The French Chef!!!!

A lesson in French Canadian Cuisine.

Bonjour bloggers and fans of french food!!!

Note: I only know two French words: Bonjour and Je taime. It works for me!

You will not learn any new recipes here. This is more about my wife (who will henceforth be known as the little French Lady) and me (who has been called many things but nothing that refers to French or cooking).

It really has to do with our philosophical differences. She has a keen sense of taste and smell and is very particular about how the fragrance (or when I cook, stench) strikes her palate and nasal passages.

My first experience was with Creton. My wife told me about it. I went to restaurant in

Greenfield Park, Quebec, across the river from Montreal. They serve Creton for breakfast. My wife says, "Aren't you going to eat that Creton?" My reply was," I am not eating that lard ball." It looked like something that was scraped out of a Crisco can after being reused for a week. I am not a fussy eater but I wouldn't touch that with a cattle prod.

To make a short story long I finally did eat it. I love it. It is really quiet tasty. It must have something to do with the fermentation in the crisco can.

(lard ball pix above...I mean Creton).

My wife's first adventure with my American cooking had to do with instant mashed potatoes. She once used instant mash potatoes in her youth and found them to be gritty, runny and kind of funky.

Early in our courtship I decided that I would cook some Shepard's pie. I told her how I prepare it. I would be using instant mashed potatoes. Her heart sunk. She knew our relationship would sadly be over soon due to philosophical differences about mashed potatoes.

She liked me so much that she gave it a try.

Our tenth anniversary will be in 11 days. I think I will cook some Shepard's pie with instant mash potatoes.

she is a brave soul. She likes my cooking. I like her cooking. She likes to experiment sometimes.

This can sometimes get a little weird. She has not offered to deep fry me a peanut butter sandwich garnished and Rosemarie and Lavender yet. It's coming. I just feel it. She just likes to experiment with her recipes. There has been very few times where we sampled one of her or my creations, looked at each other and wordlessly walked to the toilet and poured it in.

Our taste buds are very different. She likes tart food. I lean towards sweet. I think it is the only taste sense I have left.

I really believe I would eat a dead skunk with a side of day old cat poop (not fresh).

She would test me like that.

She would ask me how did it taste. I would say, "The skunk was pretty tender, the cat poop was a little too fresh but the chocolate syrup made it work. The curdled milk wasn't too chunky."

I rate it a b+.

There is one thing that really confuzzles me. My wife uses 4 knives to make a bowl of soup and a sandwich. Is it just a woman thing or does she know she can multitask with a knife?

Maybe she read to many manners books. They always use 4 forks, five different size spoons, a few knives. I just put the knife in my mouth, lick off the peanut butter or whatever and put it back in the drawer. Please don't tell her.

Bottom line: She is a great cook. The Little French Lady. Je taime!!!