Sunday, August 1, 2010

a French faux-pas

About a month ago, our landlords had us over for lunch and made us a fantastic meal of beef and salad and a yummy cake for dessert. My roommate liked the cake so much she asked for the recipe. While we were sitting at the table, our landlord was explaining that you use lots of "oeufs" (eggs). She went on to explain that you use 8 "jaunes oeufs" (yellow eggs=yolks). What I understood her as saying though was that you use 8 "jeunes oeufs" (young eggs). I sat confused for a second pondering this description before asking, "How do you know the eggs are young?" She looked at me confused for a second and then realized I had misunderstood "jaunes oeufs" for "jeunes oeufs" and promptly gave me a big smile and said again, no, no, "jaunes oeufs", my roommate helped out in the explanation by saying, "yellow eggs, not young." It made a lot more sense to me then!
Last night we made the cake for ourselves with all 8 yellow eggs. There were quite a few references to "young eggs" and the cake turned out scrumptious.

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