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

Note: this email was originally composed on Oct. 7, 2004

Food Glorious Food

Day 6:

Today began with an early morning delivery of our breakfast courtesy of Patrick. It consisted of the freshest croissants and a baguette – something that we have found that the French excel at. Along with the orange juice in the fridge and fresh coffee and copious quantities of butter and local jam, the breakfast couldn’t have been any better. After breakfast Patrick took us to the local market where we bought many of the items that we would be using on our first cooking class today. As this was fresh market, everything was out in the open for inspection including many vendors who were selling fresh spices. The variety of colours and smells was incredible. I probably took about 50 pictures just in this market alone.

We had our first cooking class today starting at 5PM. As we were the only students we had Patrick’s full attention and we were handed our white aprons and assigned our cooking stations in the restaurant’s kitchen where we would be working. Patrick is a lively person who’s easy going nature makes the cooking lessons fun and definitely hands-on. We made variety of dishes today and our skills in French cooking were already beginning to improve.
Appetizers, main courses and desserts we were to do them all over the next few days.

The cooking lessons last about 2 hours and afterwards we retired to our room to relax before coming down to the restaurant to feast on the fruits of our toils. Tonight we were to have a special meal that included Patrick’s wife Babette, Babette’s mother, son and his fiancé. Having dinner with the whole family made the experience that much better and something we rarely experience when we travel.

Day 7:

Today we began to tour the local area with Patrick and then were invited to Patrick and Babette’s home for lunch. Part of lunch was a cheese tasting session where Babette brought out 8 or so of the most delicious local cheeses for us to eat. During the discussions about the French cheeses, we discovered that one of the reasons for the taste of these cheeses were that many of the French cheeses were not pasteurized. As almost all of the French cheeses exported to other countries required pasteurization (to kill bacteria and give it a longer shelf life) it was almost in every case that the taste of cheese in France would be different (fresher) than any cheeses that could be bought elsewhere. Patrick said that although it was technically required by law to pasteurize all cheese, the French would have none of that as “taste is king” in France.

Day 8:

Today was spent by ourselves as we wished to tour some local areas by ourselves. One of the wine areas high on Barb’s list to visit was the Chateauneuf de Pape district. We ended up buying a few bottles of wine here and this now is part of our ever growing assortment of extra items that we must carry along with our luggage.

For our cooking class that night which would be or final class, we made fois gras (duck liver) and crème brulée – two of the most delicious foods ever created. We have developed a real taste for fois gras and usually end up bringing home several containers back from Europe. There is simply nothing better to spread on a fresh baguette than fois gras accompanied by your favourite red wine.

Day 9:

This morning we said our goodbyes to Patrick and Babette and headed off to Avignon to catch our train to Paris for the last leg of our trip. A highlight in Paris which we are looking forward to will be a one day cooking class at the famous Le Cordon Bleu cooking school.

We’ll catch up with you when we arrive in Paris …

B+B

Continue on to Barb & Baden’s Excellent French Adventure ver 2.0 – Part 5