Eliane French Bakery

I spent 2 years in France serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It was tough, of course, but I loved it over there as well. One of the things that I loved was the food. The bread, pastries, cheese, crepes and so much more. I loved it.

Eliane French Bakery is located in Orem and I like to go there occasionally and buy some of my favorite pastries. Some of these favorites are chocolate eclairs, millefeuille, paris brest, and lemon tarts. The food is great there. It's not quite the same as going to a boulangerie-patisserie in France, but it's really close.

Anyway, I always love going there. Not only for the food, but also for the experience. The place is run by a Tahitian man (at least, I think he's Tahitian) and he likes to greet his customers in french and then switches over to english if needs be. Even though my french is getting rusty, it's fun to go in and order in french and talk with him a bit. I think today was the best experience I've had in there. I actually ended up ordering everything in english first because I didn't respond very quickly when he greeted me in french, so he switched over to english. However, when I was paying, I said something in french and he asked me if I speak french. After telling him that I had served in France, he got excited and started asking me how I liked the food over there and this turned into a fun conversation about pastries and cheese and crepes, all in french of course.

I think the best part was right at the end. We had been talking for a bit and he told me he wanted to show me something. He walked over to a big box he had on the counter, spun it around toward me and opened it up. Sitting inside the box was a large galette des rois (King Cake). It's a cake that is traditionally served around the New Year. There's a little porcelain figurine (feve) inside. Whoever gets the feve in their piece of cake is the king. Anyway, he seemed so excited to be able to show that to somebody who appreciated what is was.

I don't go to the bakery very often because I always want to buy a lot of stuff and its a little pricey, but it's always fun to go in. This, however, was by far my favorite visit.

New Name

So, I decided to change the name of my blog. Instead of Uncle Bob's Bloggish Life I've decided to simply go with Uncle Bob's Blog. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but the "bloggish life" part of the title has been bugging me and just didn't feel right. So, welcome to my blog, Uncle Bob's Blog.

Update

So, it's been nearly a month since my last post. It's been 10 days since my sister demanded on Facebook that I update my blog. Seriously, she said "I demand you update your blog." So, I guess it's about time I do.

So, what's been happening in my life? Well, I need to think about that a bit. I'm done with classes until the fall. I was taking one class during the spring term (Coal Combustion) and finished it quite successfully. According to the grade list that my professor posted online, I had the highest final grade in the class. I don't think that's ever happened to me since I came to BYU. Of course, there were only 13 students in the class, and half of them were up at the UofU taking the class via Skype, but it still feels good.

So, I mentioned a while back that I was going to try to be more active. I think I've done better over the last month than I did the previous eight months, but it still wasn't impressive. There was one week when I either went running or played racquetball or something similar 4 days of the week. That was great. That was the same week that I discovered Fatman Ironman. Reading his blog actually motivates me quite a bit. And I think he's funny. I particularly like when he writes about his experiences with Nemesis Hot Blonde Girl.

Anyway, I decided last week that I needed to get serious again, so I started up a regular workout again. I used to drive up to Orem and lift weights and run 2-3 times a week. I kept this up for over a year, until last fall. I started doing this again on Saturday. It felt great at the time, but my arms have been yelling at me for the last couple of days, reminding me that I hadn't lifted since August. Oh well, they'll get better.

Good Day

Whew, so today has been a pretty good day so far. There are still 6 hours left, but I'm pretty sure that all of the exciting stuff is over so I can go ahead a write about it now.

First of all, today is Memorial Day down here and that means (along with remembering those who have fought in the many wars over the years) no school. Then I woke up this morning at 7:30, without my alarm clock, and went running. I didn't run very far (maybe 1.5 miles or so), but it felt great to be getting out and getting some exercise in and to actually run after months of not running at all. Oh, and I learned something very important this morning...it is very difficult to burp while you are running. Somehow I haven't run into this problem until today, but it sure wasn't very fun.

After I got all cleaned up and dressed, I did the dishes and finished just in time to go out to a pancake breakfast that our bishopric put on for the ward this morning. It was great. Pancakes with whipped cream, strawberries, syrup and bacon along with orange juice and chocolate milk to wash it all down. That was all a great way to start the day.

At noon our FHE group got together to go rappelling. We hiked a little way into a canyon up in Orem to a cliff that has everything (except for ropes and harnesses) set up to climb and rappel. It was short hike, but it was very steep and did quite a number on me. I have to say, I very happy to be able to say that I have gone rappelling now, but I'm not sure if I'm going to search out opportunities to do it again. The scariest part was definitely going over the edge at the beginning, but I couldn't wait to get to the bottom either.

Me just after starting my descent

Finally, after all of that, I went out and had dinner at Tucanos when we got back. It was wonderful. I had a free birthday meal coupon to use there, but it had to be used sometime in May, so today was my last chance to use it. So, I asked one of my friends out to dinner and we had a good time stuffing ourselves with meat. I am proud of myself for stopping before I was miserably full. Also, I figure that the running and hiking and scaring myself helped justify the meal. All in all, I'd say it was a pretty good day.

A Close Encounter

I had a neat encounter tonight. My FHE group went up and hiked around Bridal Veil Falls tonight. It was the first time I had ever gone up there. It was nice short hike and it was fun to walk around by the falls a bit. Before leaving, everyone got together for a big group picture. I was toward the edge of the group and turned for a second and noticed a bird out of the corner of my eye. It was flying toward me and started to get really close. I was quite surprised by how close it was getting, so I turned some more to get a better look at it. Well, when I turned, I noticed that it wasn't flying like any bird I had seen before, and it wasn't moving forward very fast. That's when I realized that I wasn't looking at a bird. I was looking at a bat. Anyway, it flew right by me within about a foot of my arm. It was really neat. It landed a few feet away and everyone got a good look at it. It's amazing how small bats can curl up. I swear, their wings look like tissue paper when they are flying.

It's Feeling More Like Summer

Okay, so, I realize that technically it's still spring, but everyone knows that "summer" actually starts as soon as school gets out. Anyway, it's starting to feel a bit more like summer this week. This is partly due to the weather (which really has only been nice today) and how I've been able to spend some of my time.

I mentioned in a previous post that I've been wanting to get more active. I've succeeded somewhat at that this week. I was able to go play racquetball with one of my roommates earlier in the week. That felt great, even though he beat me. The only problem was that I hadn't played since September. I'm pretty sure that this is the reason behind me successfully getting charlie horses in both my legs simultaneously after the first game when I jumped up to grab the loose ball. I landed and felt both calf muscles seize up. Luckily, my left leg eased up pretty quickly, so I was able to hobble over to the wall and sit down.

Today we played softball. It was supposed to be a friendly game between the two Elders quorums in my ward. However, my quorum was the only one to provide enough players to make a team. Luckily, there were some other guys at the field when we got there, so we played with them and had the few guys from the other quorum be on their team. Anyway, weather was great (sunny, not too hot) and it was really fun. Also, I have to brag a little bit here say that, with two outs in the final inning, I hit a walk-off single to bring in the winning run. That felt pretty good.

Double Down!

So, as you could gather from my latest post, I've been indulging myself a little bit this week. Well, the indulging continued today.

We had our end of semester cleaning checks today, and I've been taking some time each of the last few days making sure that our bathroom was as clean as could be. I finally finished everything today and sat down to relax in front of the TV. After watching some Holmes on Homes, I realized that I was really hungry because it was almost lunch time and I hadn't eaten breakfast yet. This opened the door perfectly for my latest indulgence...the KFC Double Down.

For those of you who haven't seen the commercials, the Double Down is a sandwich that uses chicken in place of the buns. Here's the description found on the KFC website

The new KFC Double Down sandwich is real! This one-of-a-kind sandwich features two thick and juicy boneless white meat chicken filets (Original Recipe® or Grilled), two pieces of bacon, two melted slices of Monterey Jack and pepper jack cheese and Colonel's Sauce. This product is so meaty, there’s no room for a bun!

So, the first time I saw the commercial on TV I thought to myself, "you have to be kidding me. They're really marketing this?" It seemed delicious yet disgusting at the same time, but I told myself that I had to try it at least once, so I did today. The verdict? It was delicious. And it wasn't as greasy and nasty as I thought it would be. The only problem was that the seasonings on the chicken overpowered everything else. I couldn't really taste the bacon and only occasionally tasted the cheese. It was pretty much just like eating a couple of pieces of KFC chicken. But, like I said, delicious.