Spring has (literally) sprung early in our apartment this year.

Meet Fergie, the wild asparagus plant that has been mesmerizing us for a few weeks now.

I had a good laugh when I walked in the door from work one evening and saw Sébastien holding a small terracotta pot sporting the most awkward, scrawny, spiky reincarnation of a Charlie Brown Christmas tree I’d ever seen.  I quickly learned  that a friend had given us a wild asparagus plant.

Back then, there wasn’t much sign of life, just the four sprite, rather nervous-looking “trees”  that spread haughtily into the air.  Sébastien warned, though, that asparagus would soon start sprouting up from the soil.

Judging from our endless misadventures with orchids (which never seem to make it through winter with us), I wasn’t so sure we’d be able to grow asparagus- it’s supposed to be difficult (three years before a seed will give way to friendly green stalks).

Despite our mild lack of confidence, we watered Fergie (who was named instantly by the way) and… just like that, two little white creatures pushed their way through the dirt.  What got us most was the stunning rate one of these asparagus stalks grew- as though it inched up by the minute.

In just a couple weeks, the innocent newborn in the photo turned into a lanky thread that now measures 13 inches!

Since I’ve never grown asparagus, I’m kind of curious about the whole thing.  As far as I know, this veggie’s been around for a while- records take it back to Ancient Rome- as both a delicacy and a medicinal plant.  Also, asparagus, apparently (like French nouns), can be either male or female.  Wonder what this one is?

The much-awaited kitchen countertop!

Side note: as we were setting it up, someone (I promised Sébastien I wouldn’t mention any names) accidentally burnt a hole through the instructions (yes, right through the middle where the words and diagrams are).  Result: a bit of intuitive creativity was needed- combined with a morning of hammering, this was the recipe for success.  Since then, however, we’ve been using the “grown-up”-safety lock on the new stove.

Other moving updates: last week I finished cleaning the “heating system” in the bedroom.  There are three (or remnants of three) different heating devices in this room: an old fireplace (boarded up, but still sporting a bit of 1930s soot), an old (dusty) gas radiator just in front of the fireplace, and a modern electric heater attached to the wall next to its two predecessors.  We can’t use the first two, but since they’re there, I figured I might as well make them look pretty.

Back to the kitchen.  We’re still missing some shelves, but other than that it’s up and in running order!  We’ve already begun cooking up a storm- check back for upcoming recipes…

There’s a chocolate dessert in France called a mi-cuit, which literally means “half-cooked.”

When you cut into the small round cake, it oozes with dark, rich chocolate. Mi-cuit is also the nickname I’ve given our new kitchen. That doesn’t mean it’s oozing with warm dessert- far from it. In fact, for the last couple weeks the kitchen has been slowly on its way to becoming functional. This morning, it just passed the halfway mark.

Who said moving was easy? Our last two apartments in Paris were furnished. Translation: the electricity and kitchen appliances had already become friends before we’d moved in. When we stepped into our new apartment, it was a sleeping slate- waiting for us to wake it up. Wednesday morning, we arrived nice and early (side note: we’re still sleeping and cooking in our old apartment) to wait for the delivery of the much-awaited stove and washing machine (second side note: there is still no telephone and neither of us- yes we’re proud of it- have cell phones). We were pleasantly surprised to see that the hot water was finally working and that the interphone had been fixed (with both our names, spelled correctly!). To make a long morning short, the stove arrived (with Sébastien gallantly waiting out on the sidewalk because the delivery men didn’t have the building code and, like I said, we had no telephone). It, however, clashed with the electricity; there was a melodious pop (and a spark) and we had to wait until this morning for another electrician to come. The washing machine never came. We did get a lot of cleaning done though. I scraped paint spots off the old marble fireplace in what I’ve claimed as “mon bureau et yoga room”- shh… Sébastien doesn’t know about this claim yet… He scrubbed the very dirty windows. We both re-measured for the cupboard shelves and changed a few doorknobs- until we discovered the screws were too short for most of the doors.

Wednesday morning we thought we might be able to have our first official meal in our new place that very evening. Hours later we realized it would have to wait.

I trekked back over to the apartment this morning and after some more waiting and some more scrubbing, the electrician arrived- semi-armed to tackle the problem. He worked, left, came back, worked some more, didn’t seem to understand why the delivery men hadn’t been able to plug in the stove on Wednesday, left again, verified something and then left for good- the stove, believe it or not, was (and still is) in working order!

So, moving isn’t easy and the kitchen still has a ways to go: countertop, shelves (yeah, that’s a whole other story) and deciphering how the stove works. I figure that getting it hooked up was the biggest problem though, so this puts us into the final stage of creating a kitchen from scratch. At least I’ve been learning a lot of vocabulary in this venture. Like, interrupteur (light switch), couteau à platre (puddy knife) and papier de verre (sandpaper). They could be useful terms, couldn’t they?

The first thing we did Saturday morning was measure our soon-to-be kitchen.

Five feet by nine feet may not sound like much, but it feels enormous compared to our current cuisine. The room still smells of fresh paint and rings with the sound of empty space. As with many unfurnished apartments in Paris, ours comes with a very bare kitchen. Saturday morning, it sported only a sink, a thick row of white tiles (and the occasional blue-flowered one), and several perplexing electrical sockets.

Our weekend mission: measure, understand the electrical situation, find appropriate appliances and start building the kitchen in our new apartment. By 10:00 Saturday night, we had come to realize that we would have to make a number of concessions: No, we couldn’t fit in a traditional-sized refrigerator- we’d have to find one to slide into the 83 x 57 x 60 cm space reserved for it. No, it wouldn’t be a good idea to plug both an oven and a stovetop into the mysterious socket coming out of the right-hand wall (it didn’t seem likely that they’d both fit into the space allotted to them, anyway)- instead we’d have to find a cuisinière (oven and stovetop in one) with these measurements: 85 x 60 x 62 cm. No, we couldn’t put in traditional kitchen cabinets under a traditional countertop on the left-hand wall because the outlets (a mere 18 cm from the ground) needed to be kept uncovered. By the end of the day, both our heads were swirling with numbers (centimeters, meters, inches, arm lengths, 71 cm on one side, 69.5 on the other) and no amount of calculating, or recalculating, seemed to make anything clearer.

Sunday, 9:30pm: The new kitchen has begun its transformation. The fridge fits perfectly, except for a few centimeters out the front, the cuisinière’s been ordered (and will be hooked up by an electrician who knows what the different colored wires mean) and the wooden countertop/shelves are waiting for us to put them up. What a weekend!

Despite, the lack of a functional kitchen, we still managed to eat our first meal in our new apartment. Sitting on the wooden floor, between the open French window and an old boarded-up fireplace, we couldn’t be more content: a baguette, a round of soft cheese and a small box of sweet cheery tomatoes (of course!).

Next project: set up the much-awaited countertop

Before heading out on our apartment search two years ago, I had only one criteria: it had to have a kitchen countertop.

I said it jokingly, not really thinking we would end up with everything but.

This afternoon I decided to find out just how small our kitchen is. I pulled out the ruler and in less than a minute had calculated a whopping four feet by seven feet. That’s what it would be without the fridge, the stovetop, the sink, and the toaster-sized oven sitting on top of the washing machine. I didn’t think these numbers gave justice to the true smallness of the kitchen, so I tried to lie down to see if I would fit. Nope. Even if I wanted to, I could not sleep in the kitchen.

I admit, there have been many challenges to living in Paris- some of them because I’m not from here (or any big foreign city for that matter) and am constantly learning how it all works, others because adult life (no matter where you live) is full of unexpected obstacles. Unfortunately for the city I live in, I sometimes tend to mix the two up and blame everything that happens on “Paris.” I know, that’s not fair. In any case, one of the greatest challenges hasn’t been what I would have expected; it’s been learning to cook in our kitchen- without a countertop.

Before moving to our current apartment, I would invade whichever kitchen I was using like a mad tornado. I’d whip up this and that. I’d leave behind this and that. I’d forget to close the cabinet doors, leave behind dirty batter-ridden bowls, spill flour and smudge the countertops with chocolate-dipped spoons. I’d only think, “This is fun. I’ll clean it later.” Conclusion: the entire kitchen would be a happy mess by the time I was done with it.

In a “four-by-seven” kitchen you can’t do that. Boring as it sounds, I’ve learned to clean up as I go. Because I have no place to leave a dirty pot, I’m forced to clean it, dry it and put it back in the cupboard. On a good day, it’s great- after all, the bulk of the dishes are already done before dinner begins. On a tired day, I can’t be bothered, get frustrated, put the clean dinner plates on the floor and blame it on “Paris.”

When someone asks me what my favorite spot is in this beautiful city, I don’t only think of the view from the Pont-des-Arts over the Seine to the Pont-Neuf, I often think of our little kitchen. It may be small, but it’s the only place I can think of where I seem to find a complete balance between where I come from and where I live today. (I never said my posts wouldn’t get sappy). Red chili powder from Santa Fe sits in a glass jar on one shelf, dried piments and feuilles de laurier (bay leaves) from Sébastien’s parents’ garden sit on another. A bottle of maple syrup stands next to a bottle of red wine, being stubborn and lying on its side. This is where, after trekking through Paris trying to find the right ingredients (or at least close substitutes), I recreate my favorite childhood dishes. It’s also where I experiment with my yet-to-be-understood French cuisine. And more often than not, it’s where I put the two together.

What combination of cultures lives in your kitchen?