Thankfully this was not the case with my final essay for History of Chile. After brilliant work sessions on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday morning, I just couldn't finish it off on Sunday night. Sometimes you just need to the deadline to really zone in and focus. This was exactly how it was on Monday. I got up early and champed out the last section, knocked together my bibliography and formatted my footnotes all before my 12:30 class. The essay wasn't even due until midnight, so I still felt so on my game. I ended up editing later that afternoon once I got home and was very pleased with the finished product. Hopefully my prof agrees...
But before that happened I went to my final History of Chile class. I have to say, this was possibly one of the best taught courses I have ever had the pleasure of teaching. Delphine Groues was an exceptional teacher, and I was very lucky to have her. I also have to say another thing that made this class so great was the dynamic between students, thanks to our diner de confs, which happened throughout the semester. Really happy to have taken it, and I hope to have some more jem classes like this one again next semester.
After class I started studying for my final exam for History of Fashion, which would occur the following evening. If you've gone to all your classes and done your readings, most of the work is already done, you just need to study effectively, so I wasn't too worried for the exam, but nevertheless it was only 24hours away so I needed to get cracking. After looking over my notes independently, I met up with Allison to brainstorm possible essay topics and make fake plans, with a problematique, thesis, and evidence that could be marshalled. I find this is the most effective way to study for an essay exam. This way, you are already familiar with the structure and can re-organize your facts to support whatever topic is given. It is the perfect way to link themes and ideas through the whole course, and distill it down. And if you're a real pro, you might even guess the actual exam question and then you're in the driver's seat. Anyways, Allison and I did this prep together, which was great, and though I had only studied for about two hours in total for the exam, already felt pretty good heading in. That night, I edited and submitted my essay as mentioned, did a little bit of studying, and just had a chill night in with Etienne.
Tuesday marked the last 8am (cross my fingers) of my undergraduate career. I really cannot deal with them. My enjoyment of the class was just so diminished by it. However, this final 8am French class was altogether enjoyable. Got my final mark back for the course (very respectable if I say so myself), and then our teacher took us on a walking tour of the St Germain neighbourhood. We walked through tiny back alleyways and streets that really bring out the character of the quartier. Some of it I had already seen, but others not, and I always enjoy just wandering about in this city. Our destination was this small pub called Le Procope. Founded in 1686, the restaurant was one of the major meeting places for revolutionaries during the French Revolution, and even a march on the Tuileries palace left from this very spot. Pretty cool if I say so myself. Inside, the place has maintained the grandeur of its glory days, and has also become a historical museum of sorts, with ancient letters, pictures, newspaper typewriters, and even a hat of Napoleon 1's. We went on a tour of the place, and then the 10 of us enjoyed coffee together, talking with Madame Benoit. It is so interesting talking to your teachers outside of class, about comparisons of France and other countries, politics, gender issues, you name it. They are a wealth of knowledge, and it is interesting to talk to them when they are not your authority figure. Madame even treated us all to the coffees, which was incredibly gracious of her. Even though I was not the biggest fan of French class, I had to say it was a good class solely because she was such a genuinely nice lady, and an old pro in classroom.
I headed for home after class, and on my way home I picked up my two turkeys. As some of you already know, after my Sinterklaas experience, I realized that many of my foreign friends had no idea what a real Canadian Christmas, and thus Christmas dinner, was. I decided that it would be fun to host a few friends and cook up an old fashioned turkey dinner with all the fixings right before everyone took off for the holidays. Fastforward two weeks. My guestlist has ballooned to 18 people and I'm standing in line at my neighbourhood butcher picking up two pre-ordered turkeys, weighing 8kilos, or about 16lbs, (because I couldn't get one that would be big enough - they dont exist apparently in France). I pretty much have a heart attack when the cashier pleasantly informs that will be 158 euros - approximately 200 CND. Thats right, I payed 200 dollars for 16lbs of turkey. All I could say as I was walking down the street with my two birds muttering that these had better be the best damn turkeys I have ever had.
Once I deposited my precious cargo in the fridge, I had lunch and did some more review for my exam at 5 before heading out to the grocery store to pick up the rest of the supplies for the feast. You may ask why I didn't opt for a potluck. Well straight up I wanted a real christmas dinner, and I didn't trust others to make it the way my mom does, so after a good hour of Skyping with mom on the previous saturday, armed with my list, I marched off to Monoprix. It was quite the armful, and when over half your guests are 20ish year old males, I figured it was better to guess high and get extra than to run out. I will say I am constantly impressed by how cheap vegetables are. I really need to become a veggie, it would be so much friendlier on the student budget. Or at least start by not buying 160 euros worth of organic turkey...
Anyways, I knocked off everything on my list for the cooking marathon that would by my Wednesday, and got back home with just enough time to unpack, do some last minute review and head off to face my exam. I have to say, I think Elodie (teacher), was being nice, because the question was so broad, there was no way you couldn't have had loads to say about the topic. If anything, you had to be selective so that you wouldn't run out of time, that is how much you could say about "Fashion and social status". An endless discussion. Long story short, I put down my pencil with maybe 10 seconds to spare with a fierce hand cramp, but nevertheless pleased with my effort. Hopefully it correlates to another good mark. And with that, I AM DONE TERM 1 BABY!!! Well, pretty much. Just have two exams now in January, but at least I was done for 2010! (Gotta take what you can get).
Post exam, I got treated for the second time that day to a drink bought by the teacher (score!), this time by Elodie, at the campus watering hole, Le Basile. About 8 of us came, and enjoyed some chats about the class, Sc Po and its successes and failing concerning international students etc. Also got to question Elodie about her elusive past. She is pretty much the coolest (and most fashionable) professor ever. She is also hilarious because she puts on this big show of being mean, but she is actually really nice, and her life always seems to be a bit of gongshow/struggle. Anyways, turns out she did her masters chronicalling the development of the Maison Yves St Lauren (so cool), and became friends with M. St Laurent, and they had weekly wednesday afternoon coffees together for a couple of years. She actually went into the industry for awhile, but got out because it is too drama and backstabbing, and now just does consulting work, for labels like Chanel and Dior. We also asked her about her hatred of Ohio, which stems from a stay she had while doing her PhD where she got asked out on a date to Taco Bell. Pretty pleasing. Needless to say, these stories confirmed my earlier statements of how much fun it is to talk to your teachers outside of class and get to see a whole new side of them. I commend Sc Po for encouraging this more so than UBC. It is fabulous.
After this lovely beer, I took the metro up to Eva's in 18th, where she was hosting her own small Christmas soiree, of cheese and hot wine. Yummy. It was a nice time, visiting with some of her friends whom I hadn't seen in quite a while, as well as snacking on the tasty treats. Headed home before midnight though so I could get a full night's rest in preparation for my own Christmas soiree.
Wednesday December 15th 2010: The most LEGEN-wait for it- DARY day of cooking of my entire life!
Woke up at 9 and got right to work. First dish of the day to prepare: the (reserved only for turkey dinners) mashed potatoes. Now in my mind the mashed potatoes are the best thing about dinner so I definitely wanted to ensure that we had enough. I spent the next hour and half peeling and cutting 5kg of potatoes while watching episodes of Entourage. Time actually went by quite quickly. Since I hadn't noticed the massive pot on top of the highest cupboard at this point yet, I had to boil them in batches. This was probably easier actually since yesterday's shopping mission hadn't yielded a potato masher, so I was forced to mash them by hand. I had just seasoned them up when Annie came by at about 12:30 to help with the food preparations, and brought along her electric mixer, which we used to smooth out the lumps left by my efforts. Dish one done!
About half the potatoes that I peeled and mashed by hand. Next challenge: the dressing. Also known as stuffing, this is clearly the second best part of turkey dinner, so again, I wanted there to be lots. Also, there had to be enough for the turkeys, but also a reasonable amount left over for the vegetarians in the crowd. After washing, dicing, and tearing the necessary incrediants with the help of Annie, we sauteed it all together and knocked the dressing off the list lickety-split. Things were rolling along quite smoothly.
Challenge 3: The preparation of Turkey 1: Kevin
It was a good thing that the butcher couldn't give me one massive turkey when I was ordering originally, because I wouldn't have had a pan big enough for a bird of that size, nor would I have been able to fit it in my oven. However, this did mean that we had a long afternoon of turkey cooking ahead of us, so we got right to work. First step was stuffing the turkey and oiling it. That's right, I had to touch a dead bird and then stick my hands inside the carcass. Eww. It was actually surprisingly ok and I wasn't too phased. I think the adreneline of the day got me through it. The first bird was in the oven by 3 and we were rolling!
Oiling up Kevin, about to stuff him. While Kevin was for cooking, Annie and I each got to business on the remaining tasks. I began to cut and peel pounds and pounds of carrots and sweet potatoes while Annie got to work on making brandy butter pudding. By this point, I was getting a little tires of peeling, but the dulcet tones of Stuart McLean christmas stories kept me going. The man is a storytelling genius. My hand was protesting from overuse, so I had to switch grips to the death claw. For the next hour and a half, Annie and I were interrupted from our labours every 15 min as we had to remove Kevin from the oven and baste him. Having been unable to find a turkey baster and being unable to use a spoon to access the juices to baste Kevin, every time we went to baste him, we were forced to tip him his side to get at the juice and douse him, and then repeat on side two. Quite the laborious process. Add in the fact that the pan was burning hot and our oven mitts were not up to par, every 15min presented quite the ordeal. But that was part of the adventure of the day.
Soon enough, Kevin was done and I took him out of the pan and wrapped him in foil and stored him in the microwave. By 5, bird # 2, George was on his way into the oven at 5. Right on pace. Now that we were old pros, we thought we had everything under control. And it was, sort of. Just as David arrived at 6 to lend a hand, we made a realization while attempting to baste Kevin. We
had cleverly decided to leave Kevin's juices in the pot with George so there was lots at the start. Unfortunately we had not forseen that the butter used on the bottom would burn after the first turkey was cooked and that the gravy would start to burn. After a brief moment of panic, we were able to take George out, save the juices, and re grease the pan. George, the second child, of course being the difficult one. Thankfully his tantrum cnly caused a delay of about 15min. I count myself extremely lucky that that was about the only kitchen catastrophy.At this point, guests could be arriving in about 2 hours. This was a crucial juncture. We still had to prepare, the carrot and sweet potato dish, the bean casserole, bake the potatoes, set the table, decorate the living room and I had to shower. Without Annie and David I don't know whaat I would have done. They took care of the living room and banquet table while I got the carrots and sweet potatoes cooking, set an oven mitt on fire, and prepped the beans. We finally got George out of the over and wrapped, potatoes baking and I finally felt like things were falling into place. After I transformed into my dinner self, I emerged just as the first guests began arriving. The next hour and a half were a blurr as people came in, wine and homemade eggnog were consumed, gravy prepared, cranberry sauce simmered, dishes finally heated and by 9:30 the table was heavily laden. Final count of guests: Myself, Etienne, Loic, Annie, David, Joao, Daniel, Emmanuelle, Maia, Timon, Boudewijn, Eva, Corina, Josh, Glenn and Tom. 16 in total. Ayumi was sick and Emmanuelle's Mexican boyfriend was stuck home writing a paper. Not a bad total.
Glenn carving up George. We even had mistletoe. The meal itself couldn't have gone smoother. The food was delicious, the turkey oh so moist, the mashed potatoes divine, and the bean casserole a smashing success. Everyone was dressed up and the table was a bubble of chatter. It was an incredible evening. I am so glad that I got to share christmas dinner with all my close friends from this term, many of whom are leaving at the end of January. This was probably the last time we would all be together. That made the evening so much more special.
Finally, after I was so full I almost felt ill, I put on my the classic Stuart McLean christmas story "Dave cooks the turkey", while I cleared the first course. Though I had made a valient effort to keep the kitchen clean throughout the day, it had finally gotten the best of me and there were plates and food everywhere, which I started dealing with, with the help of Timon, as the story played in the living room. After it was done, Annie and I brought out the brandy pudding and set it on fire for the crowd, who were duly impressed. After dishing it up, people lounged around until just after 12, when the rush for the last metro began.
The banquet table and guests. A night to remember. On thursday, I thankfully slept in, and with the help of Loic and Annie, put the kitchen and living room back in order. The entire day was a rush. After the house was in order and I showered, I
walked up to Corina's to return some cutlery. Its amazing how many little things, like chairs and cutlery, are needed to throw a big dinner party. I then went up and walked by the Christmas windows at Galleries Lafayette, which I had heard so much about. They did not disappoint. Some were glamour, some were for children, but the 10s of decorated displays were worth the visit. Afterwards I walked around the neighbourhood for a bit, just having a much needed moment of quiet. Paris streets are wonderful.
Fabulous dresses I saw on my walk. I headed towards the center of town to pick up a few presents for the family, stopped by school to print off my ticket and headed home to have dinner, sushi, with Etienne and Vassia. Packing finished, I almost stayed in my last night, but then couldn't resist going out with the dutch crowd, to Corcorans, an Irish pub, for a bit of dancing until 3. I enjoyed a very nice bike ride home with Simon. He is the first person I have had to say goodbye to, and its weird to wonder when and if I will ever see some of these friends ever again. Bed by 4. That made for a painful wake up at 7 to get to the airport. But I made it, breezed through check in and security only to discover my plane was delayed an hour. Oh well. But it didn't matter because I was on my way home!!!! Home for Christmas!!!
xx
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