Megan Blocker

That sounds good! Got a recipe for it handy? ← I hate cheddar cheese, but I wouldn't have told you that, and I certainly wouldn't have complained.

One of my favorite potato salad preparations is with haricots verts and a mustardy vinaigrette. Not at all boring - but I like your vichyssoise idea better. Maybe you could even garnish with chive oil? That way you don't need to worry about the chives looking sad after being pre-chopped...

Phew! I thought maybe it was just me...so many people rave about it.

That ile flottante was not (unless specified on the menu, which would surprise me) flavored with rose. The color comes from the ground pink pralines that are mixed into the meringue. The tarte is definitely Frédéric Robert's tarte aux pralines, and it is not rose-flavored either. It will taste of sugar and perhaps a bit of almond. If you expected rose, you certainly were disappointed. Those recipes were given by Alain Chapel to Frédéric Robert, who in turn gave it to the Ducasse house before leaving for Las Vegas. ← Whoops! Too much wine, not enough note taking. I think I just conflated my memory with a rose pastry that everyone around us was eating at Laduree. Interesting...pink pralines!!!

That tone of that list is just hilarious. That said, the requests seem pretty normal to me, and I think it says great things about you that you go out of your way to accomodate your parents. (I LOVE that your mom calls your dad "Daddy." So adorable!) That said, I think the rules for family houseguests, and particularly for parents staying with children and vice versa, are different. For instance, I don't think it's at all weird that my mom will call from the grocery store the week before I fly to California to ask me what I currently take in my coffee, or if I have a new favorite cereal. And I always make sure to have vodka in my freezer and Starbucks coffee (which I hate, but she loves) on hand when she visits me. But I would never, ever feel comfortable emailing a friend a list of things I would like to have in the house upon arrival. EVER. It seems incredibly rude to me (unless they're specific, medial, dietary needs-type things) to tell your host or hostess how to prepare for your arrival. As for the situation with your sister, I would say this: no, it's not obligatory for her to stock up on your favorite coffee or buy a coffee maker, but it would be the mark of a good hostess (or host, were husband to make the purchase). My advice on that front would be to keep bringing yours, maybe under the guise of saving money on the out-of-home coffee purchasing, and try to convert her to the good stuff. Could happen, you never know! ETA: I think the host asking for a list is absolutely fine, and it's absolutely cool to respond with a reasonable list, but I think sending a list unprompted is over-the-top...wasn't sure if that came out in what I said above!

That night, we took the metro to the Bourse stop and hoofed it over to Aux Lyonnais, Alain Ducasse's Lyonnais bistro. It was packed and bustling (apparently they had asked our hotel, who made the reservation for me, to call and confirm three separate times), and our table was not ready when we arrived. We were whisked upstairs to a lounge area, and a platter of toast and cervelle de canut (fromage blanc with vinegar, shallots, and herbs - not brains!) was brought to us with our Kirs. After only a couple of minutes, we were escorted back downstairs to our table, which was right next to (I mean, like, six inches) from the door. Far from being obnoxious (the whole place was loud and crowded, so it certainly didn't matter), this afforded us an excellent opportunity to partake of our favorite activity: people-watching (No judgment, only speculation!). We noticed that the majority of people coming in, and many, many of those seated around us, were American. Some tourist, some expat - a good deal spoke very strong French, but it was still USA-central. We ordered our dinners and a bottle of Bourgogne Hautes-Cotes de Nuit called Clos Saint-Philibert (2002). I know very little about wine, but this was an excellent bottle (this is why we wrote it down), and went very well with our meal. Louisa started with a potted foie gras and pork (?), served with pickled vegetables and toast. This was my favorite of the night - the rich, smooth meat and the tangy, crunchy pickles - heaven. My entree was a mushroom soup...hiding at the bottom of the bowl were various shellfish. They popped in your mouth amidst the dark, luscious mushroom cream. One the side, andouillette "en croute," (baked into a sweet-tasting bread, really) which I broke apart and ate with bites of soup. For Louisa's main, she had the cabillaud (cod), which was served with braised salsify - tons of it, something you would never see in the States, and she got awfully excited about it. Yes, that's a roasted garlic clove on top there. My main was chicken braised with langoustines, which really tasted like langoustine-flavored chicken - which was all good! Baby vegetables were also included in the slightly spicy broth, along with several cloves of roasted garlic - we spread those on the bread, of course. A note about the service - it was extremely friendly and prompt, but it seemed a little confused. Different people were constantly stopping at the table to ask us for an order we'd already put in - we felt so bad constantly telling people that "c'est deja fait." Like we'd missed something in the playbook... A note about the food, as well: Louisa really liked it, but Louisa really likes very salty food. She salts EVERYTHING. I found everything, with rare exception, to be overly salty. Well-executed, interesting, tasty, but over-salted. That said, we had an excellent time. At one point we started quoting to each other from the movie Clue (a big favorite among my friends), and just couldn't stop laughing. Luckily, it's that kind of place - loud and boisterous (here's Daddy-A's account of a slightly different experience; clearly we weren't there howling over his shoulder), and the only looks we got were the bemused, curious kind. More of an "I'll have what she's having" attitude: if they're having that much fun, bring me some of that langoustine-flavored chicken! Dessert was a bit of a letdown. We ordered the ile flottante, flavored with rose, which came with a similarly-hued tart. Both just tasted like sugar with red food coloring. Don't know if all the salt dulled our palates (), but it just wasn't an impressive showing. Finally, the check. I have to say, for the quality of the food and the experience with the service, I was a bit disappointed in the price - more than twice what we'd paid at Camille (though take away the bottle of wine, and it was only one and a half times the Camille tab), and neither of us thought the food was as good. However, it was great fun, and it's clearly a hotspot - so it would appear that, as in New York, the most popular restaurants are not always the ones with the best food. On Saturday morning, after a quick brioche pit stop for me and a palmier for Louisa, we took the Metro up to Porte de Clignancourt - time for the flea market! We spent the morning wandering around the Puces de Paris, drooling over furniture that we couldn't really justify shipping home, including the dining table that will (it WILL, dammit!) one day grace my Strasbourg apartment. Afterward, we took the Metro back down to Montmartre, intending to make it up to Sacre Coeur. Ultimately, we were disheartened and thrown out of whack by the closing of the Abbesses metro stop, and ended up just grabbing lunch at a little restaurant on Rue Caulaincourt. Don't remember the name of it, but they made a good lunch! Louisa had the salade Nordique, which had smoked salmon and toasts with fromage blanc. I had the hamburger. When I ordered, the waitress had a look of panic on her face as she tried to remember the word "bun" - so that she could tell me there wasn't one. The hamburger was served with excellent frites and a beautifully fried egg.

It was definitely a good meal - not "traditional" in the way that Camille was, but definitely very strong. I would definitely say that it had a good value for the price, but I would definitely send someone to Camille for steak tartare on their first night.

The only place where not having a car was even mildly an issue was in Champagne. The rest of the trip was spent in walkable metropolitan areas, all equipped with excellent public transportation, and, in the case of Prague, readily available, call-when-you-need-them, cheap taxis. (BTW, everyone recommended the same company - our hotel, Rehovot, the guidebooks...AAA Taxi.) In Champagne, having a car would really have allowed us to do more exploring, to see some of the smaller, out-of-the-way houses, and to fit more into our day. The taxi rides were hugely expensive (we spent more per day on taxis in Champagne then we did per night on our room in Strasbourg), but, in some ways, it was nice not to have to worry about how much of that tasting flute you were going to finish. I'm not sorry that we didn't have a car, but if I ever go back, I'll definitely be renting one (which means I really need to learn to drive stick, a challenge for a carless Manhattanite). We did not have problems finding ATM's anywhere - the only real money issue we faced was the coin problem in Prague - the ATM's dispense huge bills (1,000 or 500 koruny), and no one seemed to be able to accept them (except restaurants - who paid each night was often determined by who needed to break 1,000 koruny), even when we'd managed to get ourselves down into the 100-200 koruny bill range. This sounds silly, but it was actually quite frustrating (for instance, the National Museum almost didn't let us in because we didn't have correct change). I think biking in France would be lovely...Strasbourg is a very bike-focused city (something like 400 km of bike paths in the city proper), and I think it would be a really neat way to see things.

Thanks, Domestic Goddess! I'm enjoying putting this all down on "paper." The next morning, we had breakfast at Paul, a patisserie on Rue du Buci. The coffee was great - I had a grand noir (encore!). We were a bit late for breakfast, so my quiche Lorraine came with a salad. It was very good - the crust was puff pastry, and what's bad about eggs, bacon, onion, and potatoes? We wanted to go see Saint Chapelle (we've both been before, but thought it was worth seeing a second - third, for me - time). However, when we got there, the line was an hour long, and they were closing for lunch in 45 minutes. So we decided to walk to the other end of the Ile de la Cite to see the Memorial to the Deportation (the Deportation refers to the removal from France of the French victims of the Holocaust). It's a very powerful memorial, one I really recommend spending time in. However, the memorial was also closed for lunch. This seemed like a good time for a street snack, so we grabbed crepes next to Notre Dame. Sucre for me, citron sucre for Louisa. We did a lap inside Notre Dame, went to the memorial, and headed back to our neighborhood for some more pastry at Laduree. Yes, I know, I know. We were seated upstairs this time, in a low-ceilinged, navy blue room. Louisa ordered a pear charlotte, and I ordered another religieuse, for comparison's sake - chocolate, this time. I enjoyed it - it was very rich - but not as much as the strawberry. Then it was home for a quick nap before our 9:00 reservation at Aux Lyonnais.

I'm sorry, I'm still crying about the fact that you only pay $600 in rent. Sigh. As another food-lover on a budget, I recommend shopping only for what you need, and not buying delicate or easily spoiled things in large quantities - I always feel like crap when I have an unexpected series of late nights at work or last-minute dinners out that lead to wilted herbs and spoiled meat.

Two funny stories about that meal at Camille... Right after we got our main courses, a young American couple were seated a table away from us on the banquette. They were having trouble deciding what to eat, and we played obnoxious New Yorkers for a moment so that we could lean over and evangelize about the steak tartare. She wrinkled her nose and said, "Isn't that raw?" And he had the same reaction, just non-verbal. Imagine our amusement when their meal arrived (they both ordered entrees only, no plats), and he had ordered the carpaccio. Second story - a few minutes after the carpaccio hilarity, a French couple were seated at the table in between. They seemed pleasant enough, and from the snatches of their conversation that I caught, they were talking about people that they had in common. At one point, she was describing someone he hadn't met, and he glanced at me and said "Comme la femme a ton gauche?" ("Like the woman on your left?"). Well, I do speak French, and my expression is even stronger than my conversation these days, and so, I did what you do automatically when people are talking about you - I looked right at him. He turned pale, which makes me think that he was talking about us when I wasn't eavesdropping. Or he just felt silly for assuming that the American girls don't speak his language. Silly, silly man.

That night, we went to dinner at Camille, a bistro in the Marais, on rue des Francs Bourgeois. We had a terrible time finding it - our Plan de Paris was not exactly top-notch. Camille was a real neighborhood place, comfortable, full of families and couples. The owner was standing on the sidewalk when we arrived, and he ushered us in and seated us at a banquette toward the back of the restaurant (which meant I had an excellent view of all the goings-on). The menu was written on a chalkboard (as was the wine list, brought later), and we turned down the offer of the printed, English menus. We started off with Kirs, served with a bowl of peanuts. Our waitress was positively delightful, and we had a fantastic time - even before the food started arriving. When Louisa ordered her main (steak tartare), the waitress jokingly asked, "Bien cuit?" Took us a beat to catch up, and she had quite a giggle at our expense. We ordered our dinners and a pichet each of wine (Cotes du Rhone for me, Bourdeaux for Louisa, both excellent and a steal at 5.50). For our entrees, I ordered the escargots, which came dressed in basil and garlic and BUTTER. Luckily, we had some light, crusty baguette to soak up the goodness. I hadn't had escargots in a while, and I'd forgotten how thin their shells seem once they've been cooked...these were delicious, balls of hot butter and garlic and salt, and they weren't even terribly chewy. Just good. Louisa had a salad with (big shocker here) chevre chaud to start. The salad was a mixed green salad with a very mustardy, creamy vinaigrette. The two slices of chevre were served on a golden slice of toasted brioche, and the thing was massive. Louisa's steak tartare was amazing - it blew Les Deux Magots' version out of the water. A mile out. This version was very tangy, mustardy, but not too spicy. It was filled with cornichons and finely chopped onion, and came with the most delectable frites we had on the whole trip. Clearly cooked in duck fat, they were crispy but still fleshy, and were piping hot - a wonderful contrast to the chilled tartare. My main was magret de canard with a potato gratin. The duck was served medium rare in a ridiculously good sauce made with honey, black pepper, demi-glace, and something mysterious that we think may have been star anise. The gratin...oh, the gratin...it was crispy, cheesy goodness, with exquisitely thin potatoes and a dark, broiler-finished topping. For dessert, we had the first and only fantastic creme brulee of the trip (I skipped over a soupy monstrosity in Champagne). It was shallow and wide, which is the perfect way to ensure excellent brulee to creme ratio, IMHO. The custard was cold and creamy, dense and flavorful, and the brulee was really well done, dark but not burned to the point of bitterness. The meal at Camille was really second only to the meal at Chez Yvonne in Strasbourg - absolutely wonderful meal, and only 80 euros total - which is a bargain for three courses plus wine plus a cocktail, at least for people used to NYC prices.

Later that afternoon, we headed back to our neighborhood to go to Pierre Herme, which is just on the corner of rue Bonaparte and Place Saint Sulpice, only a few blocks south of Laduree. It's Ling heaven! The tiny patisserie does not have an associated salon, so we waited in the out-the-door line to get a Tarte Plenitude (for Louisa) and a Tarte au Cafe (for me). Neither of us are big macaroon fans (I hate the texture of meringue against my teeth), but we were quite taken with the sheer beauty of Herme's macarons, some of which were SPARKLY. The cashier was lovely and gave us two little sporks with which to eat the tartes (though the gentleman who boxed them for us was rather snide about the fact that we weren't buying anything else - humph), and we settled onto a bench in front of Saint Sulpice (which was huge - far larger a church than I expected) and dug in. That's my Cafe on the left, and the Plenitude on the right. I am not exaggerating when I say that the Tarte au Cafe was, without doubt, one of the best pastries I have ever eaten. It had a pate sucree crust, then a coffee-soaked chocolate wafer cookie, then coffee-flavored chantilly cream, then a coffee glaze on top of that. The pate sucree was even better than Laduree's, crisp and buttery, and the fillings combined into an utterly rich, decadent, caffeinated experience. The Plenitude was also quite good, though I tend to think that very rich chocolate isn't as good or interesting as other flavors, like COFFEE. But that's just me. We rolled back to the hotel to get ready for dinner in the Marais.

I'm in! Depending on what I draw, it may not get cooked till this weekend...such a fun idea, Daniel!

It was amazing. I'd never been before, but I knew I had to make a point of stopping in. Also, I didn't mention this above, but the prices were really quite good. The tart pan, for instance, was about 5 euro, so about $8.50. At a store in the States, something of similar quality would easily go for $15.00.

For our evening dining in Paris, we relied heavily on eGullet recommendations, mostly from this handy compendium of bistro-focused threads: click! Our first night, we went to Aux Vieux Chene in the 11th, on rue du Dahomey. It was easy to find (unlike some of our other outings; more on that later), and when we arrived for our 8:30 reservation, we were one of only two tables seated. Over the next fifteen minutes, though, the place filled up. I didn't have my camera with me that night, so it's strictly words this time around. Louisa and I both started with a cold tomato soup, which was served with a scoop of parmesan gelato on top. It was unseasonably warm in Paris, so the soup was perfect - light, not too sweet, and the gelato was creamy and just barely cheesy. For my main, I ordered the poitrine de porc. I was pretty sure that meant pork belly, and I was right (and very happy, too)! Served with baby vegetables (carrots, potatoes, onions), it was very rich, and delicious. Louisa had a duck dish, though the details escape me right now. I believe it was duck breast served with an apple compote of some kind...very autumnal. For dessert, we shared a raspberry crumble, which was just ok. Starting from the bottom, it was a baked crumble topping (closer to muesli than to crumble, really), fresh cream, and raspberries. Very odd. The wine list was great, and we shared a bottle of Coteaux du Languedoc. The next morning it was up and at 'em - we were headed for the Opera Garnier, something we'd both missed on our previous visits to Paris. We wanted to have a cafe and croissant in a cafe, but were thwarted when we were hit on by an incredibly aggressive man who wouldn't leave us be until we pretended to walk down into the Metro. So, pressed for time, we grabbed breakfast at La Croissanterie, which made me think of Au Bon Pain, but with decent pastry. I had a cafe and a brioche sucre. We decided to find an internet cafe, which took up a bit of our time, and by the time we'd caught up on our emails and assorted other business (like reading about the plane that flew into the Upper East Side, and, of course, the North Korea nuclear test), it was time for lunch. No, really! We decided to try Lex Deux Magots, not unlike our friend Daddy-A! Louisa had an omelet, and I had what I'd been craving for a week and a half, but saving for Paris: steak tartare. And a Perrier. The tartare was ok - not as tangy as I like it (no cornichons studded like jewels throughout the meat), but not bad, either. It was served with a little salad, dressed with some lovely balsamic vinegar: The most impressive thing about the cafe were the waiters - they carried these incredibly laden trays, impressive because the majority of the cargo was wine bottles, and we didn't see a single one tip over. We did hear a couple of glasses crash, though. Once we'd finished lunch, it was on to the Opera Garnier...which was AMAZING. So baroque, every edge is finished with a flourish. Quite different from our home base, the Met. My two favorite rooms were the rotundas - Rotonde du Soleil and Rotonde de la Lune. In the bar area, each panel of the circular room is decorated with a painting representing a different beverage. This is "Tea." After the Opera, we had some time to kill before our next patisserie jaunt, so we decided the time was ripe for...E. Dehillerin!!!!! I was unreasonably excited for our pilgrimage to the mecca of French cookware. Shopping for cookware combines my two passions - shopping and food. I am helpless in the face of Williams-Sonoma, so I knew I would melt upon impact when I entered Dehillerin. The experience did not disappoint. The store is high-ceilinged and crowded, with shelves that reach ten feet in the air, and full of men in forest green coats shouting at one another. As soon as we walked in the door, one of the men (not in a green coat, maybe a manager) asked me what my name was. I replied, "Megan, comme la voiture." (There is a car made by Renault called the Megane, and it's the easiest way to tell people how to pronounce my name in French.) He asked me how I was doing, but I didn't ask back, and he didn't let me forget it for the rest of the hour we spent there! (Though, on the way out, I passed him one last time. Before he had a chance to say a thing, I shouted, "Comment allez-vous?" and he replied, "Tres bien, merci!") I picked out many, many things, some of which were gifts. For myself, I bought a rectangular tart pan, a mini-madeleine pan, a tapered, unfinished rolling pin, a copper gratin pan, two wooden spoons, and...um, that's all. Yes, I had to pay the $25 fine to get my suitcase home. Here's a shot of the interior... And here are Louisa and I each out in front! I'm so excited that I can't get my shoulders to stop hunching. Louisa has a bit more self-control than I do. She's very poised. And this was our adorable salesman: Next stop on this bus: Pierre Herme!!!

Thanks, MissAmy! It's a great way for me to relive my memories, too. I'll be finishing up over the next couple of days...am currently stalling because I have a dinner report with no pictures, which is always harder.

Upon arrival in Paris, we were famished! We dropped our bags at our hotel, which was located on the corner of Boulevard Saint-Germain and rue de Seine, and headed out in search of a cafe. I had an omelet nature, a green salad, and a cafe grand noir. We then walked north to the Seine and made our way to the Musee d'Orsay, where Louisa made a pilgrimage to Manet's Olympe, and I visited the decorative arts. We crossed to Place de la Concorde to board the metro and head to the Pompidou Center. However, when we got there, we saw this: Humph. So, to ease our disappointment, we hopped back on the metro to Saint-Germain-des-Pres, and went to the Rue Bonaparte outpost of Laduree. Their famous macarons (of which I saw lots and lots on Friday night, when I watched Marie Antoinette) fill the windows. We were seated in the downstairs salon, which is decorated in a sort of chinoiserie-jungle camp theme. Napkins and sugar packets both sport the famous Laduree green. I had one of their new pastries, a religieuse fraises, which was filled with strawberry pastry cream, stewed strawberries, and fresh strawberries. It was delicious, and you should have seen how pink my tongue was! Louisa had a tarte au citron - the pastry in this was amazing. It broke without crumbling and melted an your tongue. And the filling was pure, concentrated lemonness.

Yes, thanks Megan for such an amazing report. Were you able to visit any of the villages that surround Strasbourg along the wine route? The whole area is full of charming, beautiful little villages, so beautiful that they seemed unreal to me. And the food is so different. That's the beauty of France, each region is distinct with its own cuisine and specialities. Paris is wonderful, but the French countryside can be breathtaking. I am so glad you are sharing this with everyone. I'm looking forward to hearing about your Paris experiences ← Thanks, Felice! Sadly, we didn't get to visit the villages around Strasbourg on this trip. Next time, though, I plan to make a point of it. But with only three and a half days, and given how enamored I was of the city, I just couldn't bring myself to leave. That said, I've been lucky to have spent much time in the countryside of France in previous years. One summer I spent six weeks traveling up from Nice, through Montpellier, to the Gorges du Tarn, then the Loire Valley, and finally, ending in Paris. Spent lots of time on that trip (which was far too long ago) in smaller towns and villages, and I agree - the countryside is absolutely wonderful.

Ah! Before we head for Paris, I have some pics to add! Louisa has sent me her photos, and there are some great shots from Champagne. Here's the outside of Pommery: And here's one of the chalk carvings from the Pommery cellars: There were vines that came right up to the hotel, and we decided to see if any grapes had fallen to the ground, which would mean we could, you know, check 'em out. Taste them? I won't admit to that...

Two things I noticed about France this time around...alcohol becomes like water the second you cross the border, and cigarette smoke starts to smell awesome. The former needs no explanation, I expect. The latter was discussed at length througout the trip. I'd never noticed cigarette smoke in Europe before, but hadn't been back since the law passed here in 2003. This time, I noticed it, but it was really quite pleasant. I didn't mind it in the bars, and in the restaurants, it was just sort of lingering a bit in the air...like everyone had just had one or two cigs with coffee, not chain-smoked all night. Unsurprisingly, we did not feel so happy about the smoke in the CDG lounge. That's just nasty.

One story I forgot to tell in my last post... During the tasting, "Clothilde" answered our questions about the wine and the history of the house and the region. I had done some reading about Champagne before we left, and had been quite intrigued by the stories of how the vignerons and cellar-workers lived in the caves to escape German bombs during both World Wars. I brought this up, and asked if the cellars at Moet had been used for the same purpose. Our guide replied that "Yes, but, that is war, yes? There were also lots of parties, too." Dinner that night (at the hotel, again), was very nice, though nothing too memorable. The best part was the wine - we shared a bottle of Pol Roger Rose, 1996. Delectable and indulgent, to say the least. The next day we headed to Reims, eager to see the cathedral and to visit Pommery, where we had an appointment for 3:45. A quick bit of non-culinary history: the cathedral at Reims stands on the reported site of Clovis' baptism in 496, and was the site of the coronations of most of the French kings from Phillippe II in 1180 to Charles X in 1824. It was heavily bombed in both WWI and WWII, and the facade is still undergoing repairs. It is famous for its Chagall windows in the transept, and also for this sculpture on the central portal, known as the Laughing or Smiling Angel. It's also where Charles VII was brought, by Jeanne d'Arc, for his coronation in 1429. The towers seemed a bit stumpy after the soaring spire in Strasbourg, but the interior of the church was breathtaking. You could really feel the history of the place, the layers of the past unpeeling. Quite a remarkable church. After visiting the cathedral, we stopped for a quick bite to eat (sandwich jambon for me, and toast with chevre chaud for Louisa) and then headed across town, toward Pommery. The Pommery maison is really something - huge, and with this faux-Elizabethan architecture. You enter what used to be a huge storehouse to begin the tour. Right now, there's an art exhibit called Supernova installed in the lobby space and in the caves. Our guide, Aline, told us that the artist intended for the caves to represent space, and for the upstairs to represent Earth. There was even a giant UFO in one room, and a landing capsule in another. The experience felt younger than Moet, geared toward a slightly different demographic. Like the Moet tour, Pommery started with a short film about the history of the house. We then descended a really long staircase down to the caves. The Pommery estate is on a hill, and most of its early cellars were placed in existing chalk pits, which had been dug by Roman slaves in the first and second centuries. The ceilings in almost every room reached up to ground level, though the galleries had low ceilings, just like Moet. There were several giant carvings in the caves, carved directly out of the chalk, in the dim cellar light. The artist went blind after completing the last one in the series. Much was made of Louise Pommery's interest in the arts, and the house's ongoing support of artists. Unlike at Moet, at Pommery we were able to peek into the bibliotheque de champagne, housing bottles of champagne dating back to 1874! Louisa and I were quite excited about this...one of our favorite movies, traditionally screened each May Day at Bryn Mawr (while sitting on the lawn, drinking champagne), is The Philadelphia Story. Its plot hangs quite heavily on the following quote, spoken by our fellow alumna, Miss Katharine Houghton Hepburn '28: Alas, we remembered the line incorrectly, conflating it with her graduation year...there was no Pommery '26, but we managed to snag a photo of the '28! We also took a photo of the oldest bottle in the cellar, from 1874: We did the Prestige tasting, which included a flute of of the Cuvee Louise. We supplemented that with a flute of the Springtime Rose. Aline mentioned that Pommery is far more popular in the UK than it is in the States, which rang true with me - you don't see it very often over here, which is a shame. The champagnes were both pleasantly dry but not overly so, and the rose in particular was lovely, lightly tinged with red fruit. And so it was back to the hotel for a good sleep - Paris in the morning!

I've been to a few very fun rehearsals, and they were all at restaurants. One was in Hawaii, one was in New York. One was at a casual restaurant, with shutters open to the cactus gardens all around, and one was a little more formal, at Aquavit - both were fantastic. I think intimate is better, but, of course, the size depends upon how many of the people who've flown in for the ceremony are expecting to be included. For instance, in Hawaii, all of the wedding guests (there were only 30 of us) attended. But in New York, it was really only the wedding party, their dates, and close relatives - the bride and groom figured folks would want to take advantage of a free Friday night in the city. In both cases, the locale and the feel of the evening reflected the personalities and sensibilities of the bride and groom - to me, that's the most important thing.

After our salad, we headed back up the avenue de Champagne and bought our tickets for the tour of the Moet cellars. It was a small group, mostly American with a couple of Brits mixed in. The tour was led by a charming woman (she never told us her name, but Louisa and I have named her "Clothilde") who was dressed in a very well-cut grey tweed blazer and similarly stylish black pants. Only later did we realize that this is the uniform for Moet cellar guides - only in France. Our tour started with a quick peek into two of the salons off of the lobby - both decorated as they were in the early 19th century, and both two of Napoleon's favorite rooms in the house (he was a friend of Claude Moet's and a frequent visitor). Then we watched a video about the history of the house and the champagne-making process, from grape to degourgement. We descended into the refreshingly cool, surprisingly elegant cellars. The tour was marvelous (I know some people find their tour very commercial, but we really enjoyed ourselves) - the guide was very knowledgable, and we loved seeing thousands upon thousands of bottles of champagne in one place . The tasting was very intimate - only our little tour group, and Louisa and I tried two Brut Millesimes, one rose and one white. The white was very, very dry, as Moet tends to be. I think it would have been better with food (I did like it when I tried it with one of the little crackers on offer), but wasn't terribly drinkable on its own. I really enjoyed the rose, though - I'd never had Moet's rose before. It was also dry, but not quite as harsh going down.

Once we'd recovered from the morning's bread-basket gorge-fest, we made ourselves presentable and climbed into a cab for the ride down the hill into Epernay. We weren't quite sure what to expect, and when the cab dropped us in front of Moet and Chandon, we realized that the guidebooks (which had been snide about certain things in Prague and Strasbourg that actually turned out to be quite charming) hadn't been kidding - Epernay was fine, but certainly nothing extraordinary (outside of the gorgeous champagne houses lining the avenue). Add to that the fact that the length of the avenue de Champagne is being torn up and re-paved right now, and you've got yourself a slightly bleak picture. We went into Moet (our plan was to visit them and Perrier-Jouet) to buy tickets for the next tour in English (our French is strong, but we didn't want to miss a word), and were reminded that it was 12:00, and the house was closed until 2:00. We're such New Yorkers! So, we took a walk up the hill, then back down and around into the centre ville...the only folks we ran into until we hit the main roundabout were lycee students. I felt so old! We decided that it had been too long (almost three hours!) since we'd eaten last, and ordered a salad to split at a little cafe in downtown Epernay, two blocks from Moet. We ordered the salade paysanne, which came with bacon, potatoes, egg, and tomato...sort of like breakfast on a salad, tossed in a really tangy (the way I like it) vinaigrette). (Side note: I'm writing this in the coffee house across from my apartment, and a young man just sat down next to me and started speaking in French on his cell phone. Sigh.)