French Faux Pas

All I wanted was a slice of quiche.

I confidently popped into the boulangerie/patisserie, in search of the flaky crusted treasure. I peered past the local French patrons, into the glass display case. The croissants, au bon pain chocolate, and other delights, all much more familiar to me these days than my waistline would like, smiled back at me. Yet to my dismay, I saw no quiche!

Quiche has been a dear staple in my life ever since I worked as a waitress at the local tea house in West Palm Beach and wrote, "Keeshe" on the ticket the first time a customer ordered this unknown food.  Since then it has become to me a cultured way to cook eggs; a fun and classy way to sneak protein into breakfast. I loved it even before I tried it in Paris, but I may now be ruined for any quiche made outside of the country of France. It was another remnant of redemption from our trip to Paris that has sweetly lingered with me.

My eyes darted disbelievingly around the restaurant. No quiche at the boulangerie?? It couldn't be true. What I saw gave me hope: the customers seated at tables were reading menus. Surely, I thought, my quiche is waiting for me there on the small printed cards. A quick glance toward the door revealed a shelf with hoards of the little menus and drink cards stuck inside of rocks-turned-paperweights with small slits inside to hold the cards.

I stepped around a couple seated at the table closest to the sliding glass door as inconspicuously as I could. My hand reached toward the shelf, but as it did, the door slid opened for an entering customer. I grabbed the menu and rock-menu-holder just in time for the sliding door to hit my wrist, knocking the menus and rock to the floor. The rock landed with a loud snap behind the door and the diners heads all sharply turned my way.

Trying to recover quickly, while ignoring the 25 French citizens and one husband who had their eyes on me, I reached for the rock. It took me several attempts to realize that each time I tried to grab the rock, my hand initiated the automatic sensor to open the door, grating against the rock and trapping it behind the glass, outside of my grasp. Finally, a kind man at the nearby table was able to retrieve one of the fallen menus for me.

As nonchalantly as possible, I thanked him in a hurried combination of German, English and French, and abandoned the trapped rock. I stepped away, trying to blend in with the chocolates as I skimmed the elusive menu.

And there it was, just as I had suspected: Quiche Lorraine. Jordan followed me on my walk of shame to the back. We crammed ourselves into a one-person table and waited. The waitress arrived, acting kindly unaware of my embarrassing blunder. I convinced myself that all would be well from this moment onward and ordered my quiche. "Ahhhh, skjdl asj&dflj dllsdfo-ssd//hjsksjks, ,lksksdno iw9aw ij akmn," she said regretfully. I didn't need to speak French to understand that I would not be having quiche for lunch today. They were out.

My game time decision resulted in ordering what I thought was the tomato crepe. Because when there is no quiche, crepes, I told myself, are a completely adequate substitute.  The problem, though, with relying solely on language cognates to interpret a menu, means that you miss the little word that means "egg" before the easy "tomate". Normally this wouldn't be a problem for me, except that I prefer my eggs cooked. What appeared on my plate was a yolk that jiggled like jello, threatening to burst it's yellow goo all over my crepe under the slightest provocation.

Burst, it thankfully did not, so I gingerly ate all around the egg, ignoring the fact that the bottom of the crepe was completely burned, and if I hadn't just caused a scene and possibly broken one of their rock-menu-holders, I would have complained and sent it back through a series of hand-motions and gestures and disgusted-looking facial expressions.

Though my experience today was traumatic and probably damaging to my psyche, I do feel as though I was reminded of something important: Be grateful for a husband who willingly sits with you at a restaurant where everyone else is shunning you and who will verbally walk through the entire embarrassing scenario again and again as you process, and who will also support you in ordering an au bon pain chocolate to finish off lunch when the raw egg crepe just doesn't hit the spot.

I love him.

Here is a sneak peak at the fun part of our day:

Saw this lovely wall of corn on the way to Neuf-Brisach.

Christmas Market

The walled city was a fortification built in the shape of a star!

I tripped while running over to pose for this one. 

Fail.

Win!

I really wanted to take pictures by the yellow doors on that hill.
Unfortunately, they did a good job with the fortification and we couldn't reach them.

I had to settle for pictures by the cool, red door.

I thought the live nativity was charming!
Until I saw that the three wise-men were played by women who were chatting and drinking coffee the whole time.
Kind of killed the mood.

These guys really were charming.

The day ended with one of my favorite pastimes: sunset chasing.