Strike day = fajita night

There is a lot to write about. It is daunting, which is why I haven’t written anything in a few days. For now, let’s talk about the railroad strike occurring across France today.

The national railroad system (SNCF) and the Paris subway system (RATP) are both on strike starting today. The RATP strike is especially hard because all transportation in Paris has literally come to a halt. The RATP includes the Métro, the RER (rapid line that goes to the suburbs), the bus, and the tram. No one I know even tried to go to classes today.

Basically, Sarkozy wants to change some of the pension privileges of the railroad workers. Right now, they can retire before they are 55. Sarkozy wants to bring them up the same pension privileges as other French workers. The last time the government tried to do this, in 1995, the workers went on strike for three weeks.

What it means for me is that there is no way for me to get anywhere, and also that many things are closed because workers can’t get there. So since I had the time… I decided that I would make fajitas tonight! This is also because tonight is “Vaune’s night to cook” which means that Vaune buys food and chops it up and is my go-fer, and I cook. On my night to cook, it’s the same except I buy the food. Also, Katie is staying with us because her boyfriend is flying in tomorrow and she realized on Wednesday that she was not going to be able to take the trains after yesterday because of the strike, so she came in last night and crashed on Vaune’s floor. So today the three of us walked to Franprix and started collecting ingredients for dinner.

Let me just say that searching for fajita ingredients in a French grocery store is not an easy task. First of all, I was looking for ingredients for the marinade, and Worcestershire sauce just did not want to be found. I grabbed a Chinese barbecue sauce (Hoi Sin) instead. Crème fraîche took the place of sour cream. Emmental cheese instead of… whatever other cheese you would use for fajitas. Anyway, we rounded up many of the ingredients at Franprix and then trekked to Monoprix to get the chicken. At Monoprix, we found the international section, which is where I found the Hoisin sauce, as well as peanut butter, maple syrup, Old El Paso taco kits, and marshmallow fluff, which was very exciting. I also found the first cheddar cheese that I have seen in France. It was 5€ for a tiny wedge of it, but I bought it and hoarded it away in my fridge. I am very excited.

So in a bit I will start making guacamole and when I am done I will cook up the fajita ingredients and once again the Tulane JYA in Paris Cooking Co-op will eat well.

Later I must write about what a small world it is once you get 3000 miles away from home to a completely foreign city.

iMétro Tune of the Day: Taco's cover of "Puttin on the Ritz." I think this is a very interesting music video, though controversial due to the appearance of performers in blackface. There is a version where they have been removed but this is the original.