Degustation

As we near the end of our adventure in France, we’ve started thinking about all the things we haven’t done yet, or “have to do” before we go. I guess it’s natural – there’s no way we’re going to be leaving with regrets, but with 3 longs months stretching out in front of you, it was ok just to ease into the French experience; with under 2 weeks left it’s all systems go! It’s too early for a “what we’ve achieved and what we haven’t” blog (I guess that means there’s at least 1 more!) but the topic of food was prominent in the discussions, so here we are….

Em made a comment something like: “I’m a bit disappointed we haven’t embraced French food and cooking as much as we could have”. We’re both pretty good at trying things when we go out, but unfortunately we don’t get to go out nearly as much as we’d like – although I’m sure the credit card appreciates the restraint that 2 young children have provided!

We’ve been lucky enough to have a couple of restaurant meals in the last few weeks, including “Le Nord” (http://www.nordsudbrasseries.com/), a bistro run by Paul Bocuse who is (apparently) one of Lyon’s most famous and favourite chefs. The other lovely meal was for Em’s birthday; where we had a wine tasting / lunch combination at Domaine Comte Senard (http://www.domainesenard.com/) – a winery in Burgundy: lovely Burgundy wines and some great traditional French food including Coq au Vin. “Le Nord” was just the 2 of us (very special!) but we had both Hannah and Abby for the lunch; somehow we still managed a lazy 3 hour lunch which looking back on it was just extraordinary, but a lovely way to celebrate.

Lyon is renowned for its rich, meaty, “offaly” food, and we’ve had a fair bit of that. We’ve tried Rognol (kidneys… sheep I think) and sheep testicles at various restaurants. I’ve previously blogged about the escargot and frogs legs we had at friend’s place. At home we’ve had all sorts of sausages, salamis and terrines etc (including Terrine De Chevreuil, or Terrine De Bambi as it was described to us) – some of which we’ve known the contents of, and others where we didn’t and knew it was best not to ask. And everywhere we’ve had Foie Gras which is the most incredible food until you think about how it’s made. And of course, we’ve had more French cheese than can possibly be good for us, but that wasn’t a real chore!

But Em’s point was that we hadn’t been too adventurous in the kitchen. We’ve done duck a few times (and are big fans), and Em’s mum tackled rabbit once with great success, but we weren’t sure we could count that as our achievement! So this week, we decided rabbit was on the menu again. The timing was perfect as my aunt Alana had provided us with a rabbit recipe at the start of the trip, and a friend of hers from Benalla, Sarah, was staying with us (hence the ability to sneak out for a restaurant dinner!).

So “le lapin” and ingredients were purchased, and preparations began. The first setback came when we realised it was a whole rabbit that had been purchased, and dissection would be necessary. But a sharpened knife and deep breath and that hurdle was cleared, and it was relatively smooth sailing from there. The outcome was tremendous: good looking, and very, very tasty! Kind of makes you wonder why we haven’t done more of it!

For those that are interested, to accompany the rabbit, we recommend a red burgundy (of course), specifically:

2005 Givry, G. Prieur

Medium –Light red colour. Stewed strawberry aromas with hints of red berry. No sharp edges. Some fruit sweetness and a little bitterness on the medium length palate.

For more pictures, click on the image below.

Degustation

It's just like you dreamed it

These were the words of the chorus for the main song of the Disney Parade, and thus after our 2 day excursion to DisneyLand Paris, we had this on repeat in our heads. Except of course for Hannah, who instead was singing “It’s chestnut leaves”, but that’s another story.

But it got me thinking, I wonder if DisneyLand Paris is anything like the French were dreaming it would be when they agreed to have it in their country? Don’t get me wrong – I loved it; we loved it. I’ll admit to being a bit of a Disney fan, and we had an awesome 2 days: both Abby and Hannah loved the songs, the dances, meeting the characters, and some of the easier rides; while both their parents had a ball on Space Mountain, Tower of Terror etc etc – for one of us it was the first time on an upside down roller coaster – very cool!

But it’s not very French. In fact it’s not French at all. All the signs are in French as well as English, but that’s about the only way you’d know it had anything to do with France. All of the announcements and most of the songs are also in German and Spanish – which is quite amusing and means all the routines are about 4 times as long! – so in fact you could be almost anywhere in Europe, except for the fact that you’re in DisneyLand, which is just oh so American!

So it’s kind of bizarre that a country that prides itself on its culture and it’s language, and is renowned for being particular unhelpful towards those who don’t speak French (although to be fair, we've found this to be very untrue) would agree to host an enormous theme park for a company that has made a fortune taking lovely European fairy tales, and turning them into populist cartoon rubbish for a nation that probably believes French Fries are the height of French cuisine.

Yet they do it amazingly well. They have the infrastructure and co-ordination ability to handle the logistics. We caught the TGV (train with great velocity!) which turned the 500km trip into a relatively easy 2 hour journey (direct from Lyon to DisneyLand) – sure it was 10 minutes late which the Germans wouldn't have allowed but still very impressive. They’re ideally located: between what appeared to be the 3 major hordes of people who go – the UK, Spain and Germany (and possibly some French go too?). And they've managed to turn the ubiquitous “Bonjour / Au Revoir / kiss kiss” meet and greet routine into something resembling the lovely over the top American hospitality. Not in quite the same way – after check-in we hardly saw anyone in our Disney Hotel, which I’m sure wouldn't be the case in America – but in a very friendly, lovely way. Maybe even more lovely than the American way.

They've dropped a fair bit of their “Frenchness” – the food is full of fat like French food, but horrible like good American food is; and there’s no need to attempt to speak French and explain that you’re Australian before resorting to English. It was actually amusing to watch the character minders interact with a crowd: they would generally speak in French, but with lots of hand gestures, but when they really wanted to control a crowd and get their point across, they’d resort to English – obviously used to rowdy Brits! But somehow it’s still got a French flavour to it.

It was never on our agenda to visit DisneyLand while in France, but after weeks of wine tasting we thought it was probably appropriate to give the kids a treat while in France. And the French didn't let us down with their interpretation – I’m sure helped by imported (I’m assuming, based on her name alone), “cast members” (they don’t have staff or employees) such as Melody to ensure the fake smiles and “you’re welcomes” flow like they should in the happiest place on Earth. The weekend after DisneyLand was back to normal with Coteaux de Lyonnaise wine tasting till 9pm on Saturday night, and then lunch and some 10 year old Burgundies with a sister of a friend of a friend (long story). And while she mightn't have previously dreamed it, I wouldn't be surprised if Hannah’s only long term memory of France is DisneyLand, and she dreams of it in the future.

More pictures by clicking the image below.

It's just like you dreamed it