Salade de gésiers

Well, I guess the consensus is that those creatures are not bats. I recorded a video of the creatures flying around outside my balcony so you can hear their screech and see how they fly. Let's see if this uploads:

Anyway, we will see if that works. 

This evening I decided to go by the corner bakery to buy a dinner of very typical French foods. I bought a salade de gésiers, which is apparently very typical to this part of France (or at least that's what they tell me). Okay, these screechy things are going nuts outside! They must be so happy to get to feast on all the juicy July bugs out there. Anyway, it is a salad with chicken gizzards on top. The one I had tonight wasn't nearly as good as the one I had for lunch during our visit to Amiens, but it wasn't bad. It would be hard to compete with that meal.

Speaking of, I don't think I ever discussed that meal. I briefly mentioned that I went to visit the lab of a very respected researcher in our field last Wednesday. I went along with my adviser who gave a seminar there. It was a very fun day of talking about science and attempting to follow along with inorganic chemistry speak. Anyway, my adviser, our host at ESPCI, and our hosts at the university in Amiens all went out to lunch at this little French cafe near the school. First, I ate a salade de gésiers. That was enough to fill me up. I noticed that I ate much, much slower than everyone else at the table even though I wasn't talking nearly as much as they were and I felt like I was stuffing my face. I thought the French were supposed to eat slowly? I guess not. I will always be plagued with being the slowest eater at the table. After the salade, which was excellent, I had a white fish of some sort served on rice with carrots, potatoes, and onions scattered about on the plate. There were even a couple of pieces of chorizo mixed in there. The fish was tender and the vegetables and rice were well seasoned, but I would have enjoyed eating it more slowly. After that, they brought us desserts of a rice pudding type concoction. That was less awesome. It wasn't bad, but I think I'm not much of a dessert type person, so unless it is phenomenal, I would probably have preferred to skip it. I like warm, low-viscosity rice pudding with minimal sugar and other additives. This one was cold and covered with whipped cream and some raspberry sauce that was a bit too sweet for my liking. Anyway, it was very pretty, but when I remember the meal, I will focus on the salad and the fish.

Anyway, back to dinner tonight. So I bought this salade de gésiers from the corner bakery along with a soufflé au fromage and a little pear tart. The cheese soufflé was phenomenal, as always. Oh my goodness, if those turn out to be easy to bake, I'm doomed. The pear tart is one of those little dessert type things that I always see around in window displays, so I thought I ought to try it. It was pretty good actually. It had a nice custardy base and wasn't too sweet. The crust was a little powdery for my liking though. Anyway, it felt like an appropriately French dinner so I was satisfied. 

Wow, that video still isn't uploaded. I wish it would give me some indication for how far along it is. Anyway, I'll go ahead and overburden my connection by uploading a picture of my dinner too.

Dinner

The flying creatures are multiplying! There's a flock of 30 or so outside now. I do appreciate their culling of the bugs, but I wish they did it with more pleasant voices.