When we stepped on the plane in the early hours of the morning in Paris, we were hardly prepared for the incoming sun, heat, and dust of Tuscany.
Nor were were we ready for worker strikes. Strikes plagued our trip, and they all began during our time in Florence. It was enjoyable though to see higher end tourists have to wait in the scorching heat like everyone else.
After checking in, we began our trek to the Boboli Gardens. Our prior visit led us to believe the city’s best views were up at Piazzale Michelangelo, but Boboli and Belvedere provide a near tangible view of the Duomo and Palazzo Vecchio. Reach out and the entire city is at your fingertips.
The gardens were scorching, but the fort at Boboli was still worth admission. The simple architecture at Belvedere left me wondering what it would have been like to be Florentine royalty centuries ago.
Of course, the centuries-old architecture is unlike anything else in the world. My younger brother would play the older Assassin’s Creed video games as we grew up, and I remember being wide-eyed with digital Florentine architecture. Actual Firenze is that much better.
I swore this time around we would visit the Uffizi. There are few museums in the world with the Uffizi’s calibre, so I’m an idiot for not wanting to stand in line for three hours to get inside. With near 35 Celsius temperatures, waiting in line appeared to be torture.
Instead, we opted to find a cool bottle of white Tuscan wine along the Arno at Signorvino. If you happen to be in Florence, there may not be a better view than on Signorvino’s terrace, especially in the later evening. With Ponte Vecchio’s dazzling jewelry shops glitzing in the evening sun, our first bottle of Italian wine tasted unimaginably good.
The heat, dust, and crowds prepared us for what was to come in Italy, but it was the wine which helped us relax. After a week of big city touring, Florence was a nice step back into history and into vacation.
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Euro 2016 fans could be found in every corner of the city chanting their country’s football anthems, while soldiers were stationed on every street corner after threats had arisen. The Seine found itself at heights not seen since the 1960s, causing the Louvre to evacuate a large chunk of its collection. The entire city seemed to have a heavy dampness in the air.
And, as we chose to visit in the middle of summer, Parisians had largely vacated the tourist throngs.
In short, Paris felt very un-Parisian.
This was Jaclyn’s second time visiting the City of Light and it was my third visit. This being my third visit, I felt a sense of comfort. The Métro hadn’t changed, so we made sure to keep our tickets on hand until we exited. The same cheap crêperies inhabited the same locations at Trocadéro, so we knew to have a few coins to grab a snack.1 Most importantly, we knew which touristy streets to avoid, allowing us to experience what little Paris there was left to discover.
Of course, we wouldn’t have visited if the plan was to retrace our prior steps. This time, we enjoyed the views from the top of the Arc du Triomphe and wandered the streets of the Latin Quarter, the Marais, Les Halles, and Île Saint Louis. Mid-30 degree weather had us looking for shade and ice cream,2 but it’s hard for the weather to keep you from admiring the beauty of the city.
Place des Vosges was a perfect spot to enjoy a cup of coffee and to people watch for a few hours. The square is just far enough away from the huge crowds to get a breath of fresh air. Aside from the near-perfect porridge in London, Carette kicked off our fooding habit and, after a bit of a walk to Les Halles, an American-styled burger with homemade Roomies sauce really put our tastebuds into action. We can’t recommend either of these places enough.
I’ve long felt Paris’ beauty isn’t as immediately obvious as beauty in other cities. Paris’ streets are an awful mess and the high consumption of nicotine leads to a smokey stench. If I was asked to judge the city based on my first five second impression, I’d say I was horrified.
But look upwards and you’re sure to be mesmerized. Parisian architecture is unlike any other city in the world. Paris’ elegance, to me, is most perfectly reflected in the flowerbeds hanging off window balconies and orange chimneys lining the tips of apartment buildings. Throw in that truly-Parisian black-to-blue top level with open-swinging windows and Parisian architecture becomes second to none.
There’s enough history in this city to satisfy the hungriest of learners. Île de la Cité dates back to BC times, with centuries of catacombs to prove it. The Louvre, of course, houses millenia of artifacts and artwork, and is definitely worth a few euro to visit if you have time to stand in line. And if you want to see the peak of Georgian-era opulence, head just outside the city to visit the Sun King’s quarters.
If, on the other hand, you quickly grow tired of huge masses of European backpackers, make like us and get off the main streets. There are some incredible little treasures to find off the beaten Paris track, and it doesn’t take long to find Parisians who work hard to improve their rude reputation. For the first time, we came away impressed with Paris’ hospitality and we were incredibly grateful for how quickly locals used their English to help us out.
This was set to be our last trip to Paris for many years. But, thanks to the city’s newfound hospitality, and thanks to how little Paris you can experience in the middle of the tourist season, it’s going to be very difficult not to want to visit during a travel downtime.
This was the only good view you could get of Tour Eiffel unfortunately. The Champ de Mars was locked down for Euro 2016 and Trocadéro had a big plywood wall stationed right in the best photography positions. As a whole, the entire city felt shut down and dead. Considering recent events, we came to understand why. ↩
Our luck was running very thin in Paris. The Louvre wasn’t open for business. The Champs de Mars was shut down. And Berthillon Glacier on Île Saint Louis — largely considered the best place to get ice cream in Paris — was closed when we walked by. Pick your visiting times better than we did. ↩
My name is Jaclyn and I consider myself to be a growing expert in food and nutrition. What I really mean to say is that, although I have a lot of nutrition knowledge, nutrition is an endlessly growing field and there is so much to learn. I am continually researching and working to sort through the maze, and want to help guide others through it as well.
I recently completed my Dietetic Internship and will be a Registered Dietitian in a couple months. The road to becoming a Registered Dietitian in Canada (and especially Manitoba) is fairly grueling, with four full-time years of study and an unpaid, ten-month internship to complete. Although it’s long, you learn a ton in the internship program. I’ve been lucky enough to use Josh as my guinea pig for the last few years and he thinks I should share some of these cool recipes and tricks here on The Newsprint.
My personal view about nutrition is simple: We need to learn to have a beautiful relationship with food where we don’t have to fear it or let it stress us out. Life is way too short for dieting and constantly worrying about every piece of food we eat. I think we all need to take food a little less seriously.
This is my first piece for The Newsprint. If you have any thoughts, just send me an email! We’d love to hear what you think!
Have you heard of white sauce before?
Josh and I come from a Mennonite area1 where many old recipes and traditions have stayed around for generations. One of those traditions is white sauce. White sauce is made several different ways. When I was growing up, my mom made it as a warm, thick, pudding-like sauce. Where does one use this magical white sauce? Well, waffles!
We serve this magical sauce with our waffles and it replaces the need for syrup or any other toppings. You can still have some fruit with it as well because, after all, you should probably balance this meal out a little bit.
I came up with this recipe by blending a few favourite recipes together. I chose to add whole grain flour because it boosts the nutrition up a notch. Whole grain flour increases the fibre content and gives us more nutritional benefits.
When using whole grain flour I like to blend half whole grain and half all-purpose. When you use only whole grain flour, you often get a denser final product.
Here are a few more tricks for great waffles:
Use buttermilk to give a nice soft texture.
Beat your egg whites until a stiff peak forms. It adds lots of air and fluffy clouds to your batter.
Fluffy clouds? Waffles? Mmmm.
This recipe makes four large Belgian waffles. If you have a waffle iron that makes smaller waffles, you’ll likely get a few more out of the recipe.
The batter and white sauce also stay good in the fridge for about four days. Have leftover waffles after your meal? I like to freeze them and Josh can put the waffle quarters into the toaster for breakfast during the week. This is a much healthier alternative to an eggo. Plus, these will actually fill you up!
Recipe
Ingredients
Waffle Batter
Makes 4 large Belgian waffles
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole grain wheat flour
2 and 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
3 large eggs, separated
1 3/4 cup buttermilk (regular milk works as well)
3 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
White Sauce
2 cups milk, divided
3/4 cup white sugar, divided
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
2 large eggs, beaten
Directions
Waffles
In a large bowl, sift together both flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and ground cinnamon. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer or KitchenAid mixer on high speed until stiff peaks form.
In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks well and add buttermilk. Whisk together well.
Stir the egg yolk/buttermilk mixture into dry ingredients. Add melted butter and mix well. Fold in the egg whites.
Preheat your waffle iron. While doing this, you can make the white sauce.
White sauce
In a small sauce pan, gently boil 1 cup of milk over medium heat, stirring often.
While you are doing this, in a separate bowl, mix sugar, cornstarch, and eggs together well. Stir in the remaining 1 cup of milk.
Stir this mixture into the hot milk just as it is starting to boil. Stir with a whisk until the sauce begins to thicken.
Spread the batter onto the preheated waffle iron, making sure to leave enough room for the batter to spread.
Serve the waffles topped with white sauce and your favourite fruit topping. My healthy tip to make a lightened, yet healthy weekday breakfast, is to serve half a Belgian waffle with 1/4 cup white sauce, 1/2 cup thawed frozen berries, 2 hard boiled eggs, and a glass of milk.
We can definitely still enjoy the foods we love while eating a balanced diet!
By “Mennonite”, we don’t mean “no-technology”, “horse and buggy” Mennonite. We wear shorts and t-shirts and have a TV in our house. ↩
