bleudauvergne

hillvalley, to repair damage from drips, spills and wear from shock and use, I patch them. Using glue stick, I apply a patch (a cut out picture from a magazine, ticket stub, whatever) to whatever part needs some reinforcement, and it makes it just like new. I recently re-did the bindings of the book I started in Paris. I had covered it with a Paris Metro map, and since that time the map has changed. So I covered the bindings with a patch of the new map. I also patch over drips and spills. The main thing though, is to treat these books as well as you can, like you would any other cookbook.

Yes - I keep them. Kitchen notebooks are very satisfying, in my opinion, and I go back to them often. I fill up hard cover blank books one after the other. I cover the outside of the book with the map of the city where I started the book. I also fix them with ribbons to tie them closed, because as you fill them they kind of bulge out. New recipes, things to cook, and notes go into the books in chronological order with recipes, tips, notes on cheeses, market notes, seasonal information, essays, seating arrangements, parties, menus, etc. I number the recipes and keep an index in the front of the book with the recipes in numerical order, which are branched off by season. I've done this for 5 years now. It's something to give to my children one day.

Oh la la.

It's so good to see you here, Terry! We hope you'll spend as much time in the France forum as you do in the Wine forum! Don't worry about being a board a-holic, you won't acknowedge it as a problem once you get started. Your refreshing writing style and ideas are welcome here! Kind regards.

Carolyn, My thoughts are with you right now as you face these life changing events. Your father knew that you were the one to pass the knife to. No doubt so did she. Stay strong as you embark on your new projects, knowing that her spirit will keep you working to make her proud. Thank you for taking the time to write about what's happened. Celebrating your successes will no doubt be difficult in the months to come. We are with you.

OK I've found some comments at the routard. Hmmm. I don't think that the fois gras is an irregular dish, I just want to know that those people next to us did to get the Lotte!

This is noted, Ptpois. It may be the one and only time it every happens. About it about it being bad manners - I just can't imagine that any restaurant would choose to exercise bad manners in such a way. I am going to investigate this further. The thought that perhaps our neighbors simply requested an all fish meal, knowing the fois gras, has come to mind as well.

I did make those reservations only one day out. The restaurant was full that evening. I do know that they served lotte in one of the courses of another menu, so they should have had plenty in the kitchen. But I don't know how they plan these things. I think Bux and Carlsbad may be right that they actually thought we might appreciate the fois gras for whatever reason, my silly thought about the fois gras was that they might really think that certain types of people insist on fois gras, otherwise it's not fine dining... Should I really have asked? Does one normally have a say about comped courses? I have to admit that I prefer observing and watching the choices that the restaurant makes, instead of trying to influence them one way or another. I don't eat in michelin starred restaurants daily, however, so that may be a factor. Perhaps I should assert my rights as a consumer and need to be more savvy in my ways of maximizing the value of my meal. But half of the joy I get from a dining experience is observing the way they do things, thus a question like "why didn't we get the lotte too?" or even "we noticed that our neighbors received lotte in place of the fois gras, may I venture to ask, for the next time, if this is something possible to request?" might prompt them to do something out of the ordinary to compensate. In any case, I suppose that fully supports my stance that fine dining here in France is similar to theater, where I am perhaps as much a spectator as a consumer. When we go out to eat in the better places, there is usually much more at play than what's coming out of the kitchen. The table is the stage, and the technical aspects of when and how wine is served, the sides from which the food is served and taken away, the demeanor of the server have a whole lot to do with it, even if I don't normally take specific notice of every single detail. If Act I, Scene II of our meal differs from my neighbor's, I am not going to ask why. But yes, I will think about it, and write about it. My question is, is switching dishes and serving different things to different tables common practice, or is it something I can say was particular to this restaurant?

Miguel. You have masterfully expressed something in this last post, something very important. It's really quite remarkable. Thank you. Another recent experience - A couple of weeks ago we were dining at a place in St. Malo. At the restaurant, we ordered a certain menu. We were served the amuse with an aperetif, and then another course before what we had ordered. It was a slice of a fois gras terrine, and not very remarkable. As we proceeded with our meal, we noticed that the people at the table next to ours ordered the same menus. So we watched to our suprise as the waiter brought them each, in place of this unremarkable terrine, a plate with a gorgeous thin slice of fillet de lotte, (I think bux would appeciate this dish) having been seared and served over a bed of langoust meat and graced with a saffron sauce and fresh green herbs. I know this because they discussed it at great length as they ate it approvingly. Their meal then proceeded as ours did. This restaurant was an all seafood place, I must note. I wondered what it was that they did to prompt that. I noted from that meal that the waiter was very chatty and smiling to us, something I did not expect, and to be quite honest, was mildly put off by, because it seemed forced and rather odd in the context. But this discussion has brought this to mind. I did not scrutinize every detail in the differences between the service. Do you think I should be paranoid enough to think that they gave us the "foreigners" service? That would be just too much, don't you think? But now I've begun to think.

Bux, if I was served a meal, i.e. ordered a menu and it was delivered course after course completely void of vegetables save a garnish here or there, I would definitely think that it was a poorly planned meal.

Well now I know where my father in law got that line.

The same fair that will be in Lyon next weekend 28 Oct - 1 Nov will also be in Paris at the from 25 - 29 November. We go this fair every year. Link to the website At the fairs, the arrangement of the vineyards' stands is very complex. They mix everything up so that there's never any two vineyards making the same type wine right next to each other. This is done to keep people from making direct comparisons between the wines, in all fairness to the vignerons, but it makes it much more difficult to choose... Every year we prepare more and more for this event. The first year, we just browsed and tasted here and there, sticking mostly to the local wines, and left with a few cases of OK wines. You taste, you forget to use the bucket, you taste some more, and then everything starts to taste just great, and you buy. It was definitely hit or miss. The next year we made a list of certain vignerons we planned to see and were more strict about spitting so we didn't end up buying n'import quoi, we spent a little more money put a little more thought into it, and bought things from the beginning, and we took home better wines. Last year we limited outselves to Champagnes, clairettes, some Bourdeaux and bourdelais, and found some nice ones, and followed up with a trip to the vinyards in Bordeaux, which was really fun. This year we are getting serious, we want to invest in the cave and really start serving some great ones at the table. My husband has found that his tastes follow along the lines of Dussert-Gerber; we often buy something, like it, learn more about it, and find out that this guide has ranked it well. So my husband is using this year's guide as a reference for how we go about tasting. We made a list of all of the vineyards who will have stands in Lyon and are listed among premier or deuxieme in their category. I've put it in table form so we can index it by stand number, by region, by vinyard, by rating, and and also a list of the specific the wines and years which are directly mentioned in the rating. We are printing out the list with space for comments. I wouldn't mind sharing our list if anyone plans to go to this event either in Lyon or Paris. A friend of mine says she takes cheese to these events to eat between tastings to cleanse the palate. Does anyone have further suggestions about how to get the most out of the fair?

So, from what side is the food served, and from what side is it taken?

Bonjour Ptitpois - Thank you so much for naming the "gland"... That one will be easy to remember. I noticed that in Brittany they use a lot of puff pastry in different ways, it seemed very pronounced in this region. i.e. the framboisine, which has a layer of feuillitee, then the raspberries and what looks to be a butter crumble layered over that. This is not something I see in Lyon. Most likely not a specialty but a more pronounced use of the puff pastry. It's funny though, that in many ways, this idea of the "local specialty" has become very popular because it sells with the French - thus our French friends running willy nilly all over town to get some and take on their long journey home. The camera's a 3-1/2 year old Canon Powershot. Get one, they're cheap these days!

Fritz, maybe you can help name the triangle with the yellow custard piped in the middle, with the almonds on top.

We went to Brittany for a wedding last weekend, and some friends of ours from the Cote d'Azur dragged us through the streets of St. Malo looking for pastries so that they could get some to carry home with them on the 9 hour train ride home. They weren't buying them to eat on the train, they were buying them to serve to friends and family as a special souvenier from Brittany. Being completely obscessed with all things food I was fascinated by this phenomenon, but felt the amounts they purchased were rather excessive. I criticize because I'm on a diet. I satisfied my craving by taking photos of the things they bought. This is a specialty that Brittany is famous for. They come in all shapes and sizes. They are mass produced and sold in stores all over France, but of course the ones bought fresh on site are the best (or so I've heard). These apparently are not a specialty of Brittany but they bought them anyway. e did not catch the name of this pastry. Does anyone know? The famous Kouign Amann. They bought tons. Hmmm, we don't get these in Lyon... I'm wondering about the green one with chocolate sprinkles... Typical French pastries. It seems like everywhere you go, they print on white chocolate palettes to make it local. Sailboats for St. Malo... These tarts were a curiosity and people stopped to watch them being made through the window. This also makes me think of the recipe for Gateau Bretan that was given to me by a lady who ran a B&B and served it there. It was delicious. We also made it once with prune paste in the center.

I had to break this off Don's friend's letter thread to start another discussion. What do you think about the service aspect of dining in France? Do you find it overly formal, or is it, as Miguel states, a ritual that allows us to relax and enjoy the meal without being bothered by it?

What a marvelous letter! Don, you are lucky to be getting correspondence of this type. Save them all. Print them and save them. About their refusing to give your friend the list outside of the restautant, the first reason I would venture to guess is that their cave didn't compare to a competitor nearby, and they got the message somehow that you were going to choose your restaurant based on the wine list. There could be many other reasons, though. We recently experienced a FD menu that included wine with each course chosen by the sommelier to match. It was a feature that made our dining experience exceptional, because we simply fell in love with these wines, and our whole experience was perfect. When we got home, we looked them up and found that we could order them from the vigneron for 6-8 euros a bottle. I can say that only once have I ever had a wine experience in a restaurant ever like that. And it was the sommeliers' work that really created it, by choosing these wines to go with the food that was going to raise them from good wines on their own to a part of the dining experience even further elevated by the dishes they were served with. Sometimes the sommeliers do a lot more than maintain a list, so if the restaurant's sommelier was one of the ones that puts a good deal of work into matching and knowing the wines, the list would only be a part of his work. Add French pride to that, and you've got a sommelier refusing to lend the wine list before the meal. Again such a wonderful letter, with so much in it to discuss. Thank you for sharing that with us, Don.

I would like to add that Nullo means LOTS of Butter, I'd say two sticks of melted butter mixed with your choice of hot sauce to taste for 3 dozen wings, fry em up, put them in a large sealed container with the sauce and shake them until fully coated, and that's it - that's your real honest to goodness buffalo chicken wing. Serve with celery and blue cheese. As a student I worked in a place that served them and used to make them all the time.

Hi - I second Bux's advice to search the forum - a lot has been said about Lyon and the restaurants here - Then for specific questions and for info you need about menus, etc. Those of us who have been to these restaurants can give you a hand.

Thank you for sharing this, Dean and Brooks. I look forward to the rest of the photos.

I could not agree with Steve more about the task lighting. It's very cheap, can be done quickly and easily, and it makes a world of difference. Varying the type of lighting can also add dimension to the work space, and make your work easier.

I second the applause for this carefully made list. You might add that the cheese course is going to fall between salad and dessert.

That looks delicious. I am wondering if I can find this curry cube at my local Asian grocery to try it out. Thank you for sharing your week so far with us, Kristin. I hope your throat feels better!

Bux is right, you are not obligated to take the aperetif, but I'd also like to point out that in the French formula, this is a course that includes food. If you do take an apero, you'll be served a special plate of bites to eat before you drink whatever you've ordered. No proper establishment would let you have a drink on an empty stomach. If for some other reason you still want to stay non-alcoholic in your aperetif, you can ask the waiter if he has any non-alcoholic recommendation, and he might have some nice ideas of things for you to try. Otherwise I would probably stick to something simple like a kind of juice, or schweppes.