MEAT!
So, at the beginning of my stay, Mme Reiss and I had the extended conversation about food, and I explained my whole deal with meat... my newness to red meat, how I just recently started eating it again, but that all in all, I'm not a big meat person, and that chicken is what I tend to eat most and like best. She assured me that they didn't eat much meat in their household, and chicken was indeed their favorite, except now that the avian flu was going around causing so much panic, she was avoiding the white-meated bird.
Well, I was relieved. A Strasbourg home without that much meat. Joy!
Except I've come to question just what "not that much meat" means in this region. I have been served platefuls of some sort of meat dish for every night I've been here! Last night it was half a plate of steak (thankgod it was fairly well done) along side some pasta, after a huge bowl of soup to start the meal. The night before it was avacado (the one vegetable I forgot to say I didn't much care for) stuffed with tuna/egg salad, followed by tomatos stuffed with these wopping meat balls of some very strong and heavy meat, a special Eastern European recipe, she explained. That I had a hard time finishing. And the night before was the fish with the squiggly oysters incident.
Mme always asks me how I like the meal, and at this point, I'm hard pressed to say "Well actually, i don't much care for..." like she's been encouraging me to do, so that she doesn't cook that dish frequently in the future. So far, I've managed to range on a scale of "Oui, ça va" ("Yes, it's good" which usually means I'm having difficultly with it) to "Oh, OUI, c'est excellent!" which has been sincere and means I'd love to have it again. Unfortunately, I have not been able to telepathically send Mme the translations for this scale, so if she hears "ça va" she knows I'm not jumping out of my seat, but she'll think I like it.
This is something I need to work on sooner rather than later.
I also need to assure her that, please, she needn't cook so much food! She doesn't do left-overs and really likes for me to finish up not only what's on my plate, but also what's in the pan. And she cooks a lot! Especially when confronted with some of the heavy meats, huge meals can prove rather difficult to confront. Additionally, since we eat rather late, I don't doubt that part of my early-morning wakings have been due to a bit of an upset stomach in response to the night before.
*sigh* And the food sagas continue...
Well, I was relieved. A Strasbourg home without that much meat. Joy!
Except I've come to question just what "not that much meat" means in this region. I have been served platefuls of some sort of meat dish for every night I've been here! Last night it was half a plate of steak (thankgod it was fairly well done) along side some pasta, after a huge bowl of soup to start the meal. The night before it was avacado (the one vegetable I forgot to say I didn't much care for) stuffed with tuna/egg salad, followed by tomatos stuffed with these wopping meat balls of some very strong and heavy meat, a special Eastern European recipe, she explained. That I had a hard time finishing. And the night before was the fish with the squiggly oysters incident.
Mme always asks me how I like the meal, and at this point, I'm hard pressed to say "Well actually, i don't much care for..." like she's been encouraging me to do, so that she doesn't cook that dish frequently in the future. So far, I've managed to range on a scale of "Oui, ça va" ("Yes, it's good" which usually means I'm having difficultly with it) to "Oh, OUI, c'est excellent!" which has been sincere and means I'd love to have it again. Unfortunately, I have not been able to telepathically send Mme the translations for this scale, so if she hears "ça va" she knows I'm not jumping out of my seat, but she'll think I like it.
This is something I need to work on sooner rather than later.
I also need to assure her that, please, she needn't cook so much food! She doesn't do left-overs and really likes for me to finish up not only what's on my plate, but also what's in the pan. And she cooks a lot! Especially when confronted with some of the heavy meats, huge meals can prove rather difficult to confront. Additionally, since we eat rather late, I don't doubt that part of my early-morning wakings have been due to a bit of an upset stomach in response to the night before.
*sigh* And the food sagas continue...
posted by Melia at 9:37 AM
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