While the other HC students are going home for the holidays, I felt early on that it would be best for me to stay in France in order to maximize my time here. Even better, I will having a number of family members visiting me just after the new year so I’m not entirely missing out (my mom, my grandmother, my great uncle, my sister, and my sister’s boyfriend) ! Nonetheless, with others going home for the holidays it makes me think about home and really makes home “home.”
For me, if there is one thing that can bring me back to my life in the States it would be my mom’s oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (many close friends can confirm this). Tragically I was fully prepared to spend the entire year abroad without them, however fortunately after some trial and error we found a way to make it work. As a surprise, my mom actually send me the majority of the ingredients to make them here in France, and after some time I began to find what was needed in the stores here in Dijon when certain things needed to be replaced. Thus this little tradition was born: every so often Emma, Meghan, Yuli, Caroline and I will get together to bake cookies.
Shopping for ingredients and such has definitely heightened my vocabulary in these areas, so I thought I would share my favorite words that I often use when baking. In regards to purchasing food, it seems to me that in terms of pricing it is the contrary to how it works in the US. For example, healthier foods tend to be more expensive in the States while junk food is fairly cheap. On the other hand, French healthy food is rather inexpensive whereas junk food is significantly more expensive (above all chocolate chips – it kills me).
une fournée : a batch
des pépites de chocolat : chocolate chips
le cassonade : brown sugarla farine (fluide) : flour (for baking)
La cannelle: cinammon
l’extrait de vanille : vanilla extract
le bicarbonate de soudre : baking soda
les flocons d’avoine : oatmeal flakes
