Nice Odds and Ends

After a full week here, we have noticed a few things that we thought we would share:

1. Not everyone in our building is here on vacation, in fact, we are the only ones trying to relax. This building is five stories and we are on the third; do you know what the stairwell sounds like at 0715 when a multi-generational Middle Eastern family on the fifth floor (5 kids under 8) leaves for work, school, prayer or whatever?
2. Bedrooms should never be on the street side. It seems like there are four garbage pickups per night which end just before the car and truck traffic begins at 0600.
3. Nothing ruins a concert like BO. The man directly in front of us at a Beethoven concert at the Nice Opera House had the WORST body odor we have ever encountered - I mean, it was stunning that one person could emanate so much stink.
4. Don’t assume that because you got the perfect croissant one day at a bakery, it will be any good the next day at the same bakery.
5. In one year we have seen a 15% increase in the Euro vs the Dollar, which means we are not getting very much for our dollars.
6. Went to another of our favorite restaurants that is now under new management, the fourth since we arrived.  What is going on?
7. Today, Feb 1st, the promenade and streets are loaded with Russians, most of them drunk. What is going on?
8. It seems that the French only allow their dogs to run free on the beach where there are signs that say, NO DOGS!
9. Saved ten euros today at the grocery store by capitalizing on a coupon I got because I’m a member of their club. It paid for a lovely Chablis that we shall enjoy even more knowing it is free!
10. Got my hair cut at the same place I did last year. She still had her See’s lollipop, keeping it as a souvenir.  I gave her another and told her to eat it this time. She washed my hair twice, before and after the cut. Gotta love the power of See’s!

Paul Bocuse

The passing of Paul Bocuse this last week reminded us our our first and only visit to his restaurant in Collonges outside of Lyon. The French Franc was trading at about ten to the dollar, which meant that we could afford a meal in this three star gem, so we booked a fine hotel in Lyon and hopped in the Audibahn cruiser for the five hour journey.  Our hotel was a gem, small, well appointed and well situated. The Audi just barely fit in the garage but once there we had no need for it for the next three days so all was well. 

We had arranged our reservation for 19:30 and the hotel arranged for a taxi to take us on the half hour journey to the temple of holy cuisine. The restaurant from the distance is a gaudy little bit of  tribute to Boucuse, his name is garish neon can be seen for kilometers and upon arriving we were met by a tall black man dressed just like some of the more garish groom boy lawn ornaments in the USA. The restaurant itself is made up of lots of rooms, some small and intimate others larger for big events. We were seated at a lovely table near the fireplace where the famous chickens from Bresse were grilled over the embers. We stated with two glasses of Champagne which were accompanied by a small plate of gougeres, which are cheesy little pastry puffs, and little rounds of toast some with pate, others with salmon, all marvelous. 

I ordered everything that I knew the restaurant to be famous for, starting with a rich truffle soup covered with a flaky pasty crust and baked until brown and delicious. That was followed by the chicken which I must say was cooked to perfection and tasted nothing like any chicken I had ever had before. I know we had a bottle of Chablis and a half bottle of some red, but can’t remember. If Cindy had her ‘books’ here I could even tell you the type of fish Cindy ordered by my mind is not as sharp as her books. 

The cheese trolley was enormous, bigger than many cheese shops, with at least sixty types of cheese displayed, and more in the back if there was something you wanted that wasn’t there. Not sure how we did it, but we managed to each have at least three cheeses and the waiter thought we should have even more. Once all the dishes, silver and glasses were removed, they brought us each a plate of desserts, mostly small little tarts, cookies, fruit, chocolate mousse in a small container with Paul Boucuse written on it and a few chocolates. We thought that was the most fitting end to a perfect meal possible, until of course they came around with the dessert trolley!! Yes, we had been introduced to mignardises, which are small sweets to open the palate for dessert. The dessert trolley was another of those earthmover sized affairs which I think contained every dessert known in the French speaking world. We modestly, with much protestation from the waiter, ordered two each and realized why a good French meal can take three hours to plow through.

During our time at table we noticed that Mme Bocuse was making the rounds, meeting, greeting, kissing, and just generally schmoozing with the guests. She even came over to our table and we spoke a while in French and then she graciously switched to English as we swooned over our dinner.  She said her husband had been at their restaurant in Tokyo for the past week and wasn’t sure he would be in this evening. But much to our good fortune, just as we were about to drink our cognacs, in walked the legend, in his full whites with medals displayed and he pranced about his domain with a certitude, despite his obvious jet lag. He did come by and said hello, signed our menus and moved on receive more adulation from his adoring patrons.

All and all, it was a marvelous meal ad great experience. Having met him at the height of his fame was a real trip and one that we obviously remember with great élan! We 

Road Trip, Part Three

From Baldersheim, Alsace: The next morning was very cold, wet and windy, which limited us to a much shorter walk than we had hoped for but had the advantage of getting us on the road to Italy that much sooner. We entered Switzerland, which of course is not part of the EU, after a fifteen minute ride and got in line for an immigration/customs check. This is when we remembered that we had packed our passports in the luggage in the back of the car. Cindy displayed an amazing agility as she twisted and turned to get to my suitcase and passport.  After all of that work, we were simply waved through and entered the river city of Basel. Once out of the city Switzerland looks just like all the travel posters: chalets, neat farms, tall mountains capped in white and I swear I could smell chocolate. We stopped for gas so that I had plenty to get though tunnels and passes, and we had a chance to use our German as we inquired how to pay and where were the toilets. It seems that now in order to use a toilet at a gas station, you must insert a euro, take a receipt and use the facility. The receipt allows you to get a euro discount on something from the shop, all very time consuming and rather silly. I doubt that they get a ‘bad element’ on autoroutes, but perhaps it provides more employment since there were at least two people at each station helping folks understand the process.

In all of our planning for this trip, the words “January, Switzerland, snow” never appeared in the same sentence and therefore we were really surprised when we hit tons of snow and a veritable blizzard at the higher elevations. Traffic was down to one lane following two snow plows up the hill toward the Gotthard Tunnel, a ten and a half mile respite from blowing snow and slippery roads. I had hoped that at the end of the tunnel it would be sunny and clear but that was not to be. While the snow was not as heavy, it was still coming down and the road was slippery, but we were now heading downhill and with every five miles, the conditions got better and better until we were finally out of all the weather and we could see a bit of sunshine and we knew we were closing in on Italy.

Sure enough, Italy greeted us with brilliant sunshine and we were soon ensconced in our corner suite at the Metropole Suisse, right on the edge of Lake Como. The views were jaw dropping and we had a 180 degree view of the lake, hills, homes and city that make the Como area so famous.  We decided that the trip was well worth the hassle. 

NIce, Part One

After walking for awhile to clear our heads and stretch our legs we set out to get a few basics such as bread, cheese, and wine to tide us over until we could shop more fully later in the week. We are in the same neighborhood that we have stayed in for four years so things are very familiar and comfortable. As is our tradition, our first dinner is at the same restaurant we have always visited on our first night and it did not disappoint. While the restaurant looked the same and the food was excellent, we did not see any waitstaff that we recognized. Cindy asked and was told it was all new management, which didn’t mean much to us since it was still wonderful. After dinner we wandered about a little and headed home for a much needed rest from our journey. 

The next morning after our walk/run along the Promenade, Cindy started a small load of laundry while I started making breakfast. All of a sudden the apartment smelled like a sewer and the kitchen floor began to flood. After doing a systems check, I discovered that the water was coming from under the kitchen sink (the washing machine is in the kitchen under the same counter that houses the sink). It appeared to me that the hose leading from the washing machine to the drain was not working since water was coming from the connection. There are no tools in the house and my army knife and small all-in-one tool were not up to the task so we stopped the washing machine, placed a bucket under the offending drain, and while I started mopping and cleaning, Cindy was calling our landlady who luckily had not yet departed for Paris. She called a plumber and we were told he would be here in thirty minutes, which we didn’t believe, but someone was indeed here within the hour. 

There were two of them and the only sign that they were workmen was their matching jackets. They carried only a small backpack with a very small set of tools and began the process of figuring out what was wrong. It turns out that these were the very same plumbers who had installed the washing machine a few days before and they were shocked, simply shocked, to discover that they had failed to remove the seal from the plastic drain that connected to the discharge tube of the washing machine. Instead of replacing the unit, they simply took a pocket knife and stabbed the offending part until they had a large enough hole in it to allow water to pass through. All the while the landlady is watching this without a word, just a few Gaelic shrugs and an occasional ‘poof’ noise. Cindy and I could barely contain our giggles, but soon the job was done, handshakes were exchanged, and off they went to perform another miracle of modern plumbing.

With one ordeal behind us, we began to plan for the next: returning the rental car to the airport. On a whim, we gathered the paperwork and walked the eight blocks to the train station where all the rental car companies have their offices.  When we booked the car from Costco travel, it was made clear that it was an airport to airport rental, but working on the assumption that it never hurts to ask, that is exactly what we did. At first we were greeted with the normal, “oh, that is impossible,” but we had a great agent who decided to see if it was really impossible and lo and behold, it was NOT impossible.  He was only too happy to have us return the car to his office, but not until after 2 pm since it was their lunch hour. We were as delighted as little kids who get a surprise snow day off from school. While the trek to the airport is not difficult, I had simply had it with driving and the thought of driving it five blocks was delightful. We had a simple lunch, - goat cheese salad for Cindy and a cheese omelette for me - at a little bistro that was next to the parking garage. We had visited this bistro several times in past years but stopped going since the owners were always drunk, but it is now under new management and it was lovely to see that things are on the way up.

At precisely two we were at the rental car company, the inspection was done to make sure all was well and I was very happy I had made sure the agent in Paris noted on the form a scratch since our guy found it and would have charged us without that notation.  Soon it was all handshakes and goodbyes and smiles and we were free from the tyranny of the automobile. We knew when planning this trip that an auto would be the best transportation for us, given our various stops that were off the main train routes, and we found a great price at Costco, but in the future I’ll be more inclined to have less complicated itineraries and use the rails and planes instead of the car. When you factor in the price of fuel (about 8 dollars a gallon), tolls, parking, and stress, alternatives look much better.

We walked home and got our backpack shopping bags and headed to the grocery store for some provisions. I had already purchased flowers and vegetables at the open air market after my walk but we still needed the basics and then some since the apartment only came with salt and pepper!  I had forgotten how 44 stair steps with a forty-pound pack can make you feel your age, but once up the stairs and in the apartment I rewarded myself with my first Kir! That night we ate out again, this time at a restaurant close to our apartment that we had been to several times with mixed results. This time it was marvelous - and guess what, under new management. That meant that the first three places we ate were all under new management since last year. Talk about turnover in the hospitality business.

After only three full days, we are in our groove. We have reestablished our relationship with our cheese monger, been welcomed at our favorite bar/cafe where we go every morning for coffee and sometimes for lunch, verified that our favorite bakery still produces the best baguettes in town, and filled our refrigerator with box wines and excellent Cassis.  We are happy. Weather permitting, and it usually is, we will have lunch out and dinner in. While not the best kitchen we have had, it is manageable and I made a big batch of ratatouille that we enjoyed along with patés and a rotisserie chicken for dinner last night. After dinner we did something we seldom do, we watched a movie on my iPad, which meant sitting romantically close to one another. (The movie was The Imposters and it is a delight if you haven’t seen it.) 

We are here for another three weeks and will perhaps write a bit more as the excitement mounts!  A bientôt, Cindy and Wm

Bella Italia

We were only in Como for one overnight, which meant only one real meal. I had booked a very special off-season rate that included a dinner for two at Metropole’s excellent restaurant; however the night before our arrival I received a note that said that they were closing the restaurant and instead we would be given a credit for the missed dinner. They recommended an Osteria and having walked by it and noticed it previously, we decided to give it a go. We first had a drink in a lovely bar that wasn’t far from the hotel. Anyone who has traveled in Italy knows that if you order a drink, any drink, between five and seven, you also get an amazing amount of wonderful food. In our case Cindy had a Prosecco and I a Campari and shortly after the drinks were delivered, we were served a tray which contained a bowl of small mozzarella balls, two slices of local cheese, three types of local salami, pickles, bruschetta and a bowl of potato chips and another of peanuts.  What a feast!

Needless to say, we didn’t need an appetizer course at Osteria Gallo, despite the owner telling us we should have it since it is so special.  The Osteria did not have a menu, everything was oral - and I mean rapid fire oral - but we understood it all and Cindy ordered ravioli stuffed with pumpkin and I had spaghetti with tomatoes and prosciutto, both of which were homemade and marvelous. The rest of the meal was a bust, average chicken with potatoes and really bad wine:  How horrible, I did not finish my white!! While not a very good dinner, it was certainly more expensive than it should have been, but then we were in Como.

We spent the next three days with our dear friends of twenty years at their lovely home in the suburbs of Milan. Roberto and Maria have been working in international schools in Milan for nearly 20 years and we have tried to get together with them at least once a year, sometimes in Nice, sometime in Italy, and we always have a ball. This visit was no exception!  Roberto cooked excellent dinners and we found great spots for long, lovely lunches, and in between we would take long walks. Truly a very special time. 

Too soon it was off to Cuneo, a small town in the foothills of the Alps in the Piedmont. We knew nothing about it except that one eats well in the Piedmont, so we booked a hotel and we were off. What a magnificent place Cuneo is, physically beautiful with one of the largest public squares we have ever seen in Europe. The long pedestrian zone is filled with shops and bars, cafes and restaurants, all under arcades on either side of the street, allowing all activities to be conducted under cover in all weather conditions; simply marvelous. We did something we have never done in our travels and ate three meals in the same restaurant. The first night we ate so well and so inexpensively that we booked a table for the next night, only to find ourselves being pulled into their warm embrace for lunch also. The first night we shared a starter of grilled octopus, their warm tender tentacles served on a purée of potato and surrounded by cherry tomato halves. We washed it down with a half liter of the local Prosecco. Cindy had noticed that some of the pasta and rice dishes said that they took 20 minutes to prepare, so we figured why not and she ordered risotto ai fungi and I had trofie al pesto. Cindy’s dish was so hot that it took awhile to even try it - a very good sign - and the funghi were local and delicious. Trofie are a short twisted pasta, most popular in Genoa, and how they got the pesto to taste so fresh is beyond me. Cindy likes red wine far better than I do, and she thought the Nebbiolo from the region was over the top. I had a carafe of local white that made me very happy and when the bill was presented, I was even happier. All of the other dishes we had on subsequent meals there were of the same high quality, and the detail of preparation and presentation was remarkable.  In addition, the waiters were thoroughly charming and helpful and seemed to enjoy their jobs immensely; most refreshing and also very fun. 

The next morning Cindy went running on a path around the perimeter of the old town while I wandered around and admired the placement of this city. It is surrounded on three sides by snow covered Alps and on the fourth side it opens to a fertile plain that is best known for wine production and truffles. On Tuesdays the entire town becomes a market, with vendors selling everything from clothing, food, and chainsaws to live poultry. It was a grand party with everyone milling about and some of the older men sharing wine, while the women took breaks in outdoor cafes. The food hall was buzzing and I bought a ring of cooked sausage from a vendor, then went to a bakery for a fresh roll, and went back to the hotel and shared my tasty breakfast with Cindy.  We truly enjoyed every moment we spent in Cuneo. If it weren’t so hard to get to I’m sure we would go back, but it was time for us to head over the mountains and into Nice on what we thought would be a relaxed and scenic drive. It turned out to be the trip from Hell!  It started off well with a lovely morning drive out of Cuneo. Soon the two lane road started to go up hill and the weather turned much colder, but still dry and bright. We hit the really bad switchbacks shortly after leaving the ski town of Limone and it was slow going, at least for us being stuck behind a very un-Italian driver. Despite the snow and switchbacks, we were passed by a young Italian with a death wish. We knew there was a one-way tunnel on the route and that you might have to wait for your turn to pass through. The stupid Italian who passed us got there just before the red light and we were left sitting there for twenty-five minutes, just waiting. (I guess he wasn’t so stupid after all!)  Once though the tunnel, we encountered ever more horrible switchbacks and my enjoyment factor was decreasing rapidly.

We were finally out of the mountains and following a river which took us through lots of little villages, and I thought the worst was behind us and that the river would end at the sea and we would then turn west and on into Nice.  It was not to be!  We encountered a detour which took us up, and up and up via switchback after switchback and then down and down and down, with more switchbacks. It was a forty-five minute detour that was just miserable - and just when we thought we were home free, the traffic was stopped for an inspection by the gendarmes. They were well armed and very polite and went to each car and truck and had us open our trunks as they looked in the cars and trucks for illegal immigrants. We were very close to the Italian border city of Ventimiglia, where hundreds of immigrants are stopped from entering France. Seems there is a bit of a smuggling business and the French are having none of that, thus the inspections.

We finally arrived in Nice in time to meet our landlady and get a tour of the apartment and collect our keys. I found a convenient, albeit expensive, parking garage to deposit the car and we were finally free to take our first walk on the Promenade. The next installment will include 2 French plumbers!  Cindy and Wm

Road Trip, Part Two

Our ride to the Alsace allowed us the time to talk about our experiences in Brussels. Our overwhelming thought was, “What a dour bunch of people!” We are very accustom to entering shops or restaurants in France and Spain and Italy, greeting everyone in the building.  In Brussels, we did that and we were received with glum silence, perhaps because we were speaking French and they were more Flemish, or perhaps, they just don’t really care.  Meagan had told us that there is a concerted effort on the part of the Flemish to regain their majority and language in Belgium. Brussels, as a HQ for the EU, will always be a bilingual capital, but the rest of the country seems to want to be Flemish. We were told that the schools in the north of Belgium no longer teach French.  Seems a shame but there you have it.

Our route took us past lots of World War I monuments, battlefields, and fortifications, which I found fascinating. There was a lot of wide open spaces filled with farms and animals, all of which looked immaculate. The closer we came to Strasbourg, the worst the weather became and soon we were smack in the middle of a downpour which lasted for almost forty minutes. It was so heavy that there were times when the windshield wipers could not keep up with the rain and passing trucks, became quite the adventure. After breaking free of the squall, we were very close to our hotel and things began to look very familiar. Half timbered houses, stamp sized villages, tall spires from churches perched high on the top of the hills that lead up to the Vosges Mountains, reassured us that we had made the right decision to spend the night in Alsace.

Our hotel was in a very small village with one of everything, pharmacy, news store, bakery, butcher shop and small grocery store. The hotel served as a the cafe for the village and was a lovely place build in the style of the Alsace with lots of wood, balconies flowing with flowers, and half timbered to fit with the surrounding homes. After a warm greeting at reception, we were giving our key to the room with a voucher for two glasses of Cremant, the local sparkling wine similar to Champagne. Our room was comfortable, if rather small, but for one night it was perfect, made even more enjoyable went we saw the bottle of Cremant accompanied by a hand written note from the manger. We had intended to take a nice walk before dinner but the rain had caught up with us again and we opted to sit in the bar and drink our glasses of Cremant.

Dinner was fabulous, the food, the service, the table settings, everything was just the way it should be and made us feel like perhaps you can go home again. There is a local Alsace wine called Edelzwicker which we had not had for a very long time and is usually serve in ceramic jugs of various sizes and sure enough they had it available and certainly affordable. Cindy had some of the best seared duck liver she ever had and the portion was enormous, followed by a lovely creative salad. I had a pumpkin soup, which was served in a heated bowl and served from a silver soup tureen, which was left on the table for seconds, followed by seared duck breast with roasted root vegetable. We shared a dessert of Black Forest Cake, which Cindy declared spectacular. The cherries were dark, tart and juicy, which was a great foil to all of the bittersweet chocolate shaving that topped and surrounded the cream and cake. Quetsch eau de vie is a local specialty that is served ice cold after a rich meal. It is made from a fruit like a purple plum and is crystal clear and Cindy loved it, as I did my Armagnac and with smile on our faces, we waltzed up to our room.

The next morning was very cold, wet and windy, which limited us to a much shorter walk than we had hoped for but had the advantage of getting us on the road to Italy that much sooner. We entered Switzerland, which of course is not part of the EU, after a fifteen minute ride and got in line for an immigration/customs check, which is when we remembered that we had packed our passports in the luggage in the back of the car. Cindy displayed an amazing agility as she twisted and turned to get to my suitcase and passport.  After all of that work, we were simply waved through and entered the river city of Basel. Once out of the city Switzerland looks just like all the travel posters, chalets, neat farms, tall mountains capped in white and I swear I could smell chocolate. We stopped for gas so that I had plenty to get though tunnels and passes, and we had a chance to use our German as we inquired how to pay and where were the toilets. It seems that now in order to use a toilet at a gas station, you must insert a euro, take a receipt and use the facility. The receipt allows you to get a euro discount on something from the shop, all very time consuming and rather silly. I doubt that they get a ‘bad element’ on autoroutes, but perhaps it provides more employment since there were at least two people at each station helping folks understand the process.

In all of our planning for this trip, the words January, Switzerland, snow never appeared in the same sentence and therefore we were really surprised when we hit tons of snow at the higher elevations. Traffic was down to one lane, following two snow plows up the hill toward the Gotthard Tunnel, a ten and a half mile respite from blowing snow and slippery roads. I had hoped that at the end of the tunnel it would be sunny and clear but that was not to be. While the snow was not as heavy, it was still coming down and the road was slippery, but we were now heading downhill and with every five miles, the conditions got better and better until we were finally out of all the weather and we could see a bit of sunshine and we knew we were closing in on Italy.

Sure enough, Italy greeted us with brilliant sunshine and we were soon ensconced in our corner suite at the Metropole Suisse, right on the edge of Lake Como. The views were jaw dropping and we had a 180 degree view of the lake, hills and homes and city that make the Como area so famous and decided that the trip was well worth the hassle. 

Europe Road Trip, Part One

On Saturday, January 20, 2018, Cindy Emmans <ccemmans@yahoo.com> wrote:

We thought it would be a swell idea to take a little road trip in Europe on our way to our annual visit to Nice to avoid winter.  I’m not exactly sure what I was thinking, if I was thinking at all, but it appears that it is very difficult to avoid winter in Europe in January.

After a nasty flight on United, we landed in a dark and wet Paris. Two 747 flights from different parts of China landed before us so the lines to clear immigration were immensely long and slow, but we really didn’t have a schedule and it was great just to be out of the plane. We found our way to our rental car company, completed the paperwork, and by 8 am we on our way to Lille.  It was a dark and stormy morning, filled with truck traffic and speeding commuters, not ideal conditions for a road trip.  Despite the fact that we declined GPS, it seemed to be working quite well and we named our new best friend Collette as she guided us in perfect French to Lille. After a small unguided tour of Lille - Collette did let us down at the last minute - we finally found our way to the parking garage closest to our hotel. Our room was not ready since it was only a bit after 10 am, so we deposited our luggage and set out to explore.

Lille is a compact and elegant city, which on the tenth of January was still all decorated for Christmas, complete with a snow machine that was blowing snow in the central square. Yes, it was cold enough to make snow. We wandered in and out of shops and arcades to seek warmth and shelter from the intermittent rain/snow squalls until we finally ran out of steam and stopped for a coffee. Our spirits revived, we set out for more explorations, mostly looking for places to eat dinner that night.  By 1 pm our room was ready and we unpacked, cleaned up and set out to find lunch. It was raining rather hard so we scuttled to the closest cafe for our first French lunch of the trip. 

Northern France bears little resemblance to the south of France, especially when it comes to food. The north is cold, wet and dark for five months of the year and their food tends to be rather heavy and cheese- and meat-based.  At the restaurant owner’s insistence, I tried the specialty of Lille, which turned out to be a variant of Welsh Rarebit.  I was presented with a shallow bowl of what looked like melted Velveeta. Beneath this pool of yellow goo there was a piece of white bread spread with mustard and covered with a thin piece of ham. Honestly, it was the worst meal I’ve had anywhere in a long time but all the more horrible that I was wasting a meal in France. Further investigation of menus in Lille demonstrated that this was not a one-off experience; they all had variants of the same dish as their specialties. Armed with this information, we gravitated to bistros that had more typical dishes for the rest of France and we dined well for the two nights we were there, ending at a spectacular fish restaurant that presented stunning oysters, fresh fillets of fish, and crisp white wine. Always nice to leave a city feeling good about the cuisine. We would certainly go back to Lille, but not in January!

Cindy programmed Collette for our daughter-in-law Meagan’s address in Brussels and we were off and running at the crack of noon.  Visiting Meagan was the real reason we decided to make this road trip, as opposed to simply flying in and out of Nice. The ride was quite nice with very little traffic for the two hour journey and Collette guided us perfectly to Meagan’s front door where she was waiting patiently for us. After parking the car in her garage, we settled in while she returned to work at the embassy. Her apartment is lovely and so centrally located that she can walk to everything and has no need of a car, ideal in a big city.  We planned the visit to coincide with a three-day weekend, giving us time to be with Meagan and share her city.

We had a grand three days with Meagan. One day we did the hop on/off bus and visited all the sights, followed by mussels in Brussels at one of the most famous restaurants, Chez Leon. Brussels has a well-deserved reputation for fine dining and it did not let us down. One night we ate at a little bistro in the Sablon, an area filled with bars, cafes and bistros. I had rabbit stewed in fine Belgian beer and it was crazy good. Another evening we went to an authentic Spanish tapas bar - it was Sunday so not much else open - but this was really special and we loved every little dish we tried, not to mention the Spanish wines.

One day we went shopping at the markets so that I could get the ingredients to make a cassoulet, one of Meagan’s favorite meals.  I had a great time cooking since Colin had outfitted the kitchen well on his last visit and I had all the tools I needed. The cassoulet turned out rather well and I made sure I made enough so that Meagan would be able to eat the rest after we departed. On the last day of our visit it rained cats and dogs the entire day, so I prepared omelettes for lunch and then since Meagan was leaving for the states on Friday, I did what I could to clean out her refrigerator. Dinner that night was therefore rather eclectic: a carrot and celery salad with an orange curry dressing, a green bean salad with peanuts and a sesame oil dressing, followed by two kinds of sausage - one garlic pork, the other veal - both grilled and served with egg noodles, chopped tomato and fresh parsley. It was lots of fun to just stay in all day and talk and cook and drink wine.

Meagan was off to work early the next morning and we managed to get on the road by eleven, heading to the Alsace for a refresher course in yet another cuisine that we came to love during a dozen years living in Germany. The Alsace was our go-to area for weekends and we were looking forward to our brief return.  More later,  Cindy and Wm