For those who don't know, I spend quite a bit of time in the kitchen. In addition to making fabulous dinners, as previously posted here, I also bake a lot. I probably bake something at least once a week, and I would do it more often if I had more people to feed. However, I can only send food to work with Ben about once a week or so before people start mumbling something about getting fat from all the treats. I can't really blame them. I mean, why do you think the treats all go to work with Ben? We don't want to weigh 800 pounds either.

I usually stick to relatively easy things like cookies, bars, muffins, etc., but this week is special. In honor of my last week of French classes before having the summer off, I decided to make croissants and pains au chocolat for my students. I've wanted to make croissants for a long time due to my love of French pastries, but have you ever looked at a croissant recipe? It is, how you say, intimidating. Hours upon hours of chilling the dough, rolling it out, folding it, repeating the process. Plus, I know how delicious real croissants are and how pathetic the ones you can buy in the grocery store are in comparison. I didn't want to fall short and disappoint myself after a day and a half in the kitchen.

The good news? Actually it's all good news. 1) I made the croissants; 2) They are absolutely completely totally delicious; 3) I used half the dough to make pains au chocolat, which are equally delicious (according to me, Ben just wants the croissants. In fact, he ate two in class last night and was wondering how many he could eat for breakfast today without dropping dead from butter consumption.); and 4) They really weren't very difficult to make.

Sure, they really did take a loooong time. But after reading the recipe and being prepared, I had no kitchen emergencies, no peeking in the oven and gasping, no suspicious poking of what may or may not be a ruined pastry. Nope, just buttery goodness from the oven. If you're interested, I used recipes from epicurious.com for the dough, croissants, and pains au chocolat which you can find here, here, and here.

If you're not feeling that ambitious, you can just look at the pretty pictures and dream that someday I might be in the same city as you and bake them for you.



Bon appétit! And au revoir for the time being; we're heading to Portugal for some sun, good food, and relaxation! We'll be back with pictures next week!

This week, after Ben got back from his exercise and finally had a night of good, solid sleep (we slept in until 8 a.m. on Wednesday!), I approached him with bad news...

Me: "So, I was waiting to talk about this until you got done with your exercise. Um, this weekend..."

Ben: (looking at me suspiciously)

Me: "I want you to clean your army/athletic wardrobe and move it to the office to make room in the future baby room."

Ben: grumble...

Me: "I was going to do it while you were gone but I figured you would get mad at me if I was moving around heavy furniture."

Ben: "Yeah, you're right. Okay."

So, this weekend was a working weekend at the Morrison house. Ben reorganized, did manly furniture moving things, grunted, sweated, put together an el cheapo crib from Ikea (hey, it's sturdy, and babies don't care). And I put all my clothes that aren't going to fit me ever again (or until sometime after Otis arrives), and refilled my drawers and closet with the few maternity items I've bought. Sigh. This isn't to say that the maternity stuff is bad, I just have limited choices now and my choices will become even more limited as I become unable to button my low rise jeans or make my extra long tees fit over my belly.

All in all, Saturday felt very productive. You can see the fruits of Ben's labor, a crib where his big wardrobe used to be:


And a picture of me to show what I've been working on for the past 24 weeks:


Ben has been trying valiantly to grow a belly to keep up with mine, but I think he's losing:

His ice cream and rice krispie treat diet has nothing on me and Otis.

La spontanéité

Last Thursday, my friend Carol put some pictures online from the trip she and I took to Paris in September. I commented on them and jokingly said, "I want to go back! Let's go tomorrow." She responded, "Tomorrow I have to work, but I could go Saturday through Monday." We were both semi-joking, semi-dreaming, semi-serious.

On Friday, though, we talked more, and on Saturday morning at 7:30 a.m. Carol showed up at our house and I hopped in her car and we drove to Paris! We spent the day wandering and shopping. We got some very chic French clothes, tasty Parisian pastries, and then ended our day with a magnifique dinner at a restaurant near our hotel. Once again, the Pudlo guide that Ben gave me for Christmas led me to delicious food; I could read that book for hours!

On Sunday morning, we bought more bread than any two people could need, said bonjour and au revoir to my favorite spot in Montmartre, right by Sacre Coeur, and then said au revoir to Paris.


A very quick trip, but merveilleux.

As for Ben, he had to work all weekend. And I haven't seen him much since then. But I did bring him some fabulous food and a beautiful and tasty pastry, so he got a little taste of parisian happiness in the middle of his busy work time. Not as good as the real thing, but c'est la vie.

For the next two weeks or so, Ben has an exercise. He's more or less going to be in a bunker all day every day, working late, working weekends, perhaps sleeping there for several days. He'll be home to sleep and collect any food I've made for him and then he'll be gone again. Compared to exercises in AZ, in a "real" unit, it's really not so bad. I mean, he gets to come home, he's not going to be sleeping outside, he will come home substantially cleaner and less stinky. Oh, and he'll actually get to sleep every night. But, that said, it's still no fun.

We knew this exercise was coming, and we knew it was going to be no fun, so we decided to take advantage of last weekend and do something fun, relaxing and, most importantly, not in the Netherlands. We went to Brussels!

Brussels is only about an hour away, really not far, but we somehow had not made it there yet. So it seemed like a perfect candidate for a mini-vacation weekend. We only went for one night, and we stayed in a fancy shmancy hotel and made a plan to not do much of anything. No museums, no historic sites, just wandering around. And that is exactly what we did, and it was completely wonderful.

We did see a number of beautiful old churches, and we walked by some interesting museums. And Brussels has a ton of squares with daily markets that we fun to see and walk through. There are also many many chocolate boutiques, and antique shops, and more waffles and frites than you can possibly imagine. We only bought one box of chocolates (from Godiva - mmmm) and then resisted all the temptations of the greasy/fried/sugary/chocolatey/mayonnaise-covered delicacies that surrounded us. Ben commented that we were quite possibly the healthiest tourists in Brussels.

We did most of our exploring on Saturday because it was actually sort of sunny, and then on Sunday morning we opted for room service breakfast and the International Herald Tribune. A good choice, because Sunday morning the weather reverted back to the the typical gray, cold rain that we see EVERY SINGLE DAY. We even heard thunder at one point. Didn't bother us though, because we had hot coffee and tea and pastries and a comfy bed and a newspaper. We pretty much just lounged for a few hours and when we finished our paper, switched on CNN and watched some Larry King. Eventually we had to get up and and check out, but by that time it had stopped raining for a little bit.

We wandered a little more and grabbed lunch before heading home, feeling completely satisfied, relaxed and happy. We have plans to go back for another weekend getaway, perhaps with museums on the itinerary. Or maybe just more breakfast in bed.

Some pictures from the weekend:

The waffle vans were EVERYWHERE!


Us goofing off at the hotel

Those dogs really had they "stay" command down.

The famous Mannekin Pis

And all the tourists taking pictures of it


Breakfast!!!


And finally, us feeling very happy after chocolates, relaxation, and breakfast