Bon Appétit! Alright for those that know me, the way to my heart is typically through FOOD, and let me just tell you, there is no shortage of delicious treats in France! While the typical tourist might bounce from boulangerie to boulangerie in a taste testing of baguettes and croissants, this doesn't quite fit into my typical nutritional regimen. Without going into a large dissertation on the effect of food and athletic performance, simply put, in the past year I've learned what a dramatic difference eating certain foods (and abstaining from others) has on my endurance, strength, and recovery time. Since my main objective for coming to France is to train for handball, this would hardly be the time to veer from my personal food truths. What are these food truths? For me, I follow what's commonly referred to as the Paleo Diet, or actually "Primal" if you want to get technical as I allow myself certain forms of dairy. In a nutshell, this means I try and eat all foods at their purest state, without many preservatives, and consistently avoid all grains, refined sugar, and legumes. If you were to look at my plate, you'd find a lot of meat, seafood, vegetables, fruit, sweet potatoes, tree nuts, and the occasional fresh cheeses or plain yogurt (especially in France...how could you resist their delicious cheese?)! Since many of our meals we prepare ourselves, it hasn't been too difficult to stick to my standard guidelines. Yes, I have to restrain from being tempted to indulge in the fresh baguettes delivered daily and the giant jars of Nutella on our kitchen shelves, but honestly, I prefer my homemade concoction of hazelnut butter, almonds, raw cacao and banana anyway :). This doesn't mean I don't allow myself the occasional non-paleo treat though! Like many things, moderation is key (a far cry from my high school and college days where I travelled with my own personal candy shop and pre & post game meals often consisted of a funfetti cake)! Typically, I save the "cheats" for when we our dining out, in order to give myself a chance to experience true French cuisine as the chef has prepared it! Most of the time these dining experiences have my taste buds jumping for joy like a kid in a candy store with a pocket full of birthday cash. Occasionally though, I've had the "don't ever need to eat that again" reaction. For instance, the time in Lyon I decided to order the "Head and Foot" salad (that's cow head and veal feet for those who are curious) followed by the chicken liver cakes entree, which looked like a scoop of cat food covered in tomato sauce a top a pile of white rice. Perhaps I embraced the "Quant en France" attitude a little too much that time. Of course I still ate it and clearly felt like I earned the right to participate in the final and best course: DESSERT!! Thankfully, the creme brûlée, chocolate cake, passion fruit rum sorbet, and whipped egg and praline cream meringue completely redeemed the meal! Every other dining out experience of the trip so far has been exceptional! My favorite would probably have to be the little pizza joint we stopped at on the way home from Lyon. At the advice of my coach, I ordered the Duck entree (I have to admit I was a little nervous after my lunch experience to try another untraditional meat), but it was absolutely delicious! The duck was sliced breast meat cooked to perfection in a sweet sauce surrounded my warm apples and cherries! Again, sticking to the non-Paleo theme of the day, I also split a grande pizza with a teammate, which was tres bien as well!! The pizza was giant (hints the name grande), had a thin and crunchy crust, and was covered in fresh cheese, tomato sauce, and a delicious assortment of veggies; it was worth every glutinous bite and in true AVR style, I didn't leave a single piece of pizza or duck uneaten :) After all, a clean plate is a happy plate! While dining out has sure been a nice and welcomed treat, I've got to admit, we've whipped up some pretty tasty meals ourselves, which is an impressive feat when cooking for 13! There's been multiple delicious dishes prepared by all, but I got to give a special shout out to my teammate, Kathy Darling, for her mouth watering Beef and Fig skewers marinated in a homemade spicy marmalade sauce and grilled to perfection by our Coach. She even gets bonus points for keeping it paleo! These were absolutely one of my favorite kitchen creations of the trip, and I'm hoping with enough sweet talking, they may make a second appearance! One other dish definitely worth mentioning was today's specialty, escargot, a special treat prepared for us by our Coach! This was my first time eating snails and come to find out, I'm a fan! Another French cultural tradition I am really starting to love is that after every game we play, the host team feeds us a delicious dinner buffet, typically filled with their town's specialty food, wines, and cheeses. You can pretty much always count on there being some sort of pâté, pork, ham, sausage (or anything from a pig), baguettes, and a tray of fresh cheese. Oh the cheese!!! The French do not mess around with their cheese...it is by far some of the best cheese I have ever tasted. No joke, I've probably had more cheese in the past 2 weeks than I've had in the past 2 years! Seriously though, the towns and opposing teams have been so gracious to us. Twice now we've been invited to the town hall for a meet and greet with the local Mayor and a pre game welcome reception. We've also been featured in numerous local newspapers; all reminders of how popular the sport of handball is in France and throughout Europe, as well as what a privilege and blessing it is to wear the Team USA uniform!! I sometimes have to pinch myself to make sure this is really happening. It's a dream come true, and I am so honored and humbled to be competing for the Red, White, and Blue!
