Volets are deceptive

I don’t know if that’s how it’s spelled. It’s a kind of shutter that blocks out pretty much ALL light. I am not very good at waking up, even if I’ve slept 9 hours, when there’s no light. Every night here, I’ve told myself that I was gonna wake up earlier the next day. And yet, each time I have not. Oh, well.

I went to the market again yesterday! It is apparently biggest on Sunday, but also on Tuesday and Thursday. A friend of Valerie’s mom from Venezuela (he used to live here - traffic jam made him miss his flight Sunday) came through for a few days. I never ended up making Mexican food because he got here Monday and we hung out and had dinner at her mom’s place. Fish and potatoes - it was good. Then yesterday he got spices and stuff to make couscous. There was a round thing that I didn’t know the name of in English, but the rest I recognized.

When dinner time rolled around, I wasn’t quite sure what to think of his great cooking plan. I didn’t know if he knew how to cook or anything. The spices he was putting together I recognized, and they seemed pretty normal. And I’d like to tell myself that I *didn’t* see the bottle of olive oil both before and after he used it… It was almost done, and he asked Valerie’s mom if she had a mortar & pestle, or something to crush the whole spice that I hadn’t figured out the English name for. She did not. So instead, she ended up crushing then on a plate with a glass. It worked pretty well, and very quickly everything smelled like… gin. Sort of pine tree-ish, but sweeter. I now know the word for juniper berries in French. Honestly, I was seriously wondering about his recipe after that. Then everything came out, and it looked and smelled great, and he sprinkled on the final ingredient: orange tree flower water. (K, not sure that’s its real name in Eng.) And then I was super concerned for this recipe. When we tasted it………. I don’t feel like I will ever say anything was the best food I’ve ever eaten, but that was definitely the best surprise for food that I can remember. It was good! Really really really good! The juniper berries added an interesting flavor, but combined well with the rest. I couldn’t pick out any orange flower taste. It was just super tasty. While we were eating I found out that he actually DOES know how to cook, does it a lot, and the couscous we had (with chicken, onions, eggplant, carrots, cucumber, chickpeas and raisins) is something his aunt makes a couple times a year. Everybody ate too much and we sat around and talked a bit and played music from her mom’s computer (we were out there again) and I found one of my recent favorites for them (from Spring Awakening) and then we had to leave too soon to make sure and catch the bus. Although that left us time for more adventures… that I will recount another time.

Changing apartments again today, likely will not have internet for a bit. But can still drop in now and then to say hi to you all!