Adventures in Brioche-Makin' (with recipe)

In the hectic side project that is dealing with my life, I have temporarily forgotten to update my little corner of the Internet.

Today, with my apologies, I offer you all a glimpse of the activity that I have been working at for the past month or so: brioche baking.

The urge to make my own brioche started from mere curiosity. I wanted to embark on the journey of making this traditional French bread...and balked at the idea that the entire process would take around fourteen hours.

However, most of the time in question involved waiting for the dough to rise.

Making a brioche (without a machine, mind you) can at times be frustrating, especially when the result you envisioned is far from the reality.

I offer, as an example, photographic evidence of what I entitle Brioche #1.

I won't sugarcoat my actions: Brioche #1 was a failure from the very beginning. I had used too much liquid which gave the dough a very fluid consistency, even after having dumped extra flour on it.

According to some tips that I had read, the brioche dough needed to proof for approximately ten hours in the refrigerator. Since my fridge's capacity to chill items proves highly effective, I worried that the temperature would slow down the yeast. Despite my better knowledge, I covered the bowl with a damp towel and set it in the fridge.

Ten hours later, the dough had hardened and the stiff towel formed a statue making an interesting cloth interpretation of a small table.

After waiting four extra hours for the dough to de-frost, it became runny once again, albeit in double of its original volume.

When I finally deemed the dough ready for shaping (after fourteen hours), I greased a pan with a knob of unsalted butter and divided the dough. As I found the braided technique too daunting for the first try, I thought that I would instead make five pull-apart briochins. I covered the pan with some aluminum foil and nestled it into the mini counter-top oven that has the bad habit of burning everything.

I started out with this:

If you look closely, the dough's appearance is not at all smooth...

Three hours later: more rising and covered in an egg wash

...And ended up with this.

I only *wish* that I could have had a photo of the look of disappointment on my face when I saw this brioche come out of the oven.

C'est la vie.

However, this failure did not deter me from trying again. I made Brioches #2 (success), #3 (nice form, but the dough was too hard), #4 (pretty good), and finally #5 (success).

I am glad to say that with Brioche #5's achievement, I feel confident enough to post a lesson on how to try to make your own brioche at home. 

A fair warning: I have the horrible tendency to eyeball the ingredients. I also learned how to make the brioche using grams and Celsius; sorry about that, fellow Imperial-unit users. 

Brioche- no machine required

Ingredients

200 grams of wheat flour
2 eggs
75 to 85-ish grams of softened salted butter
30 mL-ish of warm milk
2 teaspoons of cassonade (brown/turbinado sugar)
1 sachet/5 grams of brioche yeast (regular dry yeast works as well, but the taste will change)
Some salt to taste (but not too much since the butter already contains salt)

Egg wash + Pan
1 egg yolk
A splash of milk
Some extra butter to grease the pan

Utensils
Large bowl
Wooden spoon
Fork
Damp towel
Pan
Basting brush
A firm grasp of sanity
Killer flexor and extensor muscles
Time

Steps 
1. Divide the butter into little squares. I do this first to allow for the butter to soften.

2. In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients.

3. Add the warm milk and stir with a fork. The milk shouldn't be too hot; otherwise, it might kill the yeast.

4. Add eggs and mix with a wooden spoon.

The mixture will look very sticky at this point. If it looks/feels TOO dry, don't be afraid to add just a smidgen of milk.

5. Incorporate the butter into the dough in three parts. Use a fork to crush the butter.

6. Try to mix dough with a wooden spoon.

7. Give up and use hands. Thus commences the battle with the sticky dough to make it do what you want.

8. After a while, the dough will start form stringy strands but still remain horribly sticky. Keep battling.

9. Get a stiff pain in your lower arm. Shake arm for a few seconds before you resume the battle to mix the enemy.

10. Eventually, you'll notice that the strands will look more like a homogeneous mass as they start to cling to each other to form a ball. The dough will start sticking less and less to the surface you are working on (and your hands).

11. Knead dough and form it into a ball that has a slight even sheen from the glistening mixture of butter and wheat.

Kinda like this (this picture of Brioche #2 will have to serve as a substitute as I hadn't thought of taking a picture of Brioche #5 during this step)

12. Cover the bowl with a damp (not dripping) towel and place it near a heat source/in a room with no drafts.

13. Allow for 7 to 10 hours for the dough to proof. Yes. Really.

14. After the 7 to 10 hours have passed, dump the risen dough onto a surface and flatten it.

15. Divide the flattened dough into three segments

16. Roll each segment into a long tube.

 17. Align the three tubes to braid them.

18. Braid as if it were soft, stretchy hair.

 19. Transfer the braided dough to the buttered pan.

That's what I get for having a small pan that fits into the mini counter-top oven...

 20. Cover the pan with a damp towel and let the bread rise for three more hours.

Yes. REALLY.

Be patient.

21. Once it has risen, cover it with the egg wash using a basting brush.

22. Bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 40 minutes. 

(For those of you using a mini counter-top oven like me, cover the bread with some aluminum foil and uncover during the last ten minutes to allow the bread to brown.)

23. Allow the bread to cool off for two hours before nomming.

24. Nom.


Barb the French Bean

Punishment for the Perpetually Late: The Red Light

I've got a confession to make: I have a problem with being on time. In previous posts, I have hinted at my tendency of never being prompt, but I have downplayed how chronic my condition is.

Ever since I was a child and well into my adulthood, this self-imposed burden has at times rendered me a pariah among my punctual acquaintances. While they often assure me that arriving a few minutes late is no big deal, I know that in my heart of hearts, as they stare at me with their critical eyes, they lie.

You would think the solutions to this tardiness would be simple. "Get a watch!" a member from the invisible audience suggests.

But I've already got one.

"Set the alarm for an earlier time than the actual designated time!" shouts another as a helpful proposal.

Nope. Doesn't work. On the contrary, it's worse! Knowing about the extra time will further perpetuate the lackadaisical response on taking my sweet time.

"Well, then," the frustrated audience member exclaims though gritted teeth, "why don't you simply stop being so lazy, get off your butt and just GO?"

You are asking me to demonstrate non-existent motivation. Fat chance.

At this point, the audience gives up on this hopeless situation of expecting me to arrive on time and instead decides to claim that I am simply "fashionably late."

But there is no reprieve for the perpetually late. Trying to fight against what comes naturally to us is futile.

Yet despite our stolid nature at habitually disrespecting opening and closing hours and respecting appointments, people can witness some rare occasions in which we make the effort to arrive on time by leaving our homes early.

When those infrequent moments happen, an unfortunate circumstance will occur that impedes our otherwise timely arrival. It discourages us from ever trying to be prompt again.

However, I do not believe that these circumstances are purely coincidental.

Call it what you want: atonement, comeuppance, karma, just desserts, sweet vengeance. These earthly punishments are manifested in a variety of forms.

Today, I shall cover the first form, which involves facing a delay while waiting for a pedestrian crosswalk light to change.

Inevitably, on the one day you find yourself speeding to an appointment as fast as your legs can carry you, heart pounding furiously in your chest and your lungs strained to their full capacity, there will be a red light that brings you to a halt.

To make matters worse, the nefarious soul who was in charge of programming the light has deemed that said light will display the crimson feature for an indefinite period.

An entire lifetime can pass before your eyes as you wait for the little strutting green man to flash into view.

By the time the light changes to green, you'll have aged to the point in which your hypothetical future grandkids will need to assist you in crossing the street.

Realistically, this situation would never happen in France for the French are avid jaywalkers.

Barb the French Bean

The Famous French Paperwork: Exchanging a Foreign Drivers Licence to a French One (and a Warning)

Those who are fortunate enough to lead blissful lives of never having to encounter French documentation are probably unaware that any paperwork procedure over here requires a growing pile of photocopies, passport-sized photographs, several envelopes, stamps, blood, urine and stool samples, digital eye scans, swearing over your first-born child (with multiple passport-sized photos of said child), even, on occasion, selling your soul to the Devil. All of this documentation will take a minimum of six to eight weeks to process, if not longer.

I've been here nearly four years now and have the worker visas and medical visits to prove it. In those four years, I've also lived a very car-less existence, relying on public transportation, trains or even my own two feet to travel anywhere. I can certainly expound on the pros of not owning a car: not having to make any monthly payments on a loan, not having to worry about it breaking down and taking it to a mechanic for maintenance or repairs, and not having to pay for gas/petrol.

That being said, as a 27-year-old craving some more independence to be able to travel, I am beginning to seriously consider burdening myself with owning a car in France. I still have my old car in Miami, which I use whenever I visit my mother for a few weeks every year, and truth be told, I relish those days when I have my own car.

It all started when I went to my bank to see if I could be approved for a loan to purchase my own car. I figured that with my American (Floridian) drivers licence and the International Drivers Permit, I could at least be able to invest in a vehicle of my own. My bank approved the car loan which also included insurance on any vehicle I wanted to own.

But then came the hitch: "Do you have a French drivers licence?" I answered that I did not have the infamous pink paper known as the permis de conduire, only my Floridian one with the International Drivers Permit.

"We can only provide insurance on the car if you have a French drivers licence."

"Ah."

"And if your car doesn't have insurance, you might as well not have the car at all."

"Of course."

Slightly deflated, I then asked my bank clerk what I would have to do to obtain a French drivers licence and was informed that any questions regarding exchanging a foreign licence to a French one would require visiting the Préfecture. I'm perfectly familiar with having to visit the Préfecture. I even did so last summer when I had to renew my working permit visa in Le Mans.

However, for me, going to the Préfecture in Le Mans means taking a train. So, I took a train, went to Le Mans, made a beeline for the Préfecture and took a number. Once it was my turn to be attended, I walked to the friendly Préfecture worker who asked me questions about my licence.

"What country does it come from?"

"The United States."

"Ah, which state in the United States?"

"Florida."

"Okay. I have to verify if Floridian licences are valid for the exchange. Some states are allowed and others are not."

Uh-oh, I thought. Could they know that I passed my drivers exam with a car with automatic transmission instead of stick shift? Would that discredit my licence? My heart thumped harder in my chest. The clerk typed the information on the keyboard and I held my breath for the verdict.

"Okay, it's good. Florida qualifies for the exchange."

I sighed with relief. The interview continued.

"Are you a student here in France?"

"No, actually, I work here."

"Have you been here for at least six months?"

"More than that. I've been here for almost four years."

The smile fell from her face.

"So, you've renewed your visa in the past?"

"Yes."

"Four times?"

"Yes..."

That's when the first bad news came.

"I see. You were supposed to have made the drivers licence exchange within your first year of living in France. After that, your licence is no longer valid."

I only wish I could have had a camera capture the stunned look on my face.

"What?"

"You needed to have made the transfer during your first year in France. You've been living here too long as a worker to have the process be done."

"Ah."

"A couple of exceptions would have been that you were here as a student or that you were a French person with a foreign licence. But you've been working here for more than a year. Therefore, the exchange cannot be done."

"Ah."

"Didn't anybody tell you this?"

OBVIOUSLY FUCKIN' NOT, my brain screamed. Because when you first arrive to France in CDG-Roissy Airport, the first question you're asked by the passport control officer isn't "Are you planning to remain in France for more than a year and, if so, are you going to drive a car?" 

I figured a sardonic remark would have worked against me in the situation and instead replied with  "No, no one told me of this. I didn't know about this!"

"Well, in order to get a French licence, first you'll have to pass the code and eventually the road test. The good thing is that since you have a previous licence, you don't have to do the compulsory twenty hours of driving school."

Oh, joy.

As an added note of irony, I have to point out that I have always been curious to see what it must be like to go through the whole process of getting a French drivers licence and learning the exam questions. Now I've got no choice but to do so.

I wasn't going to let this bad news get me down.

"I see. Well, at least I have the International Permit with me, so in case I need to drive--"

"Oh, no," the clerk cut. "Your licence became invalid after the first year. That means that you cannot drive in France with it. At all."

"Ah."

"And if you were to do so, you'd be breaking the law."

I died a little inside after being informed that my perfectly good forty-eight dollar rectangular piece of plastic acquired from the DMV had been rendered absolutely useless. I may not have had the opportunity to use it, but I liked at least knowing that I could count on it when the time to drive with it came.

"Ah. Well, it's lucky for me that I don't own a car nor that I have driven in France with it."

As it is, no thanks to sheer ignorance, I am faced with having to do the whole process from scratch. Looking at the bright side, at least this means that I will be very well-versed in French driving rules and will become even more integrated into the culture once I obtain my licence.

In the meantime, my dreams of getting a car are on hold and I will have to keep using the buses, trains and my own two feet.

Or maybe I should just get a pimpin' Dutch bike and call it a day.

So, to any recently-arrived foreigners who plan to remain in France for more than a year, think about getting your drivers licence exchanged within the first year of your stay. Don't let the same thing that happened to me happen to you.

Bonne chance.

Barb the French Bean

The Day I Inadvertently Pissed Off a Frenchwoman

On the infrequent occasions in which I head outside of my 15,000 souls town of Sablé-sur-Sarthe, I often make a beeline towards the train station and grab a seat headed to the city of Le Mans.

(The former walled Plantagenet city of Le Mans, for those who are unaware, is most well-known for a motorcar race held in June known as the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in which drivers from all over the world race NASCAR-style for 24 hours straight. Lots of Brits descend on the city in groups and drunkenly buy rounds at the cafés.)

During a recent outing in Le Mans, I was minding my own business walking around the city's relatively calm streets when I came across something which caught my eye. In one of the parked cars, I saw a baby sleeping peacefully in the passenger's side front seat. All would have been right with this scenario had a responsible adult occupied either the driver's seat or if someone else had been sitting in the back.

Except the baby was alone.

My deeply-ingrained Floridian instinct to never leave live creatures trapped in hot vehicles for a prolonged period of time raised a red flag at the situation and, for some reason, I began to panic over this unknown baby. I don't know why I panicked because the child's full rosy cheeks and calm demeanor signaled that she seemed well-cared for and relatively healthy and, quite frankly, it really wasn't my problem if someone had abandoned their child in a car.

And yet, I worried. I couldn't believe that someone would simply leave their child in a car. Was the baby even a real child? It seems silly to think about it now, but in that moment, my brain recalled stories about people who actually went out with realistic baby dolls and cared for the dolls as if they were real children. Had I somehow encountered one of those fake babies resting in the car seat?

I observed the child more closely, paying attention for any vital signs of life: a chest that heaved delicately, a muscular twitch in the face or the hands. Her tiny fist wriggled for a few seconds, which clearly meant she wasn't a doll.

Unless it was a remote-controlled doll? Nah, I reasoned, that's just stupid.

I found myself rooted to the pavement next to the car. Questions arose in my mind. Where was her mother? When was the mother coming back? For how long had the kid been in the car alone? Should I let someone else know about the seemingly abandoned baby? Who could I even tell?

Luckily, my questions were answered after a couple of minutes. Across the street, I spotted a blond woman who dragged her young son by the arm and they walked in the car's direction. I smiled with relief.

"Oh, good. I was worried about the baby," I said to her.

Rather than reciprocating my smile, she stormed towards me, glaring. She yanked the keys from her purse and fumbled finding the one to open the car's doors. Within seconds, I had the privilege to listen to a frustrated mother's explosive tirade.

"I'm getting so sick and tired of this!" she exclaimed. "Every week, this happens to me! I have to come every Wednesday to that building--" she jabbed a raised index finger, keys jangling loudly, to the building adjacent to where we stood "--and this is the third time now that I've had to rush back to the car. My kid's asleep and it really made no sense to wake her up if I was only going to be gone for a few minutes."

She wasn't apologetic with her words. She was angry. At me.

"I'm a mother with three kids! And with no help at all! I can't do everything on my own!" she fumed. I looked at the son's blank face and wondered where the third child could have been and if the kids' father was out of the picture. My latent Fight-or-Flight response kicked in and I backed away from the mother and son. My intention wasn't at all to reprimand this woman. For reasons I can't understand, I just stuck around to make sure the baby was going to be all right. Upon the mother's return, the situation was now effectively out of my hands.

"Right. Well...have a good day, Ma'am," I responded awkwardly.

In a rather un-French fashion, she didn't return my civil reply of bidding someone good-bye, which in turn irrationally pissed me off.

Fine, lady. I thought to myself.  I won't care about your kid again. In fact, see if I ever care about another human being again! I'm going to become a cold, heartless, insensitive bitch and then I'll be able to watch those smarmy Sarah McLachlan ads about abused puppies and kitties and NOT feel a damn thing. I'll show you! I'LL SHOW YOU ALL!!!

In retrospect, I realize now how much of a creep I must have looked standing next to the car and gawking at the lone child. I also feel fortunate to be a woman because given the context, had I been a man, I probably would have been accused of being a perverted baby snatcher and been beaten over the head with a purse.

In all reality, I probably won't stop being an overly sensitive empathetic gal, but I do need to toughen up and not get involved in other people's business.

Especially French mothers who leave their kids alone in cars.

Barb the French Bean

The Joys of Jet Lag (And How to Get Back on Track)

As a frequent traveler who makes it a point to cross the Atlantic ocean at least twice a year, I'd like to think that I've become a pro at handling the extreme changes of adapting suddenly to a new time zone.

Granted, the six-hour change from French time to the American Eastern Standard Time isn't that drastic of an alteration, but it certainly provides enough inconvenience to perturb sleeping and eating patterns. On that note: I've found that even a minor one-hour change from France to the British Isles created some disgruntled moments as I debated whether or not to wait eating breakfasts, lunches, and dinners at a later time.

Here are some tips.

1) STAY AWAKE.

Did you leave at ten in the morning, take a ten hour flight, and suddenly found yourself at having lunch at two in the afternoon when your body was convinced that it was 8 p.m.? It may prove difficult, but forcing your body to remain alert is the quickest way to getting into your new time zone's groove. Generally wait until it is night time before catching some Zs. Supply extra shots of espresso when needed.

And, if anything, think yourself a time-traveler whose mission it was to go back six hours in the past to relay an important message. Remaining awake is vital to this operation!

2) Have enough time to adapt. 

I can only speak from my experience, but I generally have required two to four days of adjustment before obtaining a sense of normalcy, regardless on which side of the Atlantic I'm in.

3) Be busy.

Planning to visit some friends and family back home? Make an appointment for 10 a.m. sharp on the day after you arrive. Make dinner plans to be on the safe side.

4) COFFEE.

I cannot stress how much you and caffeine will become BBFs in these crucial days. Oh, you don't like coffee? Fine. Get yourself some potent English tea or a nauseatingly-saccharine energy drink.

I've usually had no trouble adapting if I applied these tactics. However, I had not anticipated how much my body would be thrown off by the effort of flying to the United States, adapting within four days, only to then face the change in Daylight Saving time (thereby subtracting one hour), ONLY to then return to France within a period of ten days.

The weekend simply wasn't enough time for me to return to normal, which explained why I found myself cooking steak well past midnight (for my stomach said it was dinner time). My students also have the joy of having an escaped Zombie extra from The Walking Dead for a teacher. I am completely drained and plagued by a constant headache.

And sleep? Forget that! I mistakenly took a nap at six p.m. Now, I am perky and alert.

It is now 4:46 a.m. French time. No use in going back to sleep because I work within a few hours. Maybe I'll update this post with some cartoons later in the week.

*This post has been brought to you by jet lag.* 

Barb the French Bean

Home

For the past five years, I've become a bit of a nomad, alternating between moving to France, then back to the place where I grew up, then back to France. As each day passes in my life in France, I am reminded of how much of a foreigner I truly am, language mishaps and differences aside.

However, with time, I've begun to slowly acclimate myself to the spoken and unspoken social cues the French have: always greeting store clerks and cashiers with a "Bonjour," acquiescing an agreement with a wispy, gasp-like "ouais" or a small "mhn" accompanied by a quick nod, always stopping to have the mid-morning "pause café," always respecting mealtimes and eating meals in small courses, hardly ever raising one's voice mid-conversation. The small things that used to trip me up and target me with some invisible bulls-eye have since become ingrained into my very being. I don't feel so out of place anymore.

Every once in a while, though, I find myself longing for a slightly more comfortable and familiar existence, one which makes a little more sense to me. I find myself missing "home."

Then arises the complex question that all expats face with discomfort: what is home, exactly? For those who have never traveled or lived elsewhere, that question is answered rather easily. It is not the case for someone like me.

(Should a French person or foreigner inquire about my origins, I answer that I come from Miami. It's a quicker response and leads to the inevitable awestruck observation of wonderment in which the person in question cannot understand why I ever left Miami.)

Is "home" the anchor of one's childhood and adolescence? It is the current mailing address where telephone bills and bank statements arrive? Is "home" the place where all of my stuff is located? Is "home" tangible, or is it a state of mind?

Thinking to my own mother, a Colombian who grew up in Cartagena, Colombia, "home" for her was Cartagena. Except she left "home" at the age of sixteen only to move to Venezuela, Puerto Rico and then the United States. Throughout her adult life, she had not gone "home" for over thirty-two years, and by the time she did, the Cartagena of her youth was replaced by a more modern Cartagena that felt at once familiar and foreign to her. Things were the same and at once...unspeakably different.

I decided that I needed to pay a visit to Miami to see for myself.

I got the window seat. As the 10-hour flight neared the end, gliding over the sparkling turquoise and teal waters of the Bahamian islands, the pilot announced that we would arrive in Miami International Airport in approximately twenty minutes. It was then that after a seven-month hiatus I caught my first aerial glimpse of the land where I was raised. Flat lands intermingled by a series of dark, murky canals and of complex gray highways snaking in every direction, its streams of rapid transit zooming in quick fashion, various tidy sections of housing developments and coral gabled houses with pristine swimming pools in the backyard and, way in the distance, the unconquered swamps and marshes of the Everglades. This was South Florida. This was my old home.

So what is "home" to me? Home is familiar. Home is where I can relax and breathe a little more easily. That can be in the comfort of my bedroom in Miami or in Sablé-sur-Sarthe.

Home can be the place where people still refer to me as "La Niña" (the girl) rather than Madame. Home can be the place where people refer to me as Madame rather than "La Niña." 

Home is where I can have palitroques, pastelitos de queso and croquetas de jamón for breakfast. 

Palitroque: crunchy Cuban breadsticks
Pastelitos: Cuban pastries
Croquetas: Croquettes

(This is also as close as I am going to get to 'Instagramming' my food. Enjoy)

It can be the place where I have a café au lait with tartines or un croissant au beurre if I so choose. 

Home, for me, is both France and the United States. 

However, as my current physical location is in South Florida, I will elaborate on what "home" is like in the United States. 

Home is multi-colored Surinam cherries dangling off branches like early Christmas ornaments.

Home is bright, cloudless skies during "dry" season*.

*Should you choose to visit Florida during "wet" season (mid-April to mid-November), I highly advise that you bring an umbrella and a hair straightener.

Home is the large bougainvillea with magenta petals in the backyard. 

Home is where I find spiders relaxing among their gossamer threads.

Home is the canal where I would spend many an afternoon in my youth throwing pebbles to observe the expanding ripple effect on the water, gingerly tiptoeing on its edge and risking falling in just to peer at its length in the distance, and waiting, waiting ever so patiently for that one second to spot a fish breaking the tranquil surface to emancipate itself towards the sky.

Home is seeing a mother Muskovy duck leading her cheeping brood of fluffy ducklings and they make me remember fondly the Muskovy duckling that my family raised when I was ten years old.

But then, I start to notice things that are indeed different about home:

The mango tree's growth is considerably stunted, much smaller than I had anticipated. (Mom had had its branches trimmed to strengthen its growth).

The remnants of former trees are depicted by lone stumps.

The hole which was used as a shelter by brooding Muskovy ducks as their nesting ground has since been covered in dirt.

I find the people loud, boisterous. They cut each others' sentences to state their point. The driving is erratic. Repetitive chain stores dot the landscape.

Then, I realized amid my nostalgia that I was no longer even "home": the mundane details which escaped my daily existence and which I would have otherwise not even appreciated have been captured in photographs, as if I were another tourist visiting Florida.

Then, as further proof that things are indeed different, I took a good look at myself. How was I dressed? I had opted to go outside sporting not flip-flops (or, as I was accustomed to occasionally, barefoot) but rain boots because I couldn't bear the thought of having my feet being tickled by the blades of grass and its cold, morning dew.

Living in the muddy French countryside has instilled an aversion to having wet feet. 

My obtained paleness provided further evidence that something was off about myself in correlation to my surroundings. Even indoor-dwelling Floridians who make it a habit to remain living comfortably in the air conditioning have a darker complexion.

Bumbling about my first home, where I vaguely remember the locations of various items in the kitchen, makes me start to miss my second home (and the knowledge of having enough rosemary and black pepper).

But I know the drill now: by the time I do make it back to my second home and settle into my daily routines, I will start to miss the first one with nostalgic familiarity. As an expat, I am in a perpetual home limbo, which I have since resigned to accept.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Barb the French Bean