Finger Lick'n Friday

I’ve finally decided to follow in the footsteps of some of the more ingenious and organized bloggers around and divide up the week by theme.  Because just posting off the top of my head is not always easy.  And frankly, I’m just not clever enough to come up with something on a daily basis. 

So, Friday’s before the weekends kick off I’m going to devote my posts to another of my passions- food. 

My mom was a great cook and I grew up loving food.  I was not a picky eater and I’ll still try just about anything.  (Except things that smell like poop.  I live in France, and there are seriously foods that smell like poop.  I won’t touch them.) 

You know how they say when you move out, you learn to cook like your mother and when you get married, you gotta learn how to cook like your mother in law?

That’s kind of what I went through when I moved to France.  There are no ‘boxed meals’ here- no mac’n’cheese, no stovetop stuffing, or canned soups.  I had to basically throw all my American traditions out the window and learn how to cook using the basics.

My mother in law bought me a pressure cooker which is what she uses to make the big family meals and I discovered a whole new world of ‘boeuf bourguignon and poulet aux olives’.  When I was a ‘sahm’, I spent umpteen hours a day watching ‘cuisine tv’ and took up making my own breads and pizza doughs.  Cooking relaxed me and it was fun.

Now, after a few years of cooking with raw ingredients, I was in for an extreme culture shock when I came back to the US and tried to go shopping for the first time.

It took me twenty minutes to find plain couscous.  And when I asked the very ‘suthern’ staff at Publix where to find it- they looked at me like I had three heads.  ‘Coooos cooos?  I dunno.’  ‘Nuff said.  I ended up going to Whole Food and the Fresh Market because it was the only way I could shop without having a panic attack or needing an inhaler. 

Today’s post isn’t going to be devoted to some elaborate French cuisine.  I had a question from Susan Fields about one of my favorite snack foods-  Chinese Souffléd Shrimp Chips.

I don’t know how they’re made and frankly, I don’t want to know.  But they are crunchy, sweet, shrimpy goodness and I recommend them for one and for all. 

Happy Friday Everyone!