French Foodie Weekend

Bonjour, mes amis! Aujourd'hui, Mme. Rhino a mange tres bien!! (Translation: Good day, my friends! Today, Miss Rhino ate very well). After a morning of blending together meat, herbs, and spices for TND's Swedish meatballs, I met up with Jessika and Elizabeth to see Julie and Julia.

First off, if you like cooking or eating, watch out!! Nora Ephron loaded some major food porn in J and J. I am currently jonesing to roast a chicken, simmer some boeuf bourguignon, whip up a raspberry Charlotte dessert, and bake one hell of a cake. Seriously, I'm nominating this film for foodie flick of the year. As for the film's content, I found the film cute and funny, but I have to agree with the critics, I liked the Julia Child sections more than the Powell parts. I read Powell's book and found her situation extremely relatable and her writing very humorous. I just don't think it translated as well to movie form. Anyway, very glad that I finally caught J and J.


Taunted with all the delicious food on-screen, Jessika, Elizabeth, and I left the theatre super-hungry and headed to Fontaine Creperie and Caffe in Old Town for brunch (gotta love theme get-togethers). Unfortunately for our grumbling stomachs, the service there bit ass. We waited about 20 minutes after being seated to even see our waitress (really before any beverages at all or water) and later for drink refills. Once we caught her, we did not hasten to order coffee, cider-ish wine, crepes, and more crepes. I dug into the Parsienne (filled with ratatouille, roast chicken, and brie), Jessika dined on the Norwegian, and Elizabeth feasted on breakfast bruscetta (toast topped with tomatoes, eggs, and pesto aoli). For dessert, Jessika ordered the Lemon Drop (filled with lemon cream). Meanwhile, Elizabeth and I shared Very Peachy (filled with caramelized peaches, vanilla ice cream, almonds, and doused with some peach liquor). Yum yum yum.

As if that weren't enough food for one day, we then crossed the street and ordered some cupcakes to go from Lavender Moon Cupcakery for later. Afterwards, I went home and cooked up a mother load of Swedish meatballs for TND. More pics of that to come..

My later for the cupcakes came about later that night. I sampled my lemon blackberry thyme cupcake and hummingbird cupcake as I watched my new tv on dvd addiction, Entourage. I couldn't decide which I liked better. I wanted more thyme out of the first cupcake but appreciated the blackberry frosting whereas I liked the hummingbird cake better but prefer thicker cream cheese frosting than what Lavender Moon offered. Tomorrow, after my first Grad School class (EEEK!!), I'll reward myself with my peanut butter and chocolate devil's food cupcake. I may need to investigate their vanilla bean, s'mores, and peach pie cupcakes at a later date...

The plan tomorrow: making coconut lime cake for Ben's b-day TND, healthier eating (hopefully), FIRST GRAD CLASS and, if I feel especially ambitious, Swedish meatball sauce making or apartment cleaning.