It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

It's snowing! It started as big gooey wet clumps on my way home from the market this morning, which was miserable, windy and cold. By the time I made it back home, I was wet, numb and caked in a mushy, white crust. The flakes have lightened up now and even though they are still not the pleasing extra big flakes, the snow is drifting slowly down in swirls now. It's beautiful to watch, and the perfect accompaniment to the Potato Chowder I have on the stove and the fresh Chapatti bread dough I have ready to be rolled out into little flatbreads for dipping.

The University has been opening and closing in sporadic cycles for the past couple weeks, leaving me with more than ample free time. Every time they re-open the gates, the striking students physically block the buildings so that professors cannot hold class. Then to keep more damage from being inflicted on the campus (the students did over €93,000 of damage the first week alone), the president re-shuts the campus and waits for the next student vote. Last Thursday while walking past I watched as six vanloads of riot police protected the rights of hundreds of French students who were voting to re-open the campus once again. The officers were in full combat armor and carried nightsticks or guns. It was very shocking to walk around the corner straight into the midst of that. For the most part, the students here do want to go to class and actually have nothing to do with the strike. It's actually a rather small, radical group of students that have decided to force the entire student body to strike. I firmly support freedom of expression, but this seems to be more that a few students are forcing their opinions on a much larger group of people. It's something I am not particularly impressed by, and I feel that this particular strike has gotten way out of hand at the expense of many, many students. I do not know how this will effect the current semester; there are several possibilities. One, they could just erase the whole semester, un semester blanc. This wouldn't really affect me, since I would be able to do extra work to get my credits just the same. Honestly I'm hoping this is what they do; it isn't fair to the students who weren't in favor of the strike, but in some ways I just want to say: Serves you right. They certainly don't deserve to get credit for the semester. The other option would be to push next semester back, have another month of class in January and then finals right before February. This would also erase one of our breaks in the Spring and make a mess of graduation and returning home for me. We're just playing a game of wait and see in the mean time, which means I get to hang out in the kitchen extra much and it's making me even more excited for the Christmas Break, if that's possible. I leave for Lille next Friday amidst the Holiday Train Strikes; my fingers are crossed.


But like I said, I hang out in the kitchen a lot. This last week I made Sweet Potato Gnocchi, the taste was amazing, but I think I need a little practice with getting a good texture. I've also been trying my hand at flatbreads; and I've had quite a bit of success with making Chapatti breads in my skillet. They are so easy, about 15 min. to whip of a batch, and I've been pretty pleased with the results. Having mastered steamed quick breads; I've been playing around with some recipes and tried making persimmon bread. I don't really care for raw a persimmons, as they are really sweet and mushy, but whipped up into a quick spice bread, delicious! I highly recommend giving them a try. And in the spirit of Christmas we all pitched in to make goodies for a White Elephant Christmas Party hosted by Joel last night. Amy made an impressive Norwegian Christmas Tree of a cake, called Kransekake. It consists of formed rings of cookie made from almond paste and then assembled into a huge cone with sweet icing. It was yummy! Marit made mulled wine, a holiday favorite of mine. Actually just the smell is almost enough, but I'm all in favor of it its consumption too. I tried making truffles, and while they tasted fine, I need a little practice on presentation. A little more patience and some adequate freezer space might help. I bet I could find an excuse to make them again to practice. I also felt it wouldn't be Christmas without Eggnog, and after a little searching came up with a recipe that looked promising. Next time I think I'll go the whole 9 yards with the vanilla bean, cinnamon stick and fresh mace, but the version I made with powdered spices and extract was very tasty indeed. I see a lot of homemade Nog in Christmas' Future.