I'm BACK!

Well, I've been back for awhile, but too busy having adventures to force myself to sit still for long enough to blog.  However, I've decided that I need to get caught up a bit before I have any more adventures (unlikely and we all know it) so that I won't be too bogged down when it comes time to blog about all of them :P

One factor that throws a wrench into my blog plans is the perfectionist streak in me; she wants everything to be in chronological order, but I'm starting to think it'd be easier to just write in the order in which the inspirations come to me :P

That being said....are you ready to hear about the time we made Baked Macaroni and Cheese at one of my schoolz?!

One of the teachers I work with asked me to send him a simple recipe that kids would be able to translate (with a little help) and that they'd enjoy eating....so I thought of the ultimate kid's food, the one and only mac-n-chee, and sent him the first recipe I came across.

Having never made Baked Mac-n-Chee myself, I have no idea if it was a good one :P

That Monday, we told the kids (level CM1, so about 9 years old) what we were doing...and they were SO excited!  They already knew the words for all the ingredients--butter, salt, cheese, etc--and had absolutely no trouble translating the directions; one kid raised his hand at the very beginning and said, "I know what this means!" then translated the line "Preheat the oven to 180˚" into perfect French.  I, for one, was really impressed!

We moved downstairs into the kitchen (which you may remember; I've already posted a picture from this very kitchen, one that involves a mini-fridge stocked with about 8 bottles of wine!)  The kids started measuring ingredients and mixing them together.  For some of them it was their first cooking experience.

 
Nicolas (my French colleague) and I did all the "dangerous" work so that none of the kids would get hurt, but somehow I still got burned :P  I made a tough face and didn't let any of the wee ones know, though!  We cooked our rather dubious-looking casserole, and it came out looking golden, crusty, and like something only a child could love. 

Nico had forgotten the forks, so we just doled out a finger-sized amount for each child and told them, "Dig in!"  For the most part I've noticed that French students are far more terrified of NOT being given directions (especially when we made Christmas cards and they stared at me blankly when I said, "do whatever you want!"), but these kids seemed to take these particular directions in stride. 

Dericious!

 

"Raise your hand if you want more!"

Overall, a smash hit :)