Fin

Hello all! I want to thank you for joining me in Franck's Kitchen - I hope everyone got some good laughs. Franck and I certainly enjoyed the process - and the great news is that I have really started to learn to cook and am really enjoying myself! Sometimes when things are daunting - approach them with laughter, poke fun at yourself, and you'll come around. Sure enough, I'm cooking several times a week - sometimes alone, sometimes with Franck. He loves coming home to me in the kitchen putting together a meal for him and having the luxury of putting his feet up for a few hours. I brim with pride when he digs into my meal and tells me how fantastic and yummy it tastes. 


The down side:


Now I am  doing practically ALL the cleaning AND a good part of the cooking and grocery shopping.


The upside: 


I got a cleaning lady! 


Men will never go on and on or brag to their friends about how well you clean the bathroom. They just expect it to be that way and don't even really like to see you doing it. However, they will brag about your eggplant parmesian for weeks on end and tell you over and over again how good it is. My mother comes from a generation of 'doing it all' and rarely had a moment to herself. So to avoid foaming at the mouth every weekend while I'm mopping and Franck is napping, Domenique will be coming by every Thursday. : )


Now that this little project has come to fruitition it's time to move on to something new. I'll still be cooking - but Franck and I also have a wedding to plan - and it's coming up soon! So we'd like you to turn the page with us and join us on www.caterinaetfranck.blogspot.com 


Until next time!


Bisous from Franck's Kitchen
Caterina, the anti-chef. xx

"Feed the Birds - Tuppence a Bag"

My brother Joseph: "Keen, are you blogging about how you suck at feeding the bird?"

Me: "Yes Joseph."

Mom: "She's blogging about how she keeps me young by giving me extra work to do."

THE SCREENPLAY:

18.45: Mom asks me to feed the family bird who is starving. 

18.46  Bird: "I'm starving."

KIDDING. This is our bird: 

BIRD: "Yo. It's feeding time. You know what to do". ... (Or do I)

THE PLOT THICKENS


18.48 Dutiful daughter goes to get bird food, opens a new bag - and then this happens:

18.51: Typical.

18.52: Let's get a close up of that. This is abstract art baby. ABSTRACT.

18.54: Then I move the bag to try and catch the seeds, and this happens.. PERFORMANCE ART BABY!

18.55: Mom steps in to try and clean up the mess. Because I'm 12.

19.00: I've moved on. 

Mom isn't even mad - she's DISAPPOINTED.
And even worse - the seeds got stuck in the sifter and now she's trying to unblock it with a knife.
It's 19.04.

FIN

Mom's World

Greetings from Canada.

As we enter another kitchen...

Mom's.

My mother can drive me nuts, but at the end of the day I'm crazy about her - and she is such a HUGE inspiration for me. When she does something - she goes all the way and has taught me the same. In almost everything: school, art, music, dance, sport, work, everything - with of course the exception of the kitchen ; )

Perfect homemade meatballs. 

Perfect homemade cookies. 

Perfect homemade cookies stored in old fashioned Christmas cookie containers. 

Perfect little deer decorations lit up in the backyard (grazing in the snow).

In case we forgot that Christmas is about the birth of baby Jesus - Mom has no less than five nativity scenes strategically placed throughout the house. I bring you - what everyone always wants to see.. the baby!

Jesus glued to the nativity scene and being watched over by two cows.

Jesus handed down from Nana. RIP Nana.

Jesus bought from an expensive store. Can't say where, Dad will get upset when he finds out he cost $200.

Mexican baby Jesus. I got him and his family from Guadalajara.

Who could this little glass baby be? JESUS.

and for the finale..... tonight Mom asked me to set the oven timer for 15 minutes... A short while later she asks - "Caterina, why has this only gone down a few seconds?? Oh, it's because you set it to 

15 hours!!!"

Merry Christmas : ) !

Hugs from Canada - one of the best places in the world to spend Christmas - and then leave before the six months of ice and snow drive you mad.

Cold, Hard, Reality

Mom Shows Me How It's Done for the #76545676 Time

I know I haven't been blogging - I'm just getting bored with the whole cooking thing. It's not sticking. It's exhausting. ugh, I'm whining I know. On top of that, I'm not even in Franck's Kitchen anymore - I'm in my Mom's and she doesn't even think I know how to properly wash lettuce.


What's the point of even trying. 


And then today, after waking up at 5am and going to work at her super important/stressful job - she came home, made coq au vin, a tiramisu and then at 8 when I was using the "I'm jet lagged" excuse to not clear the dishes and go to bed, she announced - I'm going to the basement to work out and then iron for an hour.

No, you don't go from the below cake to this in a week. You go from the below cake to your mother's house and try and forget about the past while diving head first into pure sin.

Let Them Eat Cake

And now for another disaster...signed the Anti-Chef.

Sunday morning... who doesn't like the idea of waking up to the smell of a fluffy cake cooking in the oven? And so, with my heart in the right place and my head somewhere out in left field, I emptied the pack of cake mix (don't judge me) into the pan and slid it in the oven. Timer said 45 minutes, easy enough. Except I didn't see the fine print, which read: Cooking time 45 minutes, but if this is Caterina - stand beside the oven because you will surely manage to screw even this up. Next thing I know, the house is full of smoke, and Franck is waking up screaming "Merde! Merde!" and there I am, with my burnt cake in my hands, cursing "Les recettes Bonne Maman" under my breath. 

To make matters worse, with the onset of cold weather, I'm morphing into a tea drinking yuppy and have been trading in my Louboutins for slippers. Glerups to be precise.  Made in Denmark, these booties are felted in pure, natural wool. I picked them up at my favourite Scandinavian boutique in Paris' St. Paul neighbourhood. Sexy ja?

Tisk, TISK!

et Merde. This happens to me every single time. What is the point of putting these things if they always tear off before doing their job! Frustraaaaaation!!!!! 

Deep breaths Cat, deep breaths. 

Dog's Breakfast

Franck is off in Denmark for the week, and I'm starting to get hungry. Whenever I'm not here, he says that he basically stops cooking and whenever he's not here, my diet turns to pasta, cheese, bread, (and cookies!). Cooking for one is never inspiring, but luckily - I have a dog to take care of!  

Presenting Emile. He's kind of like a skinny model - "I eat all the time, whatever I want, and never get fat." Ha! Of course, Emile doesn't like regular dog food, so tonight, he will be served pasta mixed with hamburger meat.  He is an Italian greyhound after all.