Making Cornes de Gazelle with the Ménilmontnat Anti-Glob Brigade

Now that Ramadan has been over for a couple weeks, I - Malcolm that is - have been craving cornes des gazelle....

...cornes de gazelle are crescent-shaped, almond-filled, powdered-sugar-coated, Ramadan cookies. They're my favorite and Max's too. Many of my favorite things are also Max's favorite things - sometimes Mom says Max should have been my twin, not Henry! Although we do have our differences. For example, Max loves nice Pokémon like Ronflex...

...which, if you know Max, shouldn't surprise you 'cause Max loves all things fourrées!

(editor's note : fourré means furry, lined with fur but it is a word Max uses to say something is soft and round and cuddly and stuffed with yummy almond paste and/or warm and covered with a quilt, sitting drowsily in a pouf after having eaten something soft and stuffed with yummy almond paste. The character Ronflex corresponds perfectly to the definition of fourré in Max's idiolect.)

My favorite Pokémon at the moment is...

...Léviator!
He's not at all fourré, is he?
Mom thinks he looks like a shrieking eel!

(editor's note : if you know anything about Pokémons, I'm sure you know that the fierce Léviator character is a later evolution of...

...Magicarpe!

And if you know anything about Malcolm that should not surprise you in the least!)

So anyway, Max and I like Pokémons and we like cornes de gazelle. And lately, I've had cornes de gazelle on the brain. Sometimes when I have something on my mind I just can't think of anything else. So, one day, I got on the computer and looked up the recipe! Which you can look up here. Then I asked - BIP - if he would help me make cookies for our afternoon snack.

(editor's note : In order to avoid any further law suits for invasion of privacy, the editorial staff of Paret Match is sorry to have to withhold the identity of Malcolm's cooking partner. He is a founding member of the Ménilmontant Anti-Glob Brigade which actively opposes piracy as well as blogging as well as lumpy-globby cookie dough and therefore he is officially out to get the Pontoon Pirates. He accepted to appear in the following post on the condition his anonymity be assured.)

Here's - BIP - wielding his mighty rolling pin!

(editor's note : - BIP - says the pen might be mightier than the sword but the rolling pin is mightiest of all!)

At the last minute, my friend Nil, who hadn't lifted a finger to make the cornes de gazelle jumped up next to me and - BIP - to be in the picture that Henry was taking for the blog (Mom was at work - it happens!) - I was a bit miffed! We let Nil taste them anyway, even if he hadn't helped in the making, and he liked eating the cornes de gazelle so much that he decided to come back another afternoon to help us make more...

...while - BIP - and I did all the work...



...Nil and Henry (dressed in aprons so they could pretend to have helped with the cookies) played Apartment Ping-Pong! We didn't really need their help, though, - BIP - and I know how to stir up a batch of cornes de gazelle in no time now!

Aren't they beautiful!

You wish you could taste then too, don't you?
So do we!

Malcolm's pokémons (and other shared passions!)

What I recommend for Shea's new team :






Even if my Pokémons are really strong and they look dangerous for the other Pokemons, they're always nice with the other Pokémons because I taught them how to be nice.

(Note by mother : This is where Malcolm lost interest in updating the blog! In case anyone's been worried that the Pontoon Pirates are going to overdose on high culture any day soon, this post should reassure you. Paret Match caught a few quick photos of the Pirates and their siblings at home, au naturel, as we say here in Gay Paree...

...Max, Malcolm and his friend Nil hanging out in Malcolm and Henry's room playing God only know's which version of Pokemon on the Game Boy. They began early in the morning and, from the slant of the light coming in at the window here (not to mention the fact that Max never gets up before noon on Sundays), I'd say it's about 1 pm in this picture...

...Malcolm and Nil sneaking in a few more minutes of Game Boy despite Thierry's expressly having banned it for the rest of the day...

...but, as soon as we've banned one screen, they switch directly to another. This is a picture of Nil's blog on the computer! Well, one has to accept blogging, right? Boy, these kids know how to finagle their way around bans...

...Stella listens to music on the computer, too. That's cultural, right?...

...and here she is listening to music on the TV (with Henry)....


...It's Jimmie Hendrix live at the Isle of Wight (a recording Thierry gave her for Christmas called Blue Wild Angel).

Eventually, when ALL screens have been banned - or when they can't access one because someone else is on it (blogging or listening to music)...they will actually play, but their play stays close to their favorite screen occupations...

...here's Malcolm playing with a Hulk figurine while Nil...

...helps some professional wrestling action figures work out on Malcolm's punching ball!

But, if screen withdrawl becomes too intense, we do allow beautiful, cultural films, remember?

...What's this? What's this? Don't you recognize Enara from Fire Fly? You know, that beautiful, cultural series that's so much better than Star Trek? We LOVE it! Over and over...

And reading is also allowed, even in the living room...

...Max likes One Piece...

...Thierry likes paparazzi magazines...

...until they put him to sleep...

And Stella only reads in her room. But when Stella is not reading in her room or listening to music...

...she's making it...

And then, there's Henry, who doesn't like making music or playing with naked action figures - he only likes well-dressed action figures in their original collector's boxes with all the original accessories still tweegeed to the box....

...and, he likes action!

...after Fun in a Bag, Appartment Ping-Pong is definitely a favorite, early Sunday morning pleasure which Thierry and I enjoy as much as our neighbors...

...when we ask him to find a quieter activity, Henry takes pictures of the neighborhood cats....


...if he's lucky...

...which he usually is...

...there might even be some action down there too!

As far as screen addiction goes, when Henry choses a film, it usually IS a beautiful, cultural film :

...his favorite filmmaker is Tim Burton...

...his favorite author is Roald Dalh*, his favorite animated Manga filmmaker is Hayao Miyazaki and his favorite actor is Johnny Depp. One might argue with these choices and recognize the early twenty-first century influence but one can not deny that they are his choices.

So, once again tonight, while his brothers were sharing their mutual passion for Bogémunn, as Malcolm used to say back when he was just learning to talk and Max was already a huge Pokémon fan...

...Henry was engrossed in his favorite symphony, Vivaldi's Four Seasons...



Seriously, we're afraid he's got swine flu or something...)

* OK, I confess, I'm a total blog liar, Henry's not reading Roald Dahl in this photo. He's reading the third tome of Dragon Ball Z. But the shadows were nice and, I swear, it could have been Charlie and the Chocolate factory, it really could have, cross my heart and hope to die!

Life is not a bowl of Reine-Claude Prunes (in which we officially let Mom tell it her way)

Some days are better than others. Sometimes you get up on the wrong side of the bed, feeling tired and you look over at your loving husband for support and...

...AAHHH! It's worse than a bad hair day!

Some days the alarm goes off late - or early which is worse! - and you - I that is...Mom that is - don't feel like being efficient and hopping directly into the shower. And sometimes, - rarely- you give in to that feeling...

(I don't know about you, but I've noticed, after many long years of experience, that that's usually when things start to go really wrong... )

When you do finally work up the courage to take that shower, first thing you have to do is clean out the bathtub (where someone left his aquarium decorations the night before when we realized just at bedtime that the second-hand fish tank we'd picked up at the sidewalk sale for a song and a dance didn't hold water and we had to empty it - dare-dare (meaning quickly) - of its entire 50-litre capacity before it all leaked out and caused irreversible water damage to our neighbors' ceiling downstairs...).

Then, once you've showered and worked up an appetite for breakfast, you go into the kitchen...

...and you realize breakfast is gonna be a bit more complicated than you thought what with the above-mentioned aquarium taking up all the available counter space and the kitchen table covered with...things...where do all these things come from over night?

Having managed to clear enough space to make tea and toast, you open the fridge to grab your lunch and...

...BAM! Down goes Thierry's last bowl of Melon and Nectarine soup of the season! All over the floor and under the fridge...

OK. Just keep calm. This usually happens with coffee and coffee grounds all down the kitchen cabinets is oh so much worse, n'est-ce pas? Count your blessings.

So you grit your teeth and clean it up as quickly as possible. Then, charging out of the kitchen to get the rest of your things...

...you somehow, in your haste, manage to knock over the veggie stand!!!!!!!

PUUURRREEEEE!

(That's the polite French version of a very bad French gros mot meaning four-letter word)

Well, look at the bright side, at least it's not V8 juice, right?

Once that's picked up and you're again rushing around the house trying to find all your work things, that's when you find THIS :

...horror of Horror's!

Someone's been at your special no-stress breast ball and it's all sticky and gooey and black!!!!!!

There's no way in Dante's seventh circle you'll be showing that cruddy thing to any future mothers today...(Although you realize you probably should, to warn them of just how much their future progeny will upset the well-oiled routine and balance of the peaceful love nest they've managed artfully to set up with their partners.)

When you finally do get out the door...

...the last vélib at your station has bird doo on the seat (or, more often than not, no chain or flat tires or or the seat spins as fast as...as...motorcycles in a ball...). So you rush to take the subway instead but there, the only seats available are free because...

...I won't even bother to be more explicit than that. Suffice it to say : that's not Melon and Nectarine soup!

Yes, some days are definitely better than others!

Fortunately, when all's said and done, there's always a little corner of beauty somewhere!