bleudauvergne

In France the word's vide grenier or brocante. Our cheese plate's a brocante find. We thought he was saying 10 euros per piece but when we realized he meant the whole set, we were like scrounging for spare change! Our greatest ever brocante find.

This guide is written by members of a student club in the local business school, aged 21-23. It is a good general reference for quality of lower end restaurants but keep in mind who is reviewing... The crew that puts this guide together changes every year.

Yes, but what kind of cheese? Does anyone who makes this at home know if this is made with creme fraiche like the kind that is slightly fermented or just plain fromage blanc veloute? Thank you for your kind advice. -Lucy

Smoked magret de canard and Pastis Slow roasted breast of Poulet de Bresse

Nope - in Nuova Iork itself. At what was then New York Hospital I was also born in New York Hospital! Your father conducted Broadway shows, or was it you who worked on Broadway? Soul mates.

I have absolutely no experience dipping anything but found this thread. The other night I put chocolate in my strawberries, the chocolate was a 70% bittersweet that I mixed with just a little creme fraiche and filled them with (they were to eat immediately in the privacy of my home). Now of course they looked very unprofessional, but the strawberries wer quite flavorful and they tasted delicious. I thought about the possibility of dipping these in white chocolate. Pumkin Lover then tried it: So I'm putting this in the baking thread. I would like to know if anyone had done this, and can they add tips? -Lucy

Are you talking abotu the P'tit Paume?

Hey! Psst! Where'd ya find the morels? That must have been so much fun. Whoooaa that's a lot of cheese on the table at home. What's that big cooked one on the top right? -Lucy

Now that I've seen yours, I want a Shtinky. I can just imagine sitting in a cafe, on a bus, in a museum, on a park bench, etc. and putting down observations with one of those. Do your batteries last long? Is that a Smart Card you have inthe drive there? Do you put it to recharge every day when you get home? I don't know about you, Lisa, but I type about seven times faster than I can write. So I rarely ever write things out except in letters to my mother and in my idea books. I think though, sometimes it is the incubation period between when you observe something and when you write it down that makes things gel. I guess a Shtinky for me would be like a sketchbook, where I could immediately collect vignettes, and working in an equipped studio would be the work on the big computer. I like to experience or think about something, sleep on it, and then sit down clear headed to write it and develop it the next day. What exactly do use Shtinky for? I think it would be a very good research tool. One thinks about portable computers and their getting stolen in libraries. But who in their right mind would possibly want to steal yours? But very importantly, We have the same parquet floors. That is just incredible. I also simply adore your kitchen floor (or is it the pantry?) and great wooden countertops.

Your boat looks like lots of fun. Are there nice places to explore with her near your home? Do you keep her in the water all year?

I second that!

No he didn't come.

Save us Soba pan cannoli, you're our only hope!

Murphy looks like one cool cat. What flavor cat food does he eat? :opens bag of cheetoes: Ahhhhhh.

The next victim is...

The torch has been passed. Thank you for spending this week with me. You people are wonderful. Please come back to see me sometime. (above is a photo of my front door)

From the US, that is. And in France. edit to say it doesn't matter what country you are from or where you live to do a blog.... All it takes is a mouth, and food. Thanks Brooks!

Due to a slight technical problem, lunch photos cannot be posted. Tuna Sandwich Diet Coke Because I am so backlogged I could not even descend to the cafeteria! Hey there are still 2 hours left until I send the TAG PM. Heh he he he.

After we've hooked you up to the wagon, my friend.

I am brimming with thoughts about Chez Pierre. Last night, Loïc called to check in, and we tallied up and decided that if we kept expenditures to a minimum until the 1st of May, I could go to Chez Pierre, while I am doing the blog. We’ve been spending rather lavishly, with the skiing two weekends ago, and then our meal at Gourmet de Sèze that cost us more than a hundred euros. We are really at the end for this month, and I will be in the position where I must stretch things out and use the very basics to avoid any more expenditures. Loïc had been reading the blog and enjoying it, and missing me, he says, and he was eating in restaurants in Copenhagen and describing the food to me. So he said he thought we could swing it if we were careful for the next week. We recently dined at a rather swanky place, a link to a description of which is somewhere in the first day of the blog, and it falls in a different league from Chez Pierre. When he agreed about me going last night, he thoughtfully said, “I hope you won’t be disappointed.” It was a quiet and solemn wish, coming from Loic. It was also a wish that things not change, that we remain enchanted with the things that enchanted us in the beginning, that we continue to see and appreciate, with fresh eyes, the wonder of our experience together on this earth, and for it to remain unspoiled. It struck me deeply and I sat down and took a breath, and mustered up the courage, and said I would see about that, then. When we first got to Lyon and were struggling very hard with me trying to figure out how I might be useful in this country, Chez Pierre was the only special restaurant out we looked forward to. For a long time, Chez Pierre was the only place we could afford and also experience a meal and wine of better quality than we normally had at home, along with impeccable service. Of course there were pizza joints and tourist traps priced to sell, but nothing, nothing at all like Pierre. I called him. Bonjour, c’est Madame Vanel. He instantly brightened his voice and asked when we would come, and I wondered if he really knew who I was. It had been some time since we had been there, certainly not since I got that desk job, and since we managed to buy our apartment and moved into the center of the city. It had been a long time. The afternoon we discovered Chez Pierre, we were looking for a place to rent in a hot Lyon summer. I had blisters on my feet, bad ones that kept us stopping at pharmacies to get bandages and creams. We were worried and harried, with thoughts of lists of papers and documents, I was completely dependent on Loïc, not speaking any French at all. It was an infernally hot summer afternoon and we just - stumbled in. We were lost, and starving. The restaurant is has a rather odd color scheme. It is fuscia, with yellow wallpaper, and with polyester lace curtains. Pierre greeted us warmly, seated us by the window, the light filtering softly, almost in a surreal kind of way, through the curtains, clean and still, harbored from the blistering violent uncaring streets we had been wandering through. Pierre is a quiet, unassuming man, someone who smiles with his eyes and his mouth at the same time. He is also capable of a poker face. He is often jovial, and often silent and respectful, shifting in accordance to the silent demand of the customer before him. He is always willing to talk to the customers about whatever dish happens to be on his menu, the wine, the weather, the town, food in particular, and of course the customers themselves. Well, certain ones. He wants to know how we are, where we’ve been what is our take on this and that. It didn’t start that way, but that is how it has become. There was a man there, an old man, every single time we have dined at Chez Pierre, sitting at the same table, alone, quietly dining on a piece of rumsteck and legume of the day, with a single glass of red wine on the table. The image of this man remains with me because all of those times we saw him in that same chair he never spoke, was served with silent reverence, and had a large and completely bald head. He was always swathed in wool clothes, no matter that the season, and slightly slumped in his chair. He would come, eat, and leave, with the help of a heavy cane. Not a word exchanged between the two men. He didn’t even order. When I arrived at Chez Pierre, the man had not arrived yet. Pierre gestured into the dining room. In the small back dining room where we sometimes sit, a group of men and women in suits enjoying a standing aperitif, celebrating something. Pierre said I should take any table I liked. I knew the man was coming so I seated myself in the main dining room where I could have a nice view and not disturb the man if I looked at him. I did not order. I took the habit of asking Pierre to bring me whatever looks good today a while back and he would bring out the most wonderful things. I noticed that since the last time we dined there, Pierre’s eyebrows have begun to gray. He gave me a kir, like the ones he was preparing for the party in the back room, to my health. Throughout the meal, I waited and watched, but the man, he did not come. Mr. Pierre came and talked to me in between serving the rest of the customers, and they glanced at me from time to time, curiously, as if they wondered who I was. Loïc and I have taken the habit of eating at Chez Pierre on our wedding anniversary. It’s not for a mind blowing gastronomic feast, there are no foams (except what might be in that hollandaise sauce I had last night, the gentle sound of the whisk coming from the kitchen just minutes before there was a soft knock on the door and Mr. Pierre went to retrieve the dish.) In my mind, dining at Chez Pierre represents honesty. And I can honestly say I was not disappointed. ------------------------------ Click to go back to photos of my dinner there, Pierre is pouring the kir and also waiting on the couple in the corner.

Paul, my reverent thanks for your having checked in. I know you are incredibly busy with everything you've got going on right now.

Who have you tapped to embarass themselves after this effort? Aren't there rules for this sport? I bet there's one about disclosing the identity of the next victim. ... I'm not telling. :transforms to Dr. Jeckyl: I have double checked the time of the PM in which StInGeR tagged me last week, and it was at exactly 17h00 my time. We have to line someone up for this? :meglomaniacal laughter: Soba, who is the BM (Blog Meister), has told me that anyone who posts a reponse to my blog is fair game to be TAGGED. So therefore I will review the posts all through this blog, fact check to make sure people aren't exaggerating or making up stories (like number of cookbooks or some mythical ginger orange sauce), word count, brainstorm for a moment, judiciously decide, and then forward the message I received to my choice at 17h00 my time today. We can haggle out the logisitical details of actually passing the torch at that time. :transforms to Mr. Hyde: Thank you.

For that dinner? Wow! Oh the wine was 5€.

Good morning.