Scattershooting in honor of Blackie Sherrod

Bonjour, Ya'll!
Texas sports fans probably remember Blackie Sherrod, who wrote a sports column for over 60 years in Fort Worth and Dallas--possibly syndicated, as I seem to remember it running in my local paper when I was growing up.  I loved reading his column and the way he pulled his random thoughts together in his "Scattershooting while wondering what happened to..." style.  So in honor of Mr. Sherrod, who is one of my literary heroes, I'm gonna give it a try...

Scattershooting while wondering why my celery froze to inside of my freezer...hubby says that we have "frost-free" models back in the USA.  I thought that was just advertising.  Had no idea the thing would have legit frost inside...had a whole bag of celery stuck to the back wall yesterday!

So this week is "The Rentree`":  the week in France that everyone returns from their (sometimes month-long!) vacations and goes back to work and school.  It's kinda a big deal with sales and specials all over town.  I discovered Picard, which is a whole store devoted to frozen foods (gourmet, ya'll!) that will "Simplifiez-vous la rentree`!" Yippee!!  Hoping I can avoid that whole weighing the vegetables/sticker-thingy all together.

Scattershooting while listening to my girls say how awesome their teachers are...it's a conversation we haven't had since Laura had Mr. Pinkerton at Doerre.  Don't get me wrong, my girls almost always like their teachers, but it's been a while since they were wowed....probably since the days Katherine would rush home from school to start "playing school" and pretending to be Mrs. Krenek or Mrs. Tischler.   As we were packing up for this move, I found several books marked with NPL on the spine (Nornes Public Library) from when the girls liked to pretend to be "Mrs. Smith", our terrific librarian at Hassler.

Both girls attend American School of Paris, which is located in Saint Cloud.  It is an American/international school with students from over 60 countries.  Everyone speaks English and it offers the American IB & AP diplomas.  ASP has 840 kids this year in grades K-12, with about 100 in each grade in high school.  ASP offers bus service or my girls can take public transportation to Saint Cloud.  Driving is not an option for any of the students, as you must be 18 or older to drive in France.  The girls' teachers are all male, with only one female teacher for each girl.  (Big change from Klein ISD!)  I attached a little video about the school if you want to see why we like it so much--both girls' English teacher, Mr. Kim, is featured as well.  We feel really blessed for our girls to be here!

http://www.asparis.org/cf_media/index.cfm?obj=4294#.UiiFrevPeT0.gmail

Scattershooting while wondering how flea markets got that name...we visited the biggest one in Europe over the weekend--maybe in the world--at Porte de Clignancourt known officially as Les Puces de Saint-Ouen or "Les Puces" (The Fleas).  It's pretty big with about 2,500-3,000 open stalls covering 7 hectacres.  Founded around 1885 by the rag-and-bone sellers of Paris, 120,000-200,000 visitors now stop by Les Puces every weekend to shop at the biggest antiques market in the world.

Scattershooting while wondering what's for supper....We're eating leeks!  The markets here have all kinds of vegetables I've never seen or heard of--thank goodness for my itranslate app to look them up.  So, "Voila`!" I  discovered leeks and we really like them.  Leeks are high in protein and low in fat--very healthy.  I'm finding all kinds of recipes on Pinterest so I can cook leeks, shallots, endive, and other stuff I can't identify from any previous meal.  We're drinking fabulous French wine so if I mess up the recipe, we don't notice so much.