K is for kir royal

kir royal = a classic french apéritif with crème de cassis and champagne

this summer i'm the teaching assistant for a paris summer program, and last night we took the whole class (38 of them - and guess who's going to be grading their final papers!!) out for a couscous dinner. couscous is to france what curry is to england - a wildly popular, almost national dish which is actually that of a former colony (in this case, 3 former colonies/protectorates: algeria, morocco, and tunisia). a couscous dinner is semolina wheat granules topped with vegetable stew, lamb patties, chicken, and merguez sausage and then accented with chick peas, a spicy paste, and plenty of yellow raisins. it's no bun cha, in my humble opinion, but it IS delicious.

but i'm not here to tell you about how we stuffed ourselves nor am i going to detail the raucous dance party that erupted as soon as we'd set our forks down (moroccan music is impossible to resist. seriously, your hips just take over!) no, i'm here to talk about the apéritif. because we were such a large group, the restaurant owner offered everyone a complimentary kir royal. as i mentioned above, kir royal is a shot of crème de cassis finished off with champagne. it's sweet and bubbly, but only just so. and it's awfully pretty! santé!

J is for jeu

... et mon jeu préféré? c'est le ping-pong!

jeu = game

there are two tables in the park right around the corner from our house, and a few weeks ago, knox surprised me with our very own set of paddles and bright yellow balls. aww, i couldn't have asked for a sweeter guy! i almost feel bad about smoking him every game...

still life with ping-pong


knox waits patiently for the table to open up

LB channeling the god of pong

working on his moves

now i'm no hotshot, but i can hold my own once i've warmed up. knox, on the other hand, did not have a table on his porch as a kid nor did he grow up in a family of ping-pong enthusiasts (by the way... dad, what ever happened to the god of pong??) but he has made incredible progress after only a handful of games and is a lot of fun to play with. there are some other great players in the 'hood, including the 4-ft-tall, lightening-fast french kid we met and each played yesterday. THAT was humbling!