Monsieur Bueller's Day Off

[If you didn't get the reference in the title, you're too young to be reading this.]

So, I woke up this morning at 9h30, only to remember that the water was going to be turned off today from 9h00 till 18h00. Aw crap. I hadn't shaved in a couple of days and I TOTALLY needed a shower if I was going to present myself in public. So I weighed my options and then sent an email to the folks at work saying, essentially, "I have no water and I'm not presentable; can I have that day off I should've taken on Monday?" (I found out after I showed up Monday that I could've taken the day off because I had spent the weekend as chaperone for that field trip.) The answer was a unified "oui!" so I slept in like crazy, goofed off for a while, wrote up my blog notes for Wednesday, and then continued my work on the paper I'll be presenting in Hawai'i in November.

I was also productive in another way, though, I invented Frenchy Ramen!

Okay, so here's what I did:

1. Melt something greasy in a frying pan, like butter (in this case, I was frying a steack haché [sorta burger], so I just used the fat from that).
2. Take a day-old baguette that is as hard as a rock and cut into cubes.
3. Turn up the heat on the oil/butter/fat and add 2 or 3 cloves of sliced garlic and whatever savoury herbs you have at hand (dried oregano and rosemary in this instance).
4. When the flavors have infused pretty well, lower the heat a bit, add the bread, and mix to coat. Keep an eye on this and avoid letting the garlic burn!
5. Bring a pot of water to a boil and add beef stock to whatever proportion works for you. Add a handful of noodles and cook until al dente.
6. While this is going on, toss the bread cubes occasionally to ensure toasting on all sides. If the garlic looks like it is burning, fish them out and chuck them.
7. Take a bowl and place a thick layer of bread croutons at the bottom. Add a layer of noodles, then pour broth overtop to fill the bowl.
8. Serve and pretend it's ramen. Rampopo!

By the way, here's a pic of a sunset a took about a week ago. I forgot to put it up then, and it seems a shame to waste it...