As of today, we have officially been in Lyon for one month! We are so thankful that we have the opportunity to live in such a beautiful city. So much has changed since we got here and there’s so still much uncertainty for the future. We are in the middle of a country-wide lockdown that will likely get extended past the original 15 days.
There’s so much I could write about what’s going on with our situation that’s not positive. Instead, I’m going to provide a welcome break to all the Coronavirus news and write about our cooking adventures.
Leave it to being forced into a lockdown for me to be excited about cooking.
As you may know, Jordan and I are staying in an AirBnB right now. We’ve extended our stay through the end of April during the lockdown. We have none of our things, and are at mercy to cook with what is available in the AirBnB! Everyday is a new adventure to figure out if we have a certain appliance or pan in order to cook the meal we want.
Sharp knives? Don’t count on it. We have one knife that is just “ok”.
A hand blender to make soup? Surprisingly, yes!
A perfectly sized toaster that exactly fits half of a baguette? Who knew that these even existed!?
A wine opener? It’s the fanciest wine opener either of us has seen, which is great because we are drinking a lot of French wine!
Our kitchen also acts as a laundry room and is very small; only one person can be in there at a time. It’s a weird feeling to be cooking right next to the washer/dryer, but our friends have told us this is a normal thing, even in the US!
Back in the U.S., we ordered Hello Fresh almost every week so that we wouldn’t have to spend time grocery shopping or meal planning. We were thrilled to find out that Hello Fresh was also in France so we started that this week.
We thought that Hello Fresh could provide us familiar meals that were easy to make, but instead we are learning about new herbs and vegetables that all suspiciously smell like licorice.
The Hello Fresh instructions are all in French, but we are translating them to English so that we don’t burn down the apartment. The translations aren’t perfect, and can sometimes be more confusing than had we attempted to interpret them in French. Tonight, the English instructions said to “roll it like a pancake” when we were making cannelloni!
We are also learning that Hello Fresh expects us to have some “French staples” in the apartment to cook our meals. These staples include Dijon mustard, bullion cubes, balsamic vinaigrette, and honey. We were expecting bullion cubes to be provided through Hello Fresh and it was too late to try and buy them when we realized we needed them for our soup. When we were about to abandon the meal, we looked and surprisingly our AirBnB had them!
Below you can enjoy some photos from the meals we made this week. Between Hello Fresh and the bakery at the bottom of our building, we will not go hungry during the lockdown (or ever)!
Negatives aside, we are safe in Lyon and are doing fine. We are healthy and that’s what’s most important during this time of uncertainly. Maybe I’ll even decide I like cooking throughout this journey!
Hope you are able to get put and walk some. We enjoy your blog!
Nancy
Love hearing about your adventures…please don’t stop, especially now that we are all in desperate need of some light humor and simple distractions! It warmed my heart to know that I have all the French staples in my kitchen that you listed (except the bullion cubes, which have been replaced with a heavy paste-like substance made by Better Than Bullion). Stay well and sane!
We are using bullion cubes almost on a nightly basis now. We use it for sauce, to make rice, for pasta… it seems like they use it for everything! I’ll try to be better about writing :). There’s not much going on to write about!