Friendsgiving in France

We have a lot to be Thankful for this year - living abroad as a family is an amazing experience, both getting to know life in France, and also having access to travel to new places often and easily.  Even so, it's of course hard to be so far away from our family and friends back home, especially during the holidays.  I feel really lucky that I have made some close friends in Versailles who have kids Lilah's age.  Jess and Nancy make me laugh a lot, are excellent sounding boards for all of Lilah's ailments and cheerleaders for her excitements, and have awesome kids who are Lilah's best friends.  I don't know what I'd do without them, seriously.  Since we're all American (well, the Moms are - Chris is the only American Dad), we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving all together.  It was as delicious as it was fun, and almost (almost) made me forget I wasn't with my family.

Happy Thanksgiving!  Nancy and Jess, I'm very Thankful for you!

Nancy, Fred & Thomas; Stephen, Jessica & Arielle; Kimmy, Chris & Lilah

The Bird.  Fresh from the farm.

The guys carving the turkey

The spread

Happy Halloween!

Fairy Lilah

Happy Halloween from Lilah the Fairy!  Halloween isn't a big holiday here in France, which was not surprising, but still a bummer for me since I love Halloween so much.  Luckily we have expat friends, so we were able to get into the Halloween spirit! 

Fairy Lilah and her best pals Chicken Arielle and Dracula Thomas

Spider cookies!

Pumpkin carving with Dada

The only jack-o-lanterns in Versailles

Provence With Gramma and Grampa Wheeler

Detail of Arc de Triomphe in Orange

It had been ~5 months since they last saw Lilah, too long. I'm sure they missed us too but they weren't as vocal about that. We have obviously been keeping in touch with them on Facetime/Skype, and Kimmy regularly uploads pictures to a Lilah-centric photofeed that fills her iPhone with gigs of lil'L jpegs; but it was time they saw their granddaughter again In The Flesh. Andy and Nancy were coming to France. They arrived in Paris and moved into a little Bed and Breakfast they had learned about through word of mouth. We picked them up the next day at their doorstep and took them on a wander through Paris. We took them to the Musee d'Orsay (which lasted as long as Lilah would allow) and Montmartre. It turns out that Montmartre is becoming our place to take tourists. You might remember from a previous post that our Parisian friend took us there when we were Paris-newbies. And since taking my parents we've also taken another set of tourist-friends. I suppose it has the perfect mix of famous landmarks, tiny streets, art, and food.

Grampa Andy always comments on the pictures of Lilah enjoying our knotty wood floors, now he got to join her (in her favorite chore/game, unpacking and packing containers).

Pont du Gard aqueduct. 

After a taste of Paris we all got on a series of trains, much to the culture shock of Mom and Dad, and headed to Avignon in the Provence region of France. Mom had clipped an article about the region from a newspaper long ago and had been eager to visit all the roman ruins found there. The article advertised it (Orange, Nimes, Marseille) as the Rome of France. And that proved true, as the first ruin we saw was the highest of all Roman aqueduct bridges, Pont du Gard. I wasn't so much impressed by its record-breaking height (160 feet), but more by the fact that over its entire length it only descends 2.5 cm. Pretty impressive for something that was built in the 1st century AD. Afterwards we had just enough time to look at the outside of a Roman colosseum in Nimes (Arenes de Nimes) before checking-in to our AirBnB in the small town of Chateaurenard. It was a beautiful old farmhouse with artistic tile-floors, murals, and Asian-inspired furniture.

Early walking skills made this tough terrain to walk on for Lilah.

Mom wishing the weather was just a little bit warmer so that we could partake in the cliff jumping below. Lilah, in the distance, finally gets a chance to walk/fall.

We packed in too much for one day and didn't have time to go inside the Arenas de Nimes. Luckily there was another amphitheater on the agenda.

The neighboring hills are dotted with small provincial towns. Exploring these and getting a country-France feel was our goal for the next couple of days. One of these small towns, Roussillon, was known for Ocher cliffs, and lavender. Well... most towns in the area were known for lavender actually, it is kind of Provence's "thing". Every souvenir shop was inundated with it, Kimmy and I couldn't resist and even got a lavender ice cream. It was a beautiful purple and was delicious at first, then it just tasted like soap. Besides the ice cream though, most everything we ate in Provence was delicious. I developed the opinion that the food in southern France is generally much better than that around Paris. That conclusion of course excludes all the expensive Michelin-starred Parisian restaurants I have not yet saved up for.

Chocolate & Lavender with a hill-top town.

Kimmy sat alone on a perch overlooking the ocher cliffs and tentatively licked her lavender ice cream, as me and my parents wandered a nearby cemetery. Kimmy declined the offer to join with a shiver. As we wandered down the aisles, inspecting years and statues and taking pictures, I realized that this activity may be unique to my family. I feel like we have always visited cemeteries, even ones not associated with our departed relatives; I first learned to drive in a cemetery, and Lilah and I had sought shelter from the rain in the awning of a mausoleum just a week prior to this trip with my parents. I really like cemeteries, and am desensitized to them, to the point where I don't necessarily think about the dead when I'm there, they're just a park.

Purple, red, yellow, and white cliffs of Le Sentier des Ocres

Exploring the world and living life hand in hand.

Dad wandering the back-roads roads of Gordes

After the red hue bias of the Roussillon, the white of Gordes was shocking

Imagine lavender flowering all along those parrallel lines. Well, just do yourself a favor and Google Image= Abbaye Notre-Dame de Senanque

We had already stuck our heads inside some opulent churches, so this monasteries' large chapel was very simple in comparison.

Dad picking up the culture of the typical French male. After so much walking around he had to wet his whistle from time to time.

On another day we drove to Orange, but followed the back-roads to get a better feel for the countryside. Between our BnB and Orange is a vast wine-growing region that includes the famous Cote-de-Rhone. We were excited about wine tasting, and wanted to come across a winery sign on our drive with the right... Je ne sais quoi.  When we found it, we pulled over for a taste.  It was around lunchtime though, which in France means 'closed time', but my naive demeanor convinced the owner of Domaine La Coste Du Puy to open his doors. Intuition served us well, as it was our ideal wine tasting atmosphere. We usually like the experience and wine more at wineries where you meet the wine producers and are able to casually converse with them while tasting and learning about their wine. In this case we tasted at a counter built into the winery office. The wife typed away at invoices on the computer while the husband poured. We went through the whole list, and even doubled back to make sure. Kimmy wowed both Mom and me with her proficiency in French. At first I was a little bit ashamed that I knew so much less French than her, then I got over my ego and just tried to keep up. One thing I'm learning about wine here in France, is they do not identify their wines (or cheeses) by the grape varietals that they are composed of, but by the geography of origin and production. It is a concept called, "terroir" which categorizes the emergent sum of geography, geology, climate, plant/animal genetics. And I think it works better for the Old World than the New World because the former stick to more rigid recipes. All Cote-de-Rhone wines taste like a cote-de-rhone, they might have a different personality but their baseline is the same. I don't think you can say the same for a Napa Valley wine. For a Napa Valley wine you'd have to identify it first by varietal and then name-drop Napa.

Eventually we made our way up to Orange, home of two very famous Roman ruins, the Theatre antique d'Orange, and the Arc de Triumphe de Orange. The Roman theater is a big deal, "they" say it is the most impressive one still existing in Europe. It was built around the same time as Pont du Gard (early 1st century) and was a major part of the daily life of citizens. I don't remember all the details of the audio-guided tour, but it seemed like there were performances here most, if not every day, that were all free to the citizens. And when you went to the theater, you knew your social class, and sat in your peers' section. The theater was not an "event" that they would go to now and then, but more like the mall of the stereotypical teenager. Unfortunately, when Christianity became the official religion, the theater was closed, and then sacked and pillaged as the Roman Empire declined. One more interesting fact, I have always incorrectly thought, as did everyone I know, that a "vomitorium" was a special room where Romans purposefully threw-up their food and drink so that they could return to the party and continue to consume. But actually it is just a passageway behind the seats of a amphitheater/stadium through which crowds could rapidly exit.

Mom at the Theatre Antique d'Orange

Imagine watching a show with this view

Mom outside the main gate to Le village des Bories. A town of mortarless huts built sometime before the 1800s 

We finished up our southern tour with a shop through the famous outside market of L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. The market was situated in the old part of the town, which existed on a small river island. All the streets were filled with stands selling food, clothes, antiques, and stuff. It was a wonderful people watching opportunity. Dad snapped pictures of French shoppers, Mom sampled the local delicacies, and Lilah weaved through the crowds with all of us in tow. But then it was farewell...for now. Mom and Dad headed out to Barcelona for a couple of nights. Afterwards they returned and moved into our apartment for a quiet night of food and family.

Lilah show-boating

A giant stone ear in the river of L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. Ancient roman ruin? Post-modern street art? I don't know!

Grandma and Granpa are gone... now what.

Cheese Tasting #2

I came home from work to another cheese surprise the other day. Kimmy had picked up two new cheeses at the Versailles market again. Lets dig in.

Selles-sur-Chers, Fermier au lait cru

We started with Selle sur Chers, an unpasturized goat cheese. This cheese was actually recommended to us by Kimmy's friend Marta. If you look at the photo above, you can see that even in the display case it was already losing its form. We had left it out in the kitchen while cooking, and the heat of the oven had caused the cheese to spread out even more across our new cheese plate. This was a really gloopy cheese, with a dark rind of long strands of purple mold. But don't let that description disgust you because it tasted absolutely amazing. It was extremely rich, and tasted as though it had been seasoned with beef stock, garlic, and herbs. Each bite was like eating a whole Thanksgiving meal drowned in French onion soup. It amazed me that such a rich flavor could just come from sour milk and mold.

St. Nectaire, affinage traditioneel, Fermier au lait cru, AOP

Next was a semi-soft washed rind cow cheese called, Saint-Nectaire. This cheese isn't supposed to be named after the Saint, but instead the Marshal of Senneterre who served it to Louis XIV. It was an unpasteurized "fermier" variety with an AOP designation. AOP (Appellation d'Origine Protegee) is the top step of the new quality ladder used mainly for wines and cheeses in France and throughout Europe. AOC (Appellation d'origine controlee) used to be the old designation that wine drinkers should be very familiar with. But now, there is a new system in place, to cover all of Europe. In the case of cheeses it indicates that every step of the cheese making process (from cow rearing to curdling) follows strict guidelines that are unique to each product. These ranges from the health and happiness of the cow, to the time and temperature to age the cheese, and of course the region from which it is manufactured.

This St Nectaire cheese had a strong stink to it, typical of washed rind cheeses. I found the taste light, and slightly metallic with a almondy roundness. On the first night we really did not prefer it, it wasn't until the Selles-sur-Chers got older and gloopier that we started to turn our attention more to the St. Nectaire. It may have just been the deterioration in quality of the Selles-sur-Chers, but I really started to prefer the St. Nectaire by mid-week. It was so much lighter than the goat cheese, while maintaining a very complex flavor profile that I can't really explain. It had many notes to it, that while strong didn't stick around on your palate.

The second we finished these cheeses we got two more...

A simple goat on the left and a tame stink on the right

From the same marche stand we picked up Le Mothais sur Feuille by Villageois (au lait cru, Fermier), and a Morbier au lait cru (AOP). The Villageois was a very simple, mild goat cheese. It had that chalky texture that goat cheeses have when they are cool. I really enjoyed it but it wasn't anything super special. It sits on a chestnut leaf that is supposed to instill the cheese with a particular flavor. It might have, but all I noticed was the visual aesthetic. We picked the Morbier because we thought it had a line of blue cheese running down the middle, but in fact it was just a layer of ash. Traditionally, cheesemakers would end the day with some leftover curds that they'd press into a mold and spread with ash. If it wasn't enough for a whole wheel, they'd top it off in the next day with morning milk, thus the ash line. In some cases this ash line is replaced with vegetable dye. I'm not sure of the exact production process of our particular Morbier wedge but I am interested to find out next time we're at the cheese stand. It has a strong stink but a very rich flavor. Both the texture and flavor reminded me of the St. Nectarie.

Fromage Tasting at home

After a homemade dinner of squash blossom quiche we put Lilah to sleep and cracked open dessert. FROMAGE! Yep, we're trying to do the French dessert of cheese instead of (or in addition to) sweets. This morning Kimmy picked up two cheeses from the Versailles street market just for the occasion. A goat cheese and a brie. And for good measure we also brought out an aged Gouda we've been chipping away at. Before dinner we brought the cheeses out of the fridge so that they could warm to room temperature. This is suppose to open up the flavors quite a bit.

We started with the goat cheese on the right (rules are you're supposed to eat the soft and mildest cheese first), "Chēvré cendre fermier". The "fermier", means "farmer" and indicates that the cheese was made on the same farm as the goats who provided the milk. This also means that it is unpasteurized. As it is unpasteurized the milk should contribute more flavor to the cheese than a pasteurized cheese version. Also since all the milk came from one farm, it can have a very unique taste that changes depending on the season and what the goats were eating that day. The "cendre" indicates that the cheese was rolled in cinders. Back in the day they would roll cheeses in cinders from the fireplace to keep away the flies. Now it is just done out of tradition. Taking a bite we didn't notice the cinders adding any smokey flavor to the cheese. The cheese had two layers, a 2 cm thick creamy off-white skin, and a thick semi-chalky white core. The buttery skin evened out the chalkyness of the core and really made for a great texture. The cheese started out very earthy and rich with a hint of goat, and ended on a sweet note. As the cheese warmed in our mouth, it melted and mixed together evolving a very creamy texture, that in combination with the sweet-tasting ending almost fooled me into thinking it was cheesecake.

Second up was the brie on the left, "Brie de Meaux au lait cru". This is a brie made in the town of Meaux. The "au lait cru" indicates that it is made using unpasteurized cows' milk. It looked just like the brie we know from the States, but it didn't taste anything like it. The first taste shocked us, it stunk like troll foot and tasted really salty. But then a couple bites in, our opinion totally changed. It didn't smell like foot, but actually smelled like asparagus, in a green verdant way not like that other way asparagus can smell after digested. And the salt mellowed out a fair bit and was nice. It's texture was gooey and we spread it thick on our slices of baguette tradition.

At the end of a cheese tasting you are supposed to have a salty hard cheese then a blue cheese. We didn't have a blue cheese so we ended with the aged Gouda. It was chock full of calcium lactate crystals. They're like pop rocks for adults. Kimmy really thinks the Gouda tastes like chocolate, and I do kind of understand what she's saying. It's like the flavors don't hit the chocolate taste receptor exactly, but they hit a different taste receptor that still innervates the same chocolate part of the brain. It is chocolate but it isn't.

We washed it all down with a tasty white wine. Unfortunately a couple fruit flies that blew in from the open window (they don't have screens in France) also really liked the wine. Maybe we can use the dregs to make a trap.

Champagne!

Did you know champagne grapes are not for making champagne? Trader Joes probably calls them that because the grapes are just really small. Champagne is made from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and/or Pinot Meunier. Did you know that champagne requires 2 sessions of fermentation? Between the two they pop the cork and let some sediment explode out before injecting in some extra sugar and a couple ml of reserve champagne.

Well it was these tidbits and many other factoids that we learned on our latest trip to the Champagne region of France. The champagne region is a large watershed around the Marne river with the two major cities of Epernay and Reims (pronounced with no S and a whole heck of a lot of throat clearing). It was my first weekend back from Champaign Illinois, so what better time than to pick up our old American friends Jamie and Ryan who are spending their summer traveling through Europe with their friends Richard and Julie, and head to Trelou-sur-Marne - in the better Champagne.

We moved into a 3 bedroom AirBnB tucked away up a random street in this sleepy champagne town. There wasn't a single store in the immediate town, just a few small champagne operations and a community center that was filled with dancing people every night. Across the Marne river was a larger town where we did our grocery shopping. And out our front door was a road that led up into the vineyards, perfect for our friends' morning jogs, and for our put-Lilah-to-sleep walks.

Full-Day One we set out during lunch hour to taste champagne in our small area. Whoops! We already forgot that the extended lunch hour is the French siesta. So we kept driving to Epernay and booked a reservation at Moet et Chandon and sat down for lunch (Jamie's 3rd tomato salad of the trip [it's hard being gluten intolerant in France]). Back at Moet a charming tour guide in a formal black suit lead us down into a cave (cellar) with a 28km network of tunnels housing the entire collection of fermenting Moet et Chandon, including Dom Peringnon. It felt a little bit like entering a bank vault. As we walked down the tunnels we'd pass cul-de-sacs filled to the ceiling supports with stacked bottles covered in dust, and numbered and dated with a tiny chalk board. Our tour guide described the process in great detail, while the other English-speaking tourists among us hmmmed, ahhhhhed, and chomped at the bit for a chance to finally taste the champagne at the end. And that time came. And I got to say, it is pretty boring champagne. Good and clean, I could definitely drink a lot of it, but not much going on there.

After the tour we went to a bar in town and sat down for a full round of small pours. These champagnes were much more flavorful, I was getting hints of hazelnut throughout and everyone was looking at me like I was crazy.

Full-Day Two we set out to a small town midway between our house and Epernay to a family-owned small champagne house (Philippe Martin) recommended to us by one of the tour guides at Moet et Chandon. This champagnery (not a word) was interesting because a couple of their champagnes were aged in oak barrels just like in the old days (pre-1950). We ended up buying three bottles from this wonderful Maison De Champagne (what they are actually called), one of which was absolutely incredible (their most expensive obviously). It tasted like diamond butter on our tongues. We drank it that night and played Bang! into the wee hours.

It was Ryan's Birthday, so Kimmy made him a pie.

Beautiful unripe chardonnay grapes

Our AirBnB host gave us a tour of their family's cave and a champagne tasting

"Ze bubbles come from ze bottom of ze glass, where zere iz a small scratch."

The holy grail of Champagne

She is so cute.

We really enjoyed the coolness of the cave. It was a very hot day.

Posing in the bank vault of champagne. See each little nook extending both ways off the tunnel behind them? That is a lot of champagne.

Looking down one of the cave cul de sac nooks.

Contents under pressure! We were warned not to touch the bottles for they could explode.

The big tunnel running under Rue de Champagne.

Cheers! The tour ended with two full glasses per person.

Vineyards surrounding the Marne river (I swam in it)

Our group, taking a group shot by way of my new camera remote!

We drove up a random rode outside Philippe Martin to get this view of the valley.

Vines and cattle outside our BnB.