Polymer clay

We have a good warm weather in France right now, and I've planned in running a few half and full-marathon in the following months, except that my right knee completely prevents me from running more than 5 minutes. So I've been going from one doctor to an other, doing scans (while most of my friends who go for scans right now are probably pregnant...), x-rays to get to the conclusion that my right kneecap is a bit thin and slanted on one side and probably causes stress on the rest of the knee. They also found a bit of liquid in there but didn't seem to be a big deal. Finally I got physiotherapist sessions with electrodes to build up my right thigh (this is very weird that sensation when the alternative current makes the muscle contracts without me asking for it, it tickles hard inside my leg).

Anyhow, I can't go running! So I stay inside and play with food and Fimo!

Here it is, my new friend! The polymer clay! I'll say fimo, because it's shorter and it's one of the most popular brand. Alright, for those of you who are totally impermeable to crafts, I would certainly not do a good job in saying this is colored plastic clay like what you used to play with when you were kids. This is actually a colored clay, that you can do basically everything with! You can make shapes, you can mix colors, you can imprint whatever on it, even make patterns with sand, salt, sugar... anything. And you can paint then after you've baked them. 

So I've tried from a magazine, that was not the best colors I'll ever used, but still I got an idea of the concept.

I managed to make a flower and I tried to experiment a kiwi.

As you can see, I still have to practice!

I also saw people making pastries in Fimo. And macaroons were the perfect shape and colors for that kind of work!

And then I remembered Amélie and Julie's awesome work (see their blog, they really master this clay!). I asked for advices and Julie gave me a lesson! That was at her cozy place, with the 4 staring eyes of her daughters! During 4 great hours (sorry it took so long!), she taught me how to make color gradients in a pasta machine and how to build up canes. The canes are then used in thin slices to decorate beads for example. I had a really good time! Thank you so much!

P.S. I'm sorry for the crappy red saturated colors and the bad quality of the pictures in general. This is from my dad's point and shoot camera. I'll do a better job as soon as I come back to Toronto!

Macaroons.

Sorry about the long absence. I was secretly preparing a few posts.
First of the series is about macaroons!!

I am not so much into macarons. I don't find the taste extraordinary, but I find them really beautiful and the flavors can be very creative.

I would think it deserved to be in the "Eat before 30" list and even better if you eat them in France. I will make it a "Cook before 30" priority. I've already tried, once, that was good but nothing unforgetable.

Look at these watercolor painting by Lucileskitchen. A macaron a day...

To be inspired I bought a few at M le Macaron in Bordeaux. They make nice colors and they always have crazy flavors. This time they had Cotton candy and Osseau-Iraty ones (even better if two of my Eat before 30 are coupled in one!).

Then I saw Fimo paste macarons. I am into that polymer clay creative mood these days, so I couldn't resist in trying to reproduce them (I'll soon blog on that new passion of mine). It took me a while to get an approximate shape.

And finally, after savoring every single one of that huge macaroon box, I got myself into baking these delicacies. Moka, Matcha, Mango and Tagada!

First the ingredients: you need egg whites, icing sugar and almond powder.

Then you need to sift the mix of icing sugar and almond powder. That's the longest part. And mix it with very stiff egg whites until it makes a silky, flexible dough. 

You can add edible dyes in your preparation, then with a pastry bag you make small domes that you allow to sit for 30 minutes so they make a crust. Then bake at 110°C for 12 minutes. If you're lucky (in my case only 20% of them) they'll make the perfect lace like collar (this puffy thing at the bottom).
During all the waiting times you can prepare the filling. In my case a mix of chocolate and coffee powder, plus a few Tagada strawberries to use as gelatin to thicken things up.

 A lot more people were supposed to try them, but I kept all the nice looking ones (only 10) for Julie (see next post) to thank her for her very instructive fimo lesson! and don't worry, the misshaped ones didn't last long ;)

Local ingredients.

As I promised, I have to feed my blog, even from France. 

Here is some local food, promoting ingredients from my region. Fresh oysters from Arcachon! 

And because the Osseau Iraty was one of the thing to eat before you die, here it is. A variant of the well known Osseau Iraty, Le Petit Basque, and two aging of the Osseau Iraty. It is highly recommended to savor with sour cherry jam!

Pine nuts and slices of duck magret! Bread is mandatory, at all time!

And something different, I've seen it on Pinterest for a while and I wanted to try. Mine actually looks like a vertical Christmas log. As a first time, it's not as pretty as I imagined but now I know how to make it!

And to digest all of it, a good freshly momy-made coffee is required!

Me.

Alright, I promised that blog wasn't gonna be about me. Well, I am in the middle of my childhood place, tidying all my souvenirs, it's kind of hard not to talk about them, so about me.

Here is the before-18-me I'm living with right now. For privacy reasons there are also a couple of nice old pictures from relatives that I would not share here, they might not appreciate the attention...

Anyway, in the middle of my board games (I don't even know why I have board games, my parents don't like playing games and I am an only child...), school books, old pictures, stamp and phone card collections (my mom found it vital that I had a collection of some kind when I was young), I also found a couple of drawings. 

These are my ideas of the tattoo I would have liked to have.

These are the same idea, a lot better from a friend of mine. Actually I really don't remember who drew that for me, and I can't read the signature... If you recognize your art, please let me know!

Anyway, in case you didn't get the idea, I wanted it to be an exploding bubble, or some kind of water drop.

Those great drawings didn't end up on my skin, they finally end up somewhere else than in my drawer.

I'm not sure if this is something I should do before I'm 30, but for sure I have thought about it a lot (yeah, probably while escaping this junkie temptation of mine ;).

Let me dig a little deeper in my old stuff and I'll have a lot to tell you about memories and making an ally of the past. 

Family time.

I always had trouble getting along with my parents, probably because I'm an only child, probably because of many other reasons that I am not fully aware of. And I knew that getting back to their place for a whole month was gonna be challenging. But I think I need to understand them, understand their fear, their troubles and have an idea of what made them like that. It's been 3 days and it's already challenging. We don't have the same life style, we don't enjoy doing the same things and they freak out every time I plan to do something.

But since I stay at their place and I haven't seen them for a while, I think I need to make a bit of an effort.

My mom is always singing (well, only 5notes, always in the same order, the kind of sad rhythm that stays in your head and that is supposed to calm her down). My dad is always talking, about everything, well mostly the things he really likes and the things he hates. And they both spend a lot of time criticizing. It may be about raising kids or baking simple cakes, that's the same, they would have done it differently and they make you know! They also make sure they tell you that this glass or this wire is very fragile and that you have to pay attention while using it... as if I had no idea something could be fragile (I'm sure they still have doubts if they should give me a wine glass or a plastic one... - what? you drink wine? no way!).

I have this feeling that I am back to being a teenager. And I must say, the 3 of us didn't enjoy that much my teenager time. We couldn't understand each other and at the end I'm not really sure we wanted to. They just intend to make sure I didn't become a junkie, while I honestly didn't have any intention of becoming one (but they never ever understood that point). So I couldn't listen to pop-rock music (well, that's just the softest example, anything else than classical music they didn't like and of course was synonym of me becoming a junkie). I wasn't allowed to go to my friends' place because they couldn't watch what I was doing there, I couldn't take the bus home because you never know who you can accidentally meet in the bus and I wasn't able to go to my friends' party because of course they were gonna smoke, drink and take crack. And that... until I turned 18. When I turned 18, I had my driver's license, my Baccalauréat and I purposely chose to move to Pau, 200Km away, for my studies. These 2 years in Pau were the best ever! And guess what, I didn't become a junkie!! but you can imagine how much I now have to discover in terms of music and movies...

I'm still not sure of what they think about me becoming a junkie, maybe they got over it... maybe not. I don't quite listen to them when it comes to my way of living (my dad is now convinced that I converted myself to buddhism because I practice yoga), like I did before. But they now realize that we got far apart from each-other. We don't have that much in common. And worse of all for them, they taught me so hard not to show my fears, not to show my tears or my feelings, that I am completely incapable of having some kind of human relationship with them. For me, their worst problem is trust; they don't trust anything nor anyone. And the fact that they don't trust me, and over time this lack of trust has become a huge issue in our relationship.

Anyhow, I have the feeling that before I turn 30 (my dad is being 70 this year), I should take this opportunity to make it change. I should try to understand them, and tell them what I think, not just run away. 

Yesterday, it was 21°C, a bright sunshiny day, so I proposed to go on a bike ride. My dad loves cycling and skiing and could talk about it for days. Because it was winter they hadn't biked for a few months (my dad drags my mom for some bike ride, to make her exercise) and I figured it would be good for me too since my knee still hurt when I run.

That would also give me the opportunity to take some pictures of that region I grew up in and that I particularly love. We biked for 50Km, in the pine tree forest (Les Landes), along the dunes, seeing sometimes the ocean. They couldn't stop behaving themselves, but at least we got a few minutes of calm, fresh air, exercise and time together.

And while I was up there on my teenager yellow bike, in my beloved Landes, I thought of things I would like to do before I'm 30: kite-surfing and base-jumping.

To do list.

While I am currently tidying my computer (and removing all these mitochondria related articles that take so much space), I wander on the internet, looking for other people lists to do before 30. 

While the first entry gives me this very crazy list, that I don't really feel the need or the envy to accomplish, I also find softer ones where I have done almost all of it. I still pick up a few to-do things: start an investment account or invest in the stock-market, and fully understand how that works; participate in a flash mob (like a dance, or something).

This one is just an extensive list to pick up interesting ideas like: pretend to be a superhero (in what damn situation could I do that?), or survive an accident that you shouldn't have survived (how can you honestly do that on purpose? I mean, I don't even want to try!), but certainly get cured from my snake phobia would be very helpful!

At the end, not so many helpful comments on those pages. I'll stick to my plans!