Barb & Baden’s Excellent French Adventure ver 2.0 – Part 3

Note: this email was originally composed on Oct. 4, 2004

Day 4:

As today was our last day in the Burgundy region, we ended up spending it in Dijon again and did some shopping. We really planned on doing most of our shopping in Paris but one cannot just drop into Paris and shop as one cannot just run a marathon. Such things need “warming up” and shopping in Dijon (a much smaller city) was the perfect way to train for the real shopping ahead. For our last dinner in Burgundy, we went to a local restaurant on the advice of our host Pascal. Sure enough we did not regret his recommendation.

My selection for dinner was somewhat adventuresome as I ended up choosing Frog`s legs served in a lemon garlic sauce. As I had never had frog`s legs before I wasn`t sure what to expect but was quite satisfied with the flavour. The frog`s legs looked similar to chicken wings but had quite a different taste – much lighter than chicken.

We ended up having the absolute best créme brulée we have ever had along with our dinner for dessert. At home, I have tried to make créme brulée several times but without great success.

Day 5:

After we left Burgundy, we headed south to our next destination of the Provénce region. It will be here that we will partake in the *real* reason for our trip which will be our culinary tour in Provénce. We will stay 5 days with a professional chef and have cooking lessons in his restaurant`s kitchen each day.

We drove to the small village of Gault which is about 30 minutes from Avignon. Gault turned out to be the picture postcard French small town with one main street and old houses like you would see in some kind of movie about France. We arrived during market day so we had to go on foot in the town to fin our host Patrick Payet`s home. Patrick welcomed us warmly and treated us to a light salad and some of his freshly made fois gras (goose liver). This excellent light snack was just a sampling of the incredibly delicious food that we were to experience over the next few days.

Stay tuned for part 4 of our Excellent Adventures…

B+B

Continue on to Barb & Baden’s Excellent French Adventure ver 2.0 – Part 4