Bordeaux

We have arrived in Bordeaux the other day where after a meal of oysters and fish soup we settled into our hotel for a early night. Then we started the next day in the light rain, but walked around quite a bit to get our bearing into the new city. We had a quick lunch at an Indian restaurant before going wine tasting with the tourism office. The wine tasting was on a bus with about 30 other people. We went to two chateaus that both had vineyards all around. One was a very large commercialized company, the other was a very small family run business. Both wines weren't fantastic, but the experience was fun none the less. Then for dinner we went into a provincial restaurant and had the formula. It was a great deal! My mom started out with mussels, and i had a goats cheese salad. Then I had duck for the main course, despite being fairly fatty it was delicious. My mom's salmon was also good if not a little creamy. The wine that we ordered with dinner was much better than the four wines we tried at the wine tasting. But that's O.K. it was still a fun experience. Then Christmas Eve, for lunch, we tried to find this small crepe restaurant that I read about. And boy was it small! The cook came out to serve us because we were the only 2 people there in a room that couple fit 10. We ordered two lunch crepes, and then the cook's mom showed up with groceries! She then finished serving us our dessert crepe (chocolate and bananas!) Then we left to wander some more in the rain. After being thoroughly soaked, we came back to the hotel for a little break. Drying out our shoes with the hair dryer, we went back out when the sun was shining to walk around some more. We are not getting ready to go out to dinner so that we can go to Christmas Eve Mass and a concert tonight.
It should be a lot of fun!
Peace, Love and Organ Music!

The Start of the Adventure - Part 1 Zurich

After an almost sleepless night, waking up at 5 am to catch the first bus to the train station, taking the first direct train to Paris (6 am), changing train stations in Paris, getting on the TGV in Paris (after it had been delayed due to a snow storm in Paris) then taking the TGV just across the Swiss border into Basil before being told to switch to a regional ICE train to get into Zurich, finally getting into Zurich two hours late. I finally found Sue! Although I have asked this question many times, I found it hilarious that one of her first questions is how we were connected. And this is the story in brief. She was a foreign exchange student for my cousin, who I call my aunt, but is technically my dad’s first cousin. So Sue stayed with my great aunt for a year back when she was younger. So my aunt only saw it fitting that I would go visit her while I was on study abroad.
So then after about 12 hours of travel in total (it seems that my life tends to be that way huh?) then a 45 minute car ride into the Swiss country side, and I got into their home just before dark. What little I was able to see of the Swiss country side it is beautiful! Now I’m in their kitchen making jokes about my blog, their tractor of a car and eating strangely delicious Christmas cookies with some sort of spice and some tea. Ah, how nice it is to be in a home! We are having potatoes and meat for dinner tonight, very traditional, and very good for the cold weather.
So it’s strange to be in a house again where I can’t understand what the people are saying. I just got over that in my French home! Now I will have to learn some German! AH there are too many languages in the world and not enough time.
Chef Put-Put then fed me cookies and tea while we were talking about family, friends, my time in France and everything else. While waiting for the kids to come home from the slopes (oh the Swiss) or school, we prepared dinner. To prepare this dinner, potatoes were boiled, then shaved and seasoned. There was a pile about 10 inches high, and this is no joke, of potatoes that were fried into a large hash brown patty. Then some meat and mushrooms were cooked into a seasoned cream sauce and finally a salad with a homemade dressing was put on the table and everyone dug in!
An interesting fact that I have just learned is that foodie in Swiss-German means “ass”, or I think the more literal translation is “big ass”. So they had a good laugh about the name of my blog because they thought it meant “Big Ass in France”. But really I explained that I like food, and foodie starts with F, just like France. Then I think they understood – but still found it amusing. After dinner we sat around and talked for some time, then finally people started to drift off (and I started to drift off to sleep! Been awake for over 17 hours now and traveling almost that entire time) then there was a fire light in the fire place, and I found my cozy nook to write in on my baby computer that everyone is so enthralled with!
Peace, Love and Swiss Cheese!

Vichy Encore

So it being finals week, and my last week before parting on my European Adventure, we all went to Vichy to take our fluency tests in French. It was boring for the most part, but there was a long break in the middle of the day to wander around the very cold city and get lunch somewhere. The majority of the group decided to eat lunch in an brasserie (kind of like a cafe), and we also decided to all order basically the same thing. The Plat Du Jour. When the waiter did not hand us menu's it was then assumed that we would all be having the chef's creations, and as I looked around the restaurant, no one was having anything different. So we were served a duck's leg on top of mashed potatoes with a salad on the side. The salad was heavily drenched in dressing, but the lettuce was fresh none the less. The bread was not the best I have ever eaten (was comparable to Meijer's baguettes). But the duck and the mashed potatoes made up for all of it! The duck was deliciously tender once the skin was removed and was extremely flavorful without being very greasy which was a plus. Then the mashed potatoes really helped on such a cold day, they were more smashed than mashed, but mixed with cheese and it seemed baked because some parts had a slight crust where the cheese was cooked instead of only melted. It was delicious and everyone cleaned their plates, but no in France this is not the end of the meal! We then were given the choice for dessert between apple pie, fromage blanc and ice cream. Everyone chose the apple pie except for me, I chose the fromage blanc because I love it! This is something that we cannot get in the States (at least to my knowledge) It's the consistency of Greek yogurt, but with a sweeter taste and without the tang. Today it was served with a caramel sauce on top. To die for! Then after a cafe, some more discussion, we all wandered back to the testing site to finish our exams for the day.
Then when I walked in the door my host mom greets me with "oh you're just in time!" She had just started to make the fois gras that my host family will have for Christmas. So I got to see how to make fois gras from scratch, and she let me help. Then tonight we're all making crepes together so that I can learn the proper French techniques for making crepes, I'm quite excited!
To make French Fois Gras:
Start with a ducks liver, separate the two lopes of the liver and remove the center vein. Put them into a dish with a cover (you want a tight fit though, so nothing too big). In a separate bowl, you will mix a little more than a glass full of sweet white wine, a tea spoon of salt, and a teaspoon of pepper. Crush the salt and the pepper into the wine so it's not big particles. Finally use this wine mixture to cover the liver and place the covered dish into a water bath in the oven at 175 degrees Celsius for 8 hours. After 8 hours, take out the liver and drain off the fat into a sauce pan. then put a piece of cardboard (covered in aluminum) that has been cut to fit exactly the side of the dish that the liver is in, put a weight on top of the cardboard and let the liver cool completely (over night). With the fat in the sauce pan, you will quickly boil it for a minute or so on the oven. Once the liver is cooled, you pour the fat over top of the liver to help preserve it, and put it in the fridge for up to 15 days.
Peace, Love, and Knowing Where Your Food Comes From!!

Let's Meet in Paris!

So, update on the American Dinner. Due to the light bulb burning out in the oven, it oven is broken and cannot be used (what this has to do with the light bulb, I am not sure) but this also means that my American dinner has been put on hold until the oven is fixed. My host sister was very sad, but we had runny scrambled eggs instead. So I guess that made up for the rest of the family. Not necessarily me though!
Oh well, then Friday afternoon I left for the weekend to go to Paris to visit a friend from Kalamazoo who was going to be in Europe for a while. It was really fun, and I felt like such a jet setter just hopping on the train for the weekend and taking off. Even though this was the weekend before finals, I still think it was worth it! After dropping my small bag off at the hotel, we went out in search of dinner in the Latin Quarter because it was close to 6 pm, and there were 6 of us. We were walking along the cobble stone streets while the "marketing teams" of the specific restaurants were yelling at us specials they would give us to come into their restaurant.
One started yelling first in English, switching to French, then tried about 4 other languages! It was rather humorous, offering us discounts, drinks, what ever they could do to get us in the door. We finally settled on a Greek-turned-fondue place for dinner. We got seated in the back of the restaurants, and the decor was needless to say, amusing, wit pots hanging off the ceiling and a badly painted wall that depicted the Greek Isles. But we got our free before dinner drink, ordered a bottle of rose to share, and ordered the Greek "formula". Although my Greek "formula" started out with onion soup! But it was followed by moussaka, with very dry beef, although the Greek sauce that they put on the rice was delicious! Finally a creme caramel finished out the meal, and we all left, contended after our first dinner in Paris. Then we made our way to the Notre Dame, took some pictures of it's beauty at night (there was an oddly shaped Christmas tree in the front of it, but the lights were gorgeous). Finally returning to the hotel and getting a couple hours sleep.
We decided to make an early start at the shops the next morning and meet for breakfast at the hotel's first floor at 7:30 am. Unfortunately, due to little sleep, a late start and someone getting stuck in an elevator (I'll refrain from mentioning who!) we actually didn't leave the hotel until 9 am. But proceeded straight to Galleries Lafayette. After some intense shopping, we ate lunch in a cafe close to the shops. Their pizza was decent and the salad fresh, even though the waitstaff was disrespectful and rude (this is France after all!). Then goin got more shops in the afternoon before going back to the hotel to get ready to go to the Champs Elysee for dinner and walking around. We walked up and down both sides of the Champs Elysee, looking at the Christmas market as well as the stores. We also were able to get the best table at this pizzeria on the Champs Elysee, We were on the second floor, right next to the window so that we could look out over the street and people watch and watch the lights as well. It was a fantastic meal with eggplant Parmesan and a waitstaff that spoke to us in French. What a difference it makes when you look like you belong.
Then Sunday morning, we wanted to take it easy before I was to get on my train to go home that afternoon. We decided on this fantastic location to go to for brunch. We got there right before everyone was starting to line up, so we were able to get a table right away. This tea room is located in a museum basically. The walls and the ceiling are beautifully painted with master pieces, and the gardens that you walk through to get to the tea room make you forget that you are in Paris. After a wonderful basket of freshly baked breads, croissants, and pain au chocolats, they served a salad with smoked salmon and a soft boiled egg. Because of the flavor of the egg, it's runnyness didn't bother me in the slightest, it was delicious with the bread too! Also we got dessert after wards. The fromage blanc (heavy yogurt) with raspberry sauce was to die for, and everyone walked away happy.
Finally, after all this, some more walking and shopping I got on the train to come back to Clermont. Unfortunately I had to study the entire train ride for my marketing exam the next morning! But I get to leave again this Friday for the big european adventure! So there is only a couple papers, exams and other obligations standing in my way!
Peace, Love, and Relaxing times in Paris.

French Praline and American Dinners!

So my host mother realized the other day that I am only here for about 5 more weeks (at least in their house, scary right?) and she wants to instill in me as many French recipes that she can handle! Last night we made praline, the French way (this does not mean that it took 5 hours and some paperwork however). So, American praline is some almonds floating in a sea of caramel candy correct? French praline is almonds with a light caramel coating! Almost the exact opposite! So after a dinner of a delicious (I believe pumpkin) soup, who I'm the only one that really likes soup, mostly because it's the only vegetable in the meal, then some frozen pizza with salad. The pizza was strangely sweet, I don't know what to make of it. Finally, after the dishes were put away, she started to explain to me how to make praline, you take equal parts sugar, water and almonds (with the skin on!) and put it in a pot and start boiling off the water on low heat, until the mixture begins to look like sand. I know this sounds weird, and you think it would caramelize, but no - it looks like sand. Take it off the heat, and break up the sand particles until they're very fine. Put the pot back on the heat to melt the sand a bit to give the almonds a glossy glaze. They're delicious to munch on!
Another recipe that I have recently learned is for this delicious Moroccan tea that we always get at this specific restaurant for lunch "dessert". It's Chinese green tea brewed with dried mint leaves, after the brewing process add sugar to taste. It's delicious - and even without the sugar, I think the brewing mint leaves with tea is GENIUS!
Finally, I offered to make my host family an "American dinner", as per request of my host sister a while back. So I've decided to make Meatloaf and Mashed Potatoes. This is extremely different from anything that they have ever served me, so I don't know how they will like it, hopefully a lot! But we shall see, it's a very different taste than anything they make. Oh well, it will be a really American night though! I'm also thinking of making cookies some time soon. We'll see if I can find the time however.
So besides a lot of new recipes, not a lot is going on here, everyone is beginning to prepare for finals next week. They shouldn't be too bad for me, I'm excited! Also I'm excited to take off on my adventure around Europe for December break, it should be a great time.
Peace, Love, and American-ness

Truffade makes everything better!

Three months in, and I had an amazing day today in France. Although it started with getting up and going to class at 8:30 in the morning, it was the second to last class with Sylvie (sad) that we'll ever have. And while this is sad because we're always ridiculous in her class, it also means that Christmas break is almost here!!! After class, we found our way to a liquidation of United Colors of Benetton. After buying a skirt, we headed off to our new favorite hang out. Les Augustans. This is a warm and cosy cafe, very reminiscent of Dino's (when it was cool) in Kalamazoo. They offer several different varieties of coffee, several loose leaf teas, and hot chocolate made with milk! Not to mention the walled lined with books that are free for the reading, the large comfy sofa's that are everywhere and the hippy wait staff. This is very unlike the other cafes in Clermont, not to mention that there are really no tables, but the sofa's are very un-french, you cannot look cool while sitting in a sofa, thus many french people don't! But after choosing a coffee brew (Colombia with a hint of caramel!) we sat down and started to knit. We had a lovely chat with the barista's about where we were from, what we were doing here, how we liked Clermont, all those sorts of things. Then the other American's came into the cafe after getting all their visa paperwork done (finally? yeah I know, they were illegal for a day or so). Then after a while of hanging out, we left to go find lunch, and to walk around. We decided on going to the Christmas market right next to the huge cathedral in town. After browsing for a little while, we got Truffade!! Now Truffade is a specialty dish from Auvergne (where I am), that I think I have described before, but will do so briefly again.
Truffade is a large pot (I mean about 3 feet in diameter) where potatoes are cooked with cream, add cheese and bacon. That's it. It is basically beautifully tasting cheesy potatoes, and it's a very good dish for mountain weather.
After getting Truffade (and yes it must be capitalized!) we ate on the steps to the cathedral. There was not a moment that was more french that could have been had! After this, we decided to split ways and do some shopping before the afternoon ran out. This was when I came across the honey festival that was being had! After seeing all the local honey people that have come into town to sell their local honey, I just had to taste some. And let me tell you - honey tasting is one of the coolest things ever! The subtleties in the taste and texture are amazing. They were also selling spiced cakes along with the honey. I bought a muffin type spice cake and some honey. The spiced cake was ok - a little dry and over baked, but the combination of spices in it was pretty delicious.
Then we went on the great ferris wheel in town. I'm not afraid of heights if I'm strapped in, but when the thing is zooming (and I mean it's going fast for a ferris wheel!) and they suddenly stop you at the top of the ride, oh it's scary! But I got some amazing photos (added to photo-bucket) that look like post cards! Finally after seeing some snow on the mountains I was ready to do something in the afternoon, but nothing really happened. After some slight shopping, meeting up with more Americans in the street, we headed back to Les Augustans for a tea and some knitting time. Then getting home early, I asked if my host mom could use help in the kitchen, she was baking up a storm! So I helped her make a meringue, and another cake that look delicious, along with helped her make the dinner (pasta carbonara). Finally, after a quick dinner, my host sister went off to babysitting, and my host parents off to bridge club. It's nice to be relaxing for once, instead of having to do so much homework all the time!
I hope everyone's first December weekend goes well!
Peace, Love, and good times in France!