I'm sitting on a giant bouncy ball in front of my computer right now, wearing a pair of ankle socks, a sundress I bought in Kauai, and a flannel pajama top. I have a cold, and I haven't really slept all that well for the past few days, except for the night before last, when I fell asleep curled up in front of the fireplace in the dog's bed at 9:15pm. Hey, it was available, it was soft, it was warm, and I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. Besides, he's been sleeping in *my* bed for many years now, so it's payback time.

Julian is in my arms semi-asleep. He woke up a few minutes ago screaming his lungs out...apparently he slept on his arm and it got pins-and-needles and freaked him out. So here I am in my crazy get-up, rocking him back to sleep (maybe) while I manually copy and paste each of my 180+ posts into the new blog system. Tiresome. My index finger is killing me from clicking so much, and now one-handed hunting and pecking on the keyboard.

I am brokenhearted. My pate en brioche bit the dust yesterday. Two bad things happened.

ONE: I used salted butter when I should have used unsalted butter. I would blame Julia for this, because she just said "butter" in the recipe. I should have known better, but it would have helped if she had specified. Maybe they only had unsalted butter back in the day when she wrote "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", I don't know. This made the brioche part a tad salty, which would have been OK, except then...

TWO: I added the aspic into the hole in the top of the brioche, to fill the space between that and the settled pate inside. I stirred it over a bowl of cracked ice, as specified, but I didn't boil it first to dissolve the gelatin powder. Julia didn't say anything about that! I'm guessing that's where I went wrong though.

Anyway, the gelatin liquid was nice and savory with beef broth and port, and it looked and felt syrupy, so I poured it in, but then it didn't gell up. Instead, it soaked my entire brioche base, and made a sodden mess. Ugh. It still looked nice, but tasted icky and wet. I saw that it wasn't gelling, so I added in some super-gelatiny aspic on top (that I had boiled and chilled first), but by that point it was too late. The damage was done.

This all happened about 45 minutes before I was supposed to be at the party with my creation. Luckily I decided to cut it open and test it first, which was when I discovered the soddenness of the brioche base. Taste test revealed that cold, mushy, broth-soaked brioche is not tasty at all.

Panicked and already late for the party, I decided to go to Trader Joe's and get some baguettes and pate there. No go, they were completely out of baguettes! So I picked up 5 of their new Tartes d'Alsace, which are spectacular, and three bottles of beaujolais nouveau, parce qu'il est arrive! Still panicky, I headed off to my party.

Well, the francais there couldn't have been more kind. This American woman shows up 30 minutes late to the dinner party, a complete stranger, all flustered, without the food that she was supposed to bring, and they were absolutely welcoming, courteous, and friendly. Complimented me on my excellent French (*blush*), offered me the tray of appetizers, mixed me up a kir, and put me at my ease right away. Anyone with derision for the French, you can kiss my ass. They are NICE PEOPLE. So put away those snide remarks, at least around me.

There were about 5 kids there, playing quietly in the next room. They were big fans of the TJ Tartes, which were as delicious as I anticipated, so at least that wasn't a bust. We had excellent food, wine and conversation around the dinner table on a range of interesting topics until midnight, when the party finally broke up.

Shockingly, the common American conversational topics of shopping, TV shows and recent movies did not come up once. I didn't even realize it until I was on my way home. Instead, we talked about cultural differences, food, travel , parenting, and politics (French, mostly). The usual (and yet quite unusual) conversational courtesies were extended...people posed questions about interesting subjects, listened intently to the answers, and refrained from prattling on ad nauseum about their own opinions and experiences unasked.

I must say, it was very refreshing to be in that company. It was a slight strain on my brain to comprehend everything after not really speaking French for 7+ years, but I did OK, considering. I'm always amazed at how it comes back so quickly.

Well, my butt and back are killing me, and I should wake this baby up, put on some non-pajama clothing, and eat some lunch. No more geeking for now. Oh, new pics are up, check 'em out.