2012/07/04
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Défilé Fête nationale - 2012.06.24Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes 
Above
At the end of the parade, they parked the "giants" that were part of it at the same place at the corner of Pie IX and Sherbrooke, near the olympic stadium, pending I don't know what. Last year I had seen them all lined up at Parc Maisonneuve. Or was it the year before? Anyways we see about half of them in the pic. Some are more giant than others, again for reasons I don't have a clue about. Each year they add two or three new ones. These giants are of course a custom directly imported from Europe, a few years ago.
July 4
Happy Independence Day to all Americans!
News tidbits
Read on the Huffington Post - Québec: Gotye is not dead as CNN had reported. As far as I'm concerned he's not even born yet since I don't have a clue who that guy is.
Nicolas Sarkozy is here with family for a few weeks of vacations in a cottage in Morin Heights, a little north of Montreal, invited by his long time friend media mogul Paul Desmarais. It came in handy since just after he left France his home and new office were the object of a police search related to the L'Oréal and Liliane Bettencourt scandal. Apparently he is accompanied by 10 bodyguards. Québec's raccoons can be ferocious. A former prez can never be too cautious.
Al-Jazeera contends that Yasser Arafat died of polonium poisoning, after analysis of personal belongings. His sudden illness and death remained a mystery for the 50some doctors who minded him before he died. Some Palestinians have accused Israel of having poisoned him. We will only know for sure if they exhume his body for further analysis. I happen to think, based on a history of former Mossad interventions, that the Israeli connection is anything but to be discounted. So I hope they do get to check out his remains, so as to get that nasty thought out of my mind.
Da food section
Nothing to wake the king for.
Monday: Chicken with fresh terragon, in a creamy sauce with mushrooms. A new try. A little bland, tastewise and colorwise. Maybe need LOTS of terragon, and more pepper, and... god knows what. I planted some terragon this year but it's in a flowerbed on my balcony, in between a plant of basil and one of mint. It doesn't seem to grow fast so I'll try the recipe again later on in the summer after the plant grows more and can spare a bunch of leaves. For now, this dish is on hold until further evaluation. Could suffer some kind of accompanying stuff. Carrots maybe?
[Add-on: the terragon is in the sauce, the green stuff on the rice is chopped Italian (flat) parlsley.]
[Additional add-on: Fauquet just commented that maybe it should be "tarragon" and not "terragon" and by jove, he is absolutely right!
In French it's estragon]
Tuesday: Chipolata sausages with cactus salad, egg pastas and a dallop of Dijon mustard. I though they were Italian and spelled cipolata, but apprently they are French and spelled with an "h". I had this idea because it's in an Italian butcher shop that I find/found them. The cactus (nopales) are supposed to be Mexican but could well come from southern United States, same as the cilantro that's also in the salad. You can't be sure of anything these days. It's not really important since it's Mexican workers who pick them up anyways. For the time they last, that is, considering those new laws they voted in Arizona and other states.
Comments (7)
Mmm...Tuesday looks yummy! The crossword puzzle is in French?
Happy Indipendece day. Just celebrate and have fun.
You are lucky to be in Canada. Chipolata in the Netherlands can be a Pudding. (A classin in the low lands)
In Italy with an L 'Cipollata' extra can be a sort of onion stew.
I'm not sure the cactus does not have some side effects? Like seeing bright lights?
Mexican stuff is not to be trusted (Joking).
I confuse chipolata with merguez (old age coming faster than I thought).
Une salade de cactus ? Tu pourrais vivre dans le désert comme St jean -Baptiste ( qui se nourrissait auusi de sauterelles ) .
Je suis un peu confondu par le terragon . Est -ce Terragon ou tarragon ?
Amitiés
Michel
ps : A propos des géants on les rencontre dans les villes autour de Lille et dans les Flandres.
@johnpierre - Yes, they're from (in?) my daily Le Devoir. I don't remember if I ever did crosswords in English, if so it must be long ago. My vocabulary is way too limited for that. I mean, when you spell tarragon terragon, you're not quite there yet.
Not to mention cultural differences aka references to stuff I don't have a clue about.
@carlo - Chipolata and merguez are of the same family, kind of. One (the merguez) is just more extrovert. Talks louder in the mouth.
@Banyuls - I'm sure you could handle the "junior" level English crosswords just fine. French crossword puzzles must have the same type of silly little obscure words used over and over again that fit nicely in those types of puzzle (i.e. start and end with vowels) -- puzzles in English are full of those types of words, which are maddening until you start seeing the same words over and over again and can anticipate them better. Come to think of it, many of those words are "foreign", so maybe you have some of the same ones.
j' ai un pied d'estragon et un pied de thym dans mon jardin mais l ' estragon prospère difficilement dans mon terrain argileux situé sur les terrasses glaciaires supérieures de la rivière Somme ( J ' y ai trouvé un biface du paléolithique inférieur et j' ai déjà posté à ce propos autrefois dans Xanga )
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