whole wheat garlic knots and fresh marinara sauce

I've been living in Paris for over a week now, so I'm going to write about French food another favorite American staple: garlic knots and marinara sauce. To healthify it, I'm talking about whole wheat garlic knots and fresh marinara sauce. But not until after I prattle on for a bit about how things are going in la belle France.

wild blueberry pie and pie crust from scratch (and i moved to paris!)

I moved to France! I know that means I should probably write something about French food, but instead I'm going to give you my recipe for wild blueberry pie. Nothing is more American New Englandy than wild blueberry pie. And this wild blueberry pie is the best. I've made this wild blueberry pie to impress boys from Maine. Boys from Maine are born and raised on wild blueberries, so they're like wild blueberry baked good connoisseurs. And they really like my pie.

so that should tell you something.

I know you're probablyyyy curious about French boys. I'll have you know, the first smoking hot Frenchman I met was my Airbnb host, who is a gangly art student with a shaggy mop of brown hair and limited comprehension of English. But he knew just enough English to bashfully inform me that while I'm renting his apartment he'll be staying with his boyfriend. Maybe this will be a sign of my luck in Paris. It's fine! Complaining about being single is kind of like my thing now. Hopefully my next apartment will be animal-friendly, so I can start the cat collecting early.

shrimp avocado jalapeño salad

Ok, so this is a little awkward. I know I kind of hated on salads in an earlier post, so you're probably thinking this is super hypocritical, right?

I went through this phase in high school where I only ate Caesar salad every day. Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking either. As a result I was super skinny, but I was also cranky and irritated and kind of awful all the time. You can blame it on teenager hormones, but I'm blaming it on how freaking awful salads are. They're just never really filling or delicious. Be honest, how many times have you said to yourself thank goodness I chose to eat that garden salad instead of that maple brown sugar bacon? Now that I don't eat salads on a regular basis, I'm a much more pleasant person to be around.

But THIS salad. Whoooo, boy. This salad is a different story.

yeah, this salad freaking rocks.

nanaimo bars for when you have to say goodbye to people you actually like

Have you ever simultaneously craved chocolate, graham crackers, hazelnuts, vanilla, and coconut at the same time? I totally have. Here's the solution: Nanaimo bars.

It's pronounced na-NIGH-mo. But if you're anything like this totally adorable guy I know, I'll let you get away with calling them Finding Nemo bars.

This glorious treat is named after Nanaimo, British Columbia, where these little slices of heaven mysteriously originated. In fact, the city of Nanaimo has an actual map of Nanaimo bar-inspired treats (Nanaimo bar milkshakes! Nanaimo bar martinis! Nanaimo bar cupcakes!) that you can find throughout their city. Going to Nanaimo for a Nanaimo bar binge is definitely in the top ten on my bucket list. Don't judge me. Nanaimo bar cheesecake! Nanaimo bar iced coffee!