hecklers.

yesterday a few friends and myself road tripped to platteville, wisconsin to watch the football team play uw-plateville. a town literally in the middle of corn fields. there aren't even highways to get you to this place, all back roads. which definitely makes for the best kind of road trip. a three hour drive quickly turned into a 4 hour drive because as women we have to stop every half hour for a restroom/coffee break or a photo opp in some quaint town along the way. jess, obsessed with her new-found love of instagram, took pictures of every possible person/place/thing on the trip. my personal fave was the picture morgan took of the rest of us at the wisconsin border sign from literally 100 yards away. good thing the zoom quality is so clear.it was definitely worth the trip. it turned out to be a great game and as predicted a huge thunder storm hit platteville as wheaton defeated the pioneers 23-14 (for all of you non-wheatoners, that was my attempt at a really lame joke to use our mascot as figuratively as possible). i felt like a proud parent watching one of my sons out there playin. i found myself cheerin and jumpin out of my seat like it was second nature.

home is where the heart is...

...and mine will always be in the south.

 "The South.... The place where... 1. Tea is sweet and accents are sweeter. 2. Summer starts in April. 3. Macaroni & Cheese is a vegetable. 4. Front porches are wide and words are long. 5. Pecan pie is a staple. 6. Y'all is the only proper noun. 7. Chicken is friend and biscuits come with gravy. 8. Everything is Darlin' 9. Someone's heart is always being blessed."


can i get an amen?!

Wheaton Happenings

so much has already happened in the 3 weeks that i have been here. first, i absolutely love my classes (i had to get the nerdy comment out of the way). i only have 3 classes so i am cruising through so far. all of my profs are amazing and the classes are so interesting. i guess that means i was meant to be an education major..? volleyball has been awesome like always. i like being the oldest on the team..even though i still dont feel old enough. i pull the "seniority" card a lot - van rides, beds in hotel rooms, etc. i love all of the new players (as well as the returners). we just got back from hotlanta where we owned. we accomplished one of our goals of beating a national ranked team! it was awesome. i got to see my parents and nicole and maw maw and paw paw (we missed you breezy!)...teresa made tons of food like always - her famous banana nut bread and this new trail mix from southern living. like every volleyball team i have been on, we can eat just about anything and we have appetites larger than a football team. good thing we wear spandex, huh? needless to say we ate good all weekend long. i love both of our new assistant coaches...coach hindeman and coach smith...commonly referred to as hiney and ash but only when we are celebrating. i bought myself the new southern living magazine for the airplane...definitely worth the $5. i only have one more year to bring the south to wheaton.

on the road again.

back to wheaton and probably the last time i will be making the trip from charlotte to chicago. this time we have decided to make the best of this trip and enjoy our stops along the way. we got 2 hours away before we made our first stop. my mom has always wanted to go to flat rock, north carolina, a quaint mountain village, home to author carl sandburg. i love mountain towns so this was right up my alley. we perused antique shops and boutiques before we decided to eat at a local bbq shack. the aroma from the smokestack was too tempting to pass up. we shared some pulled pork bbq, collard greens, stewed okra and corn bread. de-lish.

before we left charlotte we consulted our southern living: off the eaten path to find some good eats along the way. we found one in louisville, kentucky called lynn's paradise cafe. it has been features on the food networks and my personal favorite, man vs. food. despite the fact that teresa about got us killed on the way there, it was a success. the decor was crazy. i felt like i was in alice and wonderland while on drugs, the pictures speak for themselves. this time we shared a grilled portobello mushroom wrap with onions rings and for dessert, a louisville favorite: derby pie a la mode. i give it two thumbs up. 

goodbye summer.

the end is almost here. i cannot believe just how fast this summer has gone by. i feel like i haven't been settled in one place for more than 6 weeks. home to france back home to good ol' lake lure back home and now off to chicago in 5 days. i'm still not fully ready to go back to wheaton. not because i am not ready to see all of my friends and start volleyball, but because i am not ready to start my senior year. once i start, it's practically over and then everyone starts asking the typical "so what are your plans for after graduation??" and do i have a clue??NO! ideas, yea, plenty of those. my newest one is going to pastry school since i will be owning my own french bakery one day (preferably in charleston, sc). le cordon bleu has a pastry school...international and in the states. so i have been looking at my different options for pastry school and whether i want to go back to france to take more classes or stay here? and of course, teaching english in france is still on the top of my list. ahh so many options! but i know that no matter what God has a plan for me and he will reveal it in time. so really there is no need to worry or stress. i am currently in the process of making one of my go-to summer dinners: grilled chicken, grilled zuchini and squash, and angel hair pasta with sun-dried tomatoes and mushrooms. my next big dessert challenge is a variation of a mille-feuille (a french inspired pastry). however, rather than putting custard in between the pastry layers, i'm planning on making mousse au chocolat and using that as the filling and garnishing the top with white chocolate and strawberries. i'll let y'all know how that turns out :)

mousse au chocolat.

another food adventure today: mousse au chocolat! my host mom taught me how to make it and it is super easy and delicious!

ingredients:
1 200g chocolate dessert bar (i prefer dark chocolate)
6 eggs (separate yolk and egg whites)
1 pinch salt

step 1. break up chocolate into small chunks

step 2. melt chocolate

step 3. separate egg yolks and egg whites

step 4. add a pinch of salt to egg whites

step 5. beat egg whites until small cones form

step 6. combine egg yolks and melted chocolate

step 7. fold egg whites into chocolate mixture

step 8. refrigerate for 3 hours

optional add ins

I made three variations: dark chocolate, peanut butter and coconut almond

confiture de cerise.

this summer in france i learned to love many new foods including jam and cherries. each morning for breakfast i would eat these things called biscottes (which are basically little pieces of toast) and an assortment of jams. i would basically pile as much jam as i could onto one piece that's how much my new love for jams had sky rocketed. the second food i came to love were cherries. since i bought my lunch at the local produce market every day, i would to explore my options. at least twice a week i would buy a big bag of cherries to eat during class. today while i was shopping at the HT (Harris Teeter for all of you non-south easterners) i had a great way to fuse my two food loves together: cherry jam! lucky for me cherries were on sale this week. when i got home i googled different recipes and found one that looked easy and had pictures. unfortunately, i didn't have a de-pitter  so i got a little, well more than a little, messy. but after de-pitting all of the cherries, it was smooth sailing from there. i added lemon juice and sugar to the cherries and put them on the stove to simmer. super easy and super tasty! now tomorrow i can eat my cherry jam with some biscottes!

ingredients: cherries, lemon juice and sugar

la confiture de cerise!