colonel mustard, in the billiard room, with the D.O.Y.L.E.

remember

us

?

i'm sure sam does. we drank our milk in reusable welch's jelly glasses like these, probably the only way our parents could get us to drink milk at all! isn't that an ingenious way to recycle? dunno 'bout brother, but the line of dinosaur characters was my favorite. apparently these kinds of cups are collectibles now! i'm always interested and sometimes amazed at what people collect...

a while ago, i was cruising the aisles of the local grocery store and came across the many shelves of MUSTARD. the french seem to use it fairly regularly in salads, with hard boiled eggs, and with other stuff that i'm forgetting right now, etc. i never really cared for mustard before, and i don't eat many things that require a yellow dollop, but the mustard in france is different. although it all seems to taste the same to me, and it's strong, i like it. and ketchup? i have nothing against ketchup. hell - i've been known to eat a hawt dawg bun with just ketchup (warmed up. duhz!) but everyone likes ketchup. who cares?

so at the supermarket i thought to myself: dear french mustard, i may have done you and your american cousins wrong in the past but i'm sorry. why don't you come over to my fridge and we can get to know each other better? i then reached for a container but recoiled. why do all these jars look familiar? after a second it hit me - all of these jars we use as drinking glasses at home in our apt. WHAT'S THAT?! do the french do the SAME THING with MUSTARD CONTAINERS that the americans do with WELCH'S JELLY JARS?!?! why, yes they do! and true to french form, they do it just a liiiiiiitle bit classier than we do. why? well,

1) it's mustard. not jelly. of the two condiments, who's more chic? that's right.
and
2) THE MUSTARD IS PACKAGED IN REUSABLE STEMWARE!!!!! can you believe that?! i mean, c'mon, that's posh as fuck!

see for yourself!!

 

oohhh. doesn't match the napkins, does it? 

the girls from the supper club will never have you back if you make such a faux pas!

sparkling lemonade, anyone?

yah, i consider that last one stemware, too. but see what i mean?! there are a ton of other brands, colors and glass choices, too! WOW.

OK - now that that's out of my system, i really meant to post a word or two about the guest who will be paying me a visit in exactly 9 days from the present. he asked that i not use his real name for fear of defamation, so we'll call him Damien Olivier Yannick LeRoi-Édouard (D.O.Y.L.E.). this D.O.Y.L.E. character (see recent snapshot) will be arriving in Paris on Tuesday next with a suitcase full of hope and a carry-on packed with dreams. you see, he's never been to the City of Lights before and with my twinkling tealight of French and touristic wisdom, i hope to be his guide.
then it's on to Brussels, Belgium for chocolate, beer and frites! all diets aside, folks, this is going to be one gluttonous gastronomic adventure.
afterwards, we'll make our way to a little town called Amsterdam. we will see lots of things there.
and finally, the last stop is my adopted French hometown in Haute-Normandie - Rouen. here we will spend the bulk of our time (5 days), hobnobbing and merrymaking all over this medieval hot spot. it's going to be a gas! i'm looking forward to introducing this little gem of a guy to my friends in Rouen and to France in general. LOOK OUT!!

check back soon for updates with photos. until then...XOXO