On Friday, I made one last American dinner for Edith and Nico. It consisted of meatloaf, topped with ketchup of course, mashed potatoes, and apple pie. Not your usual apple pie, however. A while back I saw a truly adorable apple pie recipe which involves baking the pie filling inside a hollowed out apple instead of crust. You top the whole thing with pie pastry woven in a lattice pattern, et voila:
The most adorable thing ever.
After dinner, we went to a wine bar, which was relaxed and lovely. Five of us squeezed onto a couch and we all ordered our drinks and talked and admired the ambiance. We got back around 3am, so a blog entry that night was not to be.
Nor was it to be the following day, because it was the day of the LMFAO-themed party that Nico has been planning since before I even got here. In case you don't know, LMFAO is a band, and they look like this:
For the party, everyone was required to dress accordingly. All the parties I've been to so far have had really elaborate themes, so I think I've been throwing parties the French way for my entire life. People really went all out.
However, the most memorable part of the day were the things I spent literally five hours making.
CAKE POPS.
The cake pop is an art I've tried to learn several times in many different ways, with no success. Either the cake crumbles, or the balls fall off the sticks, or the melted chocolate destroys everything, or they flat out just don't taste good. However, I have discovered the secret to amazing, Starbucks style cake pops, and it is Mascarpone.
Are these not the most beautiful cake pops you've ever seen?? Okay, I know they're not the most beautiful, because these exist:
And you just can't compete with that.
But they're still the most impressive baked good I've ever made with my own hands, and they were pretty damned delicious to boot.
Though I was super happy with the end result, they were a major pain in the ass to make. Each one requires a solid five minutes of labor, and when you're making enough for a whole party to enjoy, they suck up your day. So suffice it to say, if I ever make cake pops in the future, I either really love you or you're the president of the United States.
But when all the pops were eaten, the LMFAO songs had all been played, and the faux afros had been abandoned, I think Nico was pretty at peace with everything.
And by "at peace," I mean drunk and out of his mind. But there's joy in those deranged eyes.
And why didn't I write yesterday?
Well, yesterday was my last day with Edith and Nico. I spent the morning cleaning up the devastation from the previous night's festivities with Edith, then packed my bags. Since there was still time afterward, I decided to take one last walk to my windmill. It was raining lightly, and that only made me want to go more.
The ruins were even more beautiful than ever, and while there, I wrote a tiny message, rolled it up tight and pushed it into a tiny glass vial. It's now hidden in the ruins. I don't expect anyone will ever find it, but since I couldn't carve my name into the wall (not all of us are made of time, Cossettini), I like the idea that something of mine will still stay in the ruins even when I have gone. It was really difficult to leave that place. Of course I'll find my way back someday, but probably not for a very long time. Before leaving, I ran my fingertips over Cossettini's name and said goodbye to him, because I feel like he's still there. There are many names carved into the wall, but I think the windmill belonged to him in the same way it belonged to me. Many people have popped in for a minute to see the inside of the windmill, but only Cossettini and I have spent hours within the crumbling walls. When I left the windmill finally, it was like I was saying goodbye to a great friend, not knowing when we would see each other again. But it's my place, just like it's Cossettini's place. It will always belong to people like us.
After I got back, Nico and Edith had already loaded my stuff in the car, because Madame Repetto had called to say she was ready to meet us in the city of Salon. I'd been trying not to think about how difficult it would be to leave Edith and Nico, so the car ride was difficult. They treated me like family from the very start, and I'll never forget my time with them.
But now my life is in Marignane, a town only two miles from the Mediterranean Sea. It's not as beautiful as the rural towns you've been seeing pictures from, but it has its own species of charm. The Repetto family has two children. Alexie, 15, and Lena, 4.
It's a very different experience, but I have a feeling I'm going to learn a lot. I've been speaking a lot more French with the Repettos, because only one of them speaks English. My comprehension is now improving rapidly, and my speaking abilities are coming along too, though slowly. Today Gladys took me to her hairdressing school. She is the headmistress of the best hairdressing school in southern France, I'm told. Her students are always the ones to win all the awards at hair shows and competitions. She used me as a model for a new hair straightening technique today, which was pretty dang sweet. Using a steam iron, she made my hair Asian straight. When she was done, like twenty people came over to pet my hair.
It was a nice day, and Gui (you remember Gui from the abandoned nightclub intruders story) came over for dinner. We ate stuffed mushrooms and then watched an American movie with dubbed French dialogue. Il etait interessant.
So that is the crazy that was my life for the past three days. Now I'm going to snuggle up with a delicious caramel cookie and the latest episode of Once Upon a Time. A bientot!
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