French Word of the Day: doggy bag (dough-gee bahg)- doggy bag

There is a French word, but no one uses it.  The French won’t tell you this, but they secretly like throwing English words into their everyday jargon.  Sure, they have a government institution entirely devoted to “frenchifying” imported words from other languages, but who listens to the government?

Side note: the government sometimes rejects the French-Canadian version of words like “courriel” for email (the true French word is “mél”) because they can.  Of course, in real life everyone calls it “email”.  I’ve heard “courriel” used, but never “mél” which shows how effective their language people are.

Back to food.  Doggy bags aren’t as widely used here as they are in the States.  It most likely has to do with the fact that you get 1/3 of the amount of food at restaurants.

My current foyer has been an experience.  It doesn’t have a kitchen, so we’re expected to eat dinner and breakfast at the foyer and scavenge for food on our own in the afternoon.

There isn’t a lot of variation in the meals.  For example, Monday: meat, pasta covered in cheese, spinach covered in cheese, yogurt, creme brulee, and cheese.  (It always baffles me that after having everything covered in cheese, people still need more cheese.)

Problem: I’m extremely lactose-intolerant.  (Yeah, yeah, you’re all thinking, “What are you doing in France, crazy?!”  They have bread too, fyi.  And chocolate.  I have all the major food groups covered.)

This is the actual French Food Pyramid:

Of course, some people think it looks more like this:

(Can you tell I’ve been having fun with paint?  New drawings EVERY post!!!!!!!!!!!  Note: this will probably not happen.)

Both are true.  The French need the butter because they walk everywhere.  They are walk-a-philes.  (Is there a real word for that?  Someone look it up; I’m lazy.)  I think they burn 5 billion more calories per day than the average American.  This is a low guess.

Théo and I went on a date last night (we can do that now that we’re in the same country).  It was just going to be a movie, but I made it dinner and a movie to ensure that I was able to eat.  (I hold little hope for my foyer dinners.)

I found the only place in France that gives American-sized portions: Japanese restaurants.

They gave us wine and soy chips to start off, followed by soup, followed by salad… I was done after that.  Except then they gave me 16 pieces of sushi.  And candy afterward.  It’s a great testament to the candy that I was able to eat it at all.  The sushi was not so lucky.  I think I left two pieces (and that was after Théo ate three or four).

I’m looking at it now, and it doesn’t seem like that much food.  I promise it was.  Maybe being in France for four weeks has warped my ideal food portions?

The film was Wallstreet in English with French subtitles so that we would both understand what was going on.  I mean, I’m taking a business class, but I don’t think I could figure out how to translate stock market lingo in French. It’s not that intense of a business class.  For example, today we got advice for destressing after returning to work after a long vacation (also known in France as the entire months of July and August).  I’m not sure if learning stock market lingo is in our future.  Or if the French are off holiday long enough to have developed stock market lingo.

Tonight, Arnaud, Théo and I return to Hetfeelds, our old haunt.  (Are the kids still using that word?  Maybe I should have gotten a BA in Modern Literature.)  Because our program group (the one from the US) is a bit clingy, everyone from that will be joining us as well.

Pain au chocolat count: 16