Exploring Paris

Exploring Paris

Paris Fall 2017 street sign

We arrived in Paris sleepless and desperate for a shower that didn’t smell like eggs. Our AirBNB wasn’t available for a few hours, so we found a place to park our bags at a cafe a few blocks away. After several days of averaging around $75 a piece for a meal in Reykjavik, we ate like kings and splurged on a $22 five course brunch. After a nap and a shower, we regained the composure of normal humans and spent the evening meandering from Marais to the Eiffel Tower.

We spent the next few days in a similar fashion — walking too much and eating too much in between museum visits and trying to make it to as many of the shops on our bookmarks list as possible.

 

paris in the fall sunset streetparis in the fall seine lightsparis in the fall seine lightsmusee louvre seine night photoraphyEiffeel Tower Night Paris FranceEiffeel Tower Night Paris Francegirl descending stairs to the seine at nightParis Fall 2017 Outdoor Market Marche Paris Fall 2017 Outdoor Market Marche Cat in window Paris Fall 2017 Paris Lunch on the Seine with a bottle of rose Paris Lunch on the Seine with a bottle of rose Paris Lunch on the Seine with a bottle of rose Paris Lunch on the Seine with a bottle of rose Fall Foliage Paris France Street Photo Lunch in paris France Maggie Outside the Musee Louvre Schott Leather Ed outside the Musee Louvre Louvre Floor Detail Paris France Sunlight Photo Louvre Outdoor Musee Louvre Paris France Musee Louvre Panorama Paris France the louvre musee paris france fine art Louvre Paris France Architecture the louvre walkway architecture paris Atelier Brancusi Centre Pompidou paris Outside of Atelier Brancusi Paris Ed on the top floor of Centre Pompidou Paris

Adventures in Reykjavik

Adventures in Reykjavik

We had booked our flights to Reykjavik before we had even come close to settling on a final wedding date. Eager to take advantage of some killer pricing, we booked flights with my family about a year out and hoped everything would fall into place in the meantime.

Ed Sightseeing at hotsprings outside of Rekjavik Iceland

We left Pittsburgh around dinnertime and after a few airport cocktails were able to sleep most of the six hour flight into Reykjavik. It was still dark as we navigated our way from the rental car pick-up into the city to grab a leisurely breakfast before meeting back up with my family for some groggy sightseeing.

Outside Reykjavik Iceland Hot Springs

Sunny Reykjavik Iceland Hot Springs

The landscape is like being on another planet, ranging endlessly and interspersed with mossy fields and snow peaked volcanoes. We’d probably over-packed for the cold, and were lucky enough to have pretty mild weather the entire trip, with temperatures hovering in the mid 40s.

Sunny Reykjavik Iceland Hot Springs

Moss covered lava rocks outside of Reykjavik Iceland

Girl in Moss covered lava fied

Apotek Restaurant Reykjavik Iceland

We’d been properly warned about the price of eating out, but were surprised by an incredible dinner at Apotek our first night. An eight course tasting menu set a high bar for the rest of our meals for the week.

Girl in beanie outside sightseeing in reykjavik schott leather

After staying at a hotel our first night, we shifted into an AirBNB that seemed to be kept in some magical mid-century time capsule. Impeccable linoleum details in the kitchen almost made me regret tearing nearly every inch of fiberglass tile out of our house. Aside from a shower that was heavy in sulphur (think egg hair) I’m ready to house swap with Bjarni whenever he’s ready.

Midcentury Modern Kitchen Airbnb Reykjavik Iceland

Family in Mid-century Modern Kitchen Airbnb Reykjavik Iceland

Midcentury Modern Living Room Airbnb Reykjavik Iceland

White Land Rover in Lava Field Iceland

Church Landscape Reykjavik Iceland

Landscape Reykjavik Iceland

We had all the good intentions of turning in early on our last night so we would be well rested for our flight to Paris, but ended up pulling an all-nighter to catch another glimpse of the Northern Lights.

Northern Lights Iceland

On Bagels

 

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Last weekend we went to New York to visit some friends for my birthday. There are plenty of things I miss about living in the bog apple — pals, music, affordable housing — but nothing I miss as much as a good bagel. Like most NY trips, I had a full itinerary of binge eating and I saved the creme de la creme of Bergen Bagels for very last. Unfortunately for me, their toaster was broken. I returned home feeling a little jilted, the thought of the perfect lox bagel still nagging at my stomach strings.

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We decided to make Peter Reinhart’s Bagels from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.  It’s a fun time.  People always seem to be really impressed if you make bagels, but they’re really not much tougher than bread.  There’s some tricky parts though.  Sometimes you forget that you’re out of capers.  Sometimes you have non-diastatic malt powder and your recipe calls for diastatic malt powder.  Sometimes you can’t find high gluten flour and don’t have time to look at several stores (next time you see wheat gluten on its own buy it and fortify the bread flour [ I think. someone correct me if buying the high gluten flour is better than doing that]). And sometimes your mixer breaks and you have to knead the dough by hand at three in the morning when you just want to go to bed and f bagels f them to h.

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It is fun though, and these aren’t real problems.  Capers : you cry a little and keep better stock of what you have, high gluten flour : use bread flour, Reinhart says they’ll be less chewy than full gluten bagels,  malt powder: use it anyway, you’ll have less enzymatic breakdown of the starches, but it’ll still taste good, mixer breaking:  remember that kneading is a peaceful and relaxing experience.   One thing the recipe doesn’t mention : angelic glows  when you take them out of the oven.   You’ve got to look at them and smell bagel air for 15 minutes before you eat them.  That’s probably the hardest part.  Although that’s about the same for all of the recipes in the book.

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The bagels were very very good.  The inside was chewy, which really complemented the flavors that developed as you chewed.  They’re crusty, in that great bagely sort of chewy way. Just the way that most bagels disappointingly aren’t.   The everything ones did seem more salt balanced.  I topped them with a mix of seeds and salt.  I wonder if the salt is a little low for my taste, or assuming a salty sprinkle.  It’s 2% though,  so I also wonder if I put in an airier salt when I made the dough.  I dont think I salted by weight (don’t tell).   They were best 15 minutes out of the oven.  We also ate some toasted 2 days after and they were still very good. None lasted longer than that.  If you keep them in the fridge to cook some after two days make sure they’re well covered or they’ll get hard spots.  It’s more a disappointment than a deal breaker, that batch went pretty fast too.

 

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Here I am thinking about bagels in the bog apple.

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Maggie must have smelled some bagels at the bottom of the stairwell.

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I think Alaina is eyeing  up a bagel sitting on my left shoulder.

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This is what we at the the Robeling Tea Room.  Not bagels, but very good.

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I think he just lost his last bagel in a bet.  So sad.