After getting our business at the prefecture taken care of (for now), we moved onto trying to open a bank account. We tried a few different banks first, most of which either didn't speak any English or just weren't very helpful, FINALLY we went into a bank here called Credit Agricole. We managed to find a representative that spoke a bit of English and we were able to get an appointment later that evening to open up a bank account. The appointment involved signing a ton of paper work and filling in a bunch of online forms, but we finally finished and we now have a bank account here in France. YAY! However, in France you have to wait for about a week to receive your debit cards (which they call credit cards here...weird), which get delivered to the bank and you have to go back to pick up. We waited our 7 days and went to the bank on Monday, only to find out that apparently they forgot to order our bank cards. GAHHHHHHHHHH!!! That's right, we have to wait another 7 days, so annoying. Hopefully they will have set it up correctly this time and we'll have our cards by next week, which will make life a little easier. We still have to transfer our funds over, which we hope to have started by tomorrow, but the whole process for that takes about a week to go through as well. It'll be nice when we finally have our money and our cards.
Anyway, after all that stress I decided we needed a nice dinner and a relaxing evening as a treat. I only have a hot plate, but I decided I could get creative...why can't you cook gourmet on a hot plate after all? I found a recipe for mushroom risotto and set out to buy the ingredients. We headed to our local vegetable and fruit store, a little store close to our home that sells produce. It is really cute and you put everything you want into this little basket and the lady at the counter weighs it for you and charges you by weight. We got a bunch of fruit and the shallots and garlic I needed for my recipe for a few dollars. I will be visiting this market a lot. We also came along a new bakery called Ronde de Pains, which was full of delicious desserts and pastries. If it weren't for the fact that our bus was coming in 5 minutes I would have spent about a half an hour looking in there and probably about half our money too. Instead, due to the time constraints I settled on a selection of macaroons for the night's dessert.
When we got home, I got to chefing on my risotto. It was a long process because you have to stand at the stove stirring constantly while all the broth is absorbed by the rice. It takes awhile, but it is soooooo worth it because at the end you have creamy, yummy risotto deliciousness. Plus, it didn't seem that bad since I sipped on white wine while I cooked and Dave literally fed me pieces of baguette while I stirred haha. When it was finally done, we had risotto, a very good risotto if I do say so myself (especially since this was my first attempt at making it). It was very rich, and certainly not on the diet plan, but it was such a nice treat. The recipe I used makes a ton too so we get leftovers tonight, along with some Toulouse Sausage that we picked up at the grocery store (it's supposed to be a Toulouse specialty).
We enjoyed our dinner and dessert and had a great night. The risotto was well worth the effort and the macaroons were a delicious dessert.
A few pics of my chefing, it doesn't look like much, but it's delicious:
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| Our meal: mushroom risotto, baguette, white wine and macaroons for dessert |
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| Cute little package the macaroons were in |
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| Flavours: pistachio (my favourite), vanilla, coffee, chocolate, and lemon |
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| We had no trouble finishing them all |
Until next time....
Au revoir
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