something unique to have in your home. Plus it's super easy to use, much easier to chop up onions than attempting it the "french" way -- i.e. hand + large knife. It's especially useful for fresh herbs or garlic, which are impossible to finely chop with a normal knife.
Someone asked for some recipes -- absolutely! I don't have the recipe book on me right now but I will make a post about it asap, promise! Thank you so much for all your comments and I hope all is well with you.
Best,
Jessica
5 comments:
Really appreciate all the ongoing news about everything. Why no blogs from our son? C'mon, Bill, we know how well you can write. By the way, are you really going to Florence for Spring break? We're sure you meant Paris. Just hope the Parisians are friendlier than they were when I was there 30 years ago! Also, as far as we have always known "basta" means "enough", Usually as in "basta, basta" But that's dialects for you.I know a lot of other Italian words that are not literal,too(mostly swears) So Bill, how about it-give Jess a break and blog! We need you guys to start prepping us for our arrival. Any info would be great. See you both soon. Love, Mom
Did I say Florence? I definitely meant Paris. I think that was the general definition/translation that our teacher provided, but it would make sense if quanto basta literally meant "how much" or "as much as" enough. As much as enough gets across the same basic idea. I'll bully Bill into writing soon :)
Jess, your posts depress me because (with the exception of the nights I've been going to eat with Mom and Ellie) it's naught but pasta, frozen meat, and fast food for me.
It's not even the good Italian pasta. It's spaghetti. And Ragu.
You're going to Paris? Quelle riche! (That's how you say that, right? I only took two years of French half a decade ago (or more).)
Lol Rob, I'm sure that's what I would be doing if I hadn't been taking these cooking classes. I think tomorrow we will make some pizza with homemade dough (easier than it sounds). Yeah Quelle Riche is appropriate. I wish I had taken my French books with me because I don't want to forget any of it or confuse it with Italian. I still accidentally use French instead of Italian here. A part of me still wishes I could have studied in France, I know I would have been totally fluent by the time I got home.
It's nice to hear from you! I'm glad that you are reading the blog :) It is good to hear from everyone from home.
i like spaghetti. and Ragu. of course, i also eat self-heating MRE's, so i guess my tastes aren't exactly epicurean.
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