Cave of Food: La cuisine d'une étudiante Americaine

I haven't mentioned this at all, but I am studying in Southern France for three and a half months. Aix-en-Provence to be exact.

This explains my lack of posts, because I am without my dehydrator, blender, and food processor.

Before you start salivating over the fact that I'm in one of the food capitols of the world, I would like to say that it actually hasn't been easy finding foods that are "easy on the digestive system" here. I suppose that it's the same in the United States, but there I already know where to go for all the foods I need, and more importantly, where not to go.

To find the specialties, such as Bouillabaisse, Ratatouille, and many others, you would have to sit down somewhere and dish out at least 12 euros. I have eaten some pretty good seafood salads though, despite the fact that the crevettes (shrimps), were still completely in tact. I know because they basically told me that they were.

I thought that I was a pescatarian for health and environmental reasons, but since my experience with my shrimps peering up at me from my plate, I can now officially say that I am also bound to pescatarianism by ethical reasons.

Anyways, the French also love white bread, cheese, meat, and pain au chocolat (chocolate croissants).

After a week or so of trying to eat from the small lunch shops in the streets of Aix, my digestive system was upset with me from the white bread and cheese. Already I have made a tofu scramble, and, by courtesy of my roommate, I've started eating smoked salmon lettuce wraps:


Big piece of lettuce, smoked salmon, capers, whole mustard, diced cucumbers

And it was so good. I thought I'd be hungry afterwords, but lettuce fills up your stomach, stretching it and stimulating those hunger-suppressing hormones. Also the protein from the saumon fumé made it very satisfying. I thought about adding avocado also, but I didn't want the taste to be too lipidy (fatty). There are already plenty of Omega-3s from the salmon, and I already ate avocado with breakfast so I didn't need any more Vitamin E, another dietary component that is fat-soluble.

Guacamole

I didn't realize how much Mexican food I ate in California until I came to France, where there is hardly any. Some students report that there IS a Mexican food place, but they recommend that we not go there.

Despite the fact that we're all going to try to make quesadillas, black beans, and guacamole on my birthday, I couldn't wait and on Sunday I ventured out into the freezing winds (really, it's called the Mistral and it's a powerful wind that flies in straight from the Alps), and I bought a red pepper, a tomato, an avocado, a lime, and some guacamole seasoning because they have that at the open air market (don't read into it though, or else I wouldn't be here, typing my craving out to you).