Last Supper(s) and Cleaning House

As you all can I'm sure imagine, we didn't hold back on the delicious food in those precious last few days on the other side of the Atlantic.

The gourging started off with this extra old (that was seriously the name on the label) mimolette cheese, so old in fact that the woman at the counter asked if it was ok broken because it literally crumbled when she attempted to cut off a chunk. For reference, mimolette cheese is similar to gouda in it's aging.

Veal chops in mushroom sauce and braised endives made the dinner-time cut one evening. The recipe was taken from our new Paul Bocuse cookbook (purchased in French so I will be forced to remember something) all about cooking with fresh, market food.

As a special treat, I made a rare trip to the patisserie to pick up dessert (I know, I am a pastry chef and should be seeking out the spectacular French sweets but *gasp* I don't really like sweets very often). This particular treat is called the Paris-Metz (in honor of the new high-speed train line); it is a raspberry and citrus macaroon large enough for sharing. 

The next big dinner was a re-creation of a restaurant meal. I am realizing only now just how often I ordered smoked salmon while out to dinner. This dish was composed of some potato pancakes topped with an herbed crème fraîche and smokes salmon which we served with some delicious mâche salad that Megan and Joe had introduced us to a few days prior.

 

And so began the cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. It's amazing just how dirty a teeny tiny apartment can get while still appearing clean. We cleaned and scrubbed for hours our last day.

And then I painted and painted...I want to know who the brilliant person was that decided that decided to cover the dorm walls (including the kitchen??) with textured white walls that disintegrated if you tried to clean them?

Somewhere in there we took a break from cleaning to break into this fun little basket...

...full of some amazing oysters.

Michael let the newly purchased oyster knife and oyster shell get the best of him on this attempt.

But regardless of blood loss, the final product was a great mid-cleaning treat with one last bottle of Champagne.

And finally, the next morning, after lots and lots work while the fluffy white stuff fell outside (which would prove problematic the next day), we finished cleaning. It looked creepy.

Last Sunday

Sorry for the delay readers -- I do not intend to give up on blogging now that we are no longer "Metzing Around" but if you are a Facebook friend, you are well aware of our travel troubles when returning to the US (3 flights in 3 days but more on that later) and I just now am feeling settled and calm enough to sit down and look through all these pictures.

Our last Sunday was spent again in Nancy with our blogging/real-life friends Megan and Joe. Not only were we anxious to see them one last time before moving back but we also had a home-goods delivery to make.

Pre-departure, we made a giant list of all the things we had accumulated after 1.5 years in this tiny apartment and put them up for grabs. And since Megan and Joe are car-less and live 45 minutes away, we offered to drive them to Nancy in return for a fun evening at their place. 

When we arrived, Megan was ready for the delivery with crust and batter for the scrumptious French burnt cheesecake, Tourteau Fromagé (which we mentioned here awhile back) to throw in their newly acquired oven.

We had a wonderfully light and very french meal complete with chewy bread, smoked salmon dip, ratatouille, the tourteau fromagé (isn't that a great cross section shot? we were seriously impressed that our little toaster oven managed to burn the top!) and a batch of Alton Brown's amazing brownies. And wine. Of course, there was wine.

And after another enjoyably long evening of chatting and reveling in how many strange things we have in common, we took our parting photos...

...and reluctantly headed home one last time (which turned out to not be the last time since I somehow ended up with their apartment keys in my pocket and had to run back the next day to return them).

And to make the night even sweeter, a few days later they were kind enough to send on a pdf file filled with all their favorite things and suggestions on Saint Louis where we will be residing in the near future. Here's hoping the we end up somewhere close to these wonderful new friends.

Fun(Fri)day

 Last Friday we met up with Amanda and Katrina for some fun in the cold. We went downtown to the packed-on-weekends ice skating rink for some skate time and found it empty with the exception of two other people who came and went while we were there (one is a local secretary taking figure skating lessons while the other is an 18yo boy convinced that he will be France's next big Hockey star).

We had a fun time trying out new moves and wiping out when they didn't go as planned.

Katrina worked on her backwards skating -- it was her first time trying and she did great!

 

 After tiring ourselves out we took one group shot then split up for separate shopping endeavors; Katrina and Amanda Christmas shopped while Michael and I grocery shopped for that night's adventures.

At the marché couvert (covered market) we finally took the plunge and bought a poulet de Bresse (chicken from Bresse).

These chickens are so fresh, they come with the feet, head and innards still intact! The woman at the counter asked me if I wanted them removed then gave me a strange look when told her to "non", leave it how it is. I won't share the gory pictures of Michael chopping off the head and feet; and thankfully, we only needed the meat off the carcass so we were able to leave the guts where they were. It's needless to say that we are coming closer to our food here in France.

Katrina and Amanda showed up not too long after the butchering. We started off with some escargot, Katrina's first escargot, in fact!

And before we knew it, our 11:45 deadline was upon us and we hadn't even had dessert yet! What 11:45 deadline, you ask? 11:45 was Michael's deadline for accepting his first real, live job in the adult world!

So, if all goes smoothly, after spending the holidays with our wonderful families, we will be packing up (or *gasp* movers will be packing up) and we will hit the road for our new home in Saint Louis. We're excited to put it lightly.

 

After the excitement we settled down to dessert and enjoyed the rest of the evening and part of the morning (think: 4:00am) with friends.

It's Beginning to Look...

 You guessed it: A lot like Christmas!

Since the French don't have that pesky Thanksgiving holding back Christmas decorations, we got an early start (this coincided with the Thanksgiving decorating) on bringing that festive spirit to the GTL lounge. Michael, Katrina and Peter make sure the tree was sparkling and blinking (much to my chagrin, lights are never static over here, always blinking).

These XL handmade snowflakes that Amanda is holding eventually hung from the ceiling mostly thanks to Francis, the GTL maintenance man and his XL ladder.

 As is customary this time of year, we have been hitting up the local Christmas markets in town, soaking in all the festive smells and sights but mostly, the food and vin chaud (hot, mulled wine).

 The indoor decoration stand was jam-packed with festive folks looking to spruce up their homes.

And much to our surprise, Place de la République, which was largely under construction last year has been miraculously transformed with a veritable winter wonderland complete with a rotating tree ride (which was present last year but placed in the middle of a street during the construction) a giant ferris wheel and an ice skating rink.

Warm and sugary churros and hot wine. Can life be any better?

The next week it snowed like mad, quite literally shutting down all operations in Metz. I have sadly come to realize now that I have a car here in this weather that not only are sidewalks never shoveled, but only main roads are ever plowed, leading to a slippery trip to teach English on Tuesday.

 What else to do but go to the markets again?

 Oops...forgot to rotate this picture! Here I am though, cracking open one of the most expensive confections we've found here: 8 candied chestnuts (marrons glacés) for a whopping 10.99€ (~ $15)! Mostly though, I liked the tin and totally plan to bring it back. I'll take a picture of it sometime soon.

Mmmm, glorious, scrumptious, candied goodness

I'm gonna miss Christmas in France.

Thanksgiving, Extended Edition

The wonderfully welcomed view that we woke up to on Thanksgiving morning

I heard that Wellsboro woke up to the same view, it made me feel closer to home which is also a good thing on Thanksgiving day. 

 Thanksgiving Day, American-style fun at GTL

Full on tackle football

Thankfully it was too muddy and slippery for many big hits, mostly people were just sliding into each other and the snow and mud made for a softer landing. 

I can't wait to do that laundry!

I was unaware that Michael had been home until I walked into the bathroom to find this. He was kind enough to rinse it all out and hang it to dry at least.

 We enjoyed an excellent, as usual, meal at GTL complete with plenty of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes along with many, many interesting dishes from any number of cuisines. After dinner was the "talent" segment. The blurry picture above is of Katrina and Jessie (hope I'm spelling that right) during their "GTL Ballad: 21 going on 22". It was a hysterical re-mix of the ever popular "16 going on 17" from the The Sound of Music that confronted the trials and tribulations of being a GTL scholar. 

After their little ditty...we performed. Well, not Michael and I; any of you that know Michael know that he wouldn't be caught dead on a stage performing. No, the day before the dinner our friend Peter asked me if I would be willing to do a song with him and I agreed...reluctantly. We practiced all that afternoon and ran through the song a few times with the mic that day. I would be lying if I didn't tell you that I was incredibly nervous, but that's what happens when you haven't been on a stage in nearly 7 years I suppose. I'm even nervous about posting this...my hands are sweating. But, here you have it. Peter and I singing "Baby, It's Cold Outside".

Oh, and if anyone with any power at GTL is reading this, please do not hold the performance portion after dinner, I thought I was going to explode. Oh, and a big thanks to Michael for putting up with hearing this song on constant repeat for 24 hours and for recording the song.

On Saturday we got a little out of order (you'll see why later); we made ourselves some yummy eggnog (for the record, eggnog with cognac=amazing!) and lit up our little palm tree thing.

Since we'll be leaving in a mere 2.5 weeks, it'll have to suffice until we can get home to enjoy our parents' full-sized Christmas trees.  

We struggled for a long time that night to come up with something to make for dinner. We ended up settling on an epicurious recipe for Veal Cacciatore mainly because we have a lot of polenta in our pantry to use up in the next few weeks. On top of everything else, I feel like our time in France has opened up my eyes to new meats that I never really considered eating in the states and veal is certainly at the top. Veal has always had a bad rep in the stated because of some particular farms that were confining and abusing the animals and the market has never really returned. Here in Europe however, people care about their food in a way I have never seen before (OK, the Culinary Institute of America did have a high respect for food). There are very strict regulations in place for animal treatment and food safety and everywhere you look, there are these incredible looking, incredible tasting meats readily available in the supermarket (rabbit, quail, guinea fowl, lamb, veal, horse even?) and you know that it didn't live in the horrible conditions that we see in US factory farms. Sorry to get up on my soapbox but in short, if you have access to humanely kept veal, it is a delicious, lean, and tender meat, and it was oh so yummy in this particular dish.

Despite our wonderful Thanksgiving meal at GTL, I felt that I had missed out. I missed stuffing myself with stuffing and potatoes and lots of gravy. I missed the leftovers. So, Michael being the wonderful husband that he is, agreed to help me make a second Thanksgiving feast just for the two of us. 

And because there was only two of us, and because I frequent the food section of the New York Times all too often, we decided to try a new turkey breast method and recipe. The turkey breast is first brined overnight then it is tightly wrapped in seran wrap and tin foil before being effectively steamed in a low oven until the internal temperature is 135°.

I can't even being to describe how strange the turkey breast looked and felt after coming out of the oven. 

 

Seriously, it was gross!

The turkey turned out to be delicious although we weren't too sure about the honey and roasted garlic glaze that went on at the very end, it never really set and although it tasted delicious it was just kind of slimey. On the whole though, we loved the steaming  method and plan to use it again but perhaps with a different glaze at the end.

The meal was rounded out with a green bean casserole and stuffing (both from The Pioneer Woman blog, her food always looks amazing), basic mashed potatoes, gravy and my family's uncooked cranberry relish kicked up a notch (1 bag cranberries, 1 entire orange (skin and all), 1-1" piece of ginger and 3/4 c sugar blended in the food processor until finely chopped). Oh, and we drank one last bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau for the year with the meal. Really, everything turned out perfectly and even though we've done our first "married" Thanksgivings at GTL, it was really nice to have a night and the dinner just to ourselves.

Less than 3 weeks people...!

Vogler Parents' Visit: The Loire Valley

Monday: the scenic route (a.k.a.-avoiding tolls)

We came across hundreds of piles of these mysterious root vegetable on the "scenic route". What could it be? First we thought potatoes, then maybe parsnips, then it was celery root...

Until we saw large piles of them in front of this factory

In front of this sugar factory. The mysterious piles on the main [non-toll] route from Metz to Paris are sugar beets.

We arrived that night in Blois (pronounced: bla) and came across this majestic beauty while on a "night" walk (since dark comes at 5:00 already, not that I'm complaining Alaskerella!). 

Tuesday: the Loire Valley

On Tuesday morning we walked around Blois in amazement at the trees that were probably there before the Revolution.

Then we went to check out this hunting lodge. No, really. Château de Chambord was built as a hunting lodge by François I.

And because it was made as a temporary royal residence, everything was collapsible

 And beautiful.

The roof even looked like it's own city.

Dad and his baguettes, he just couldn't get enough. 

That night we walked around the picturesque town of Amboise and at dinner at the delicious L'Alliance.

Wednesday: we woke up

To these outside our B&B window. The chickens made all kinds of noise when our host, Alex went out to swipe eggs for our breakfast.

On to another Château with a tree lined drive. Excuse me while I suppress my wishful thinking...

Interesting Fact #1: This one (Château du Chenonceau) made history when in 1547, it was given by Henry II to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers. At Henry's death, his wife, Catherine de' Medici reclaimed Chenonceau and forced Diane to move on to a lesser Château. (I love that story)

Interesting Fact #2: During the Revolution, while the revolutionaries were destroying all that related to power and religion, the owners filled the chapel with firewood, tricking the revolutionaries into believing that the room was just storage.

We got to see the kitchen in this Château and being a cooking family, we were all intrigued and perhaps imagining taking some things home. 

For example: Michael wanted to take this hand-cranked rotisserie (a form of punishment for our future children?) but instead, had me take many, many pictures so he can one day replicate it. 

I wanted to take home the stove but didn't think it would fit in the Twingo.

Did I mention that this Château was built over the river?

I think I also forgot to mention the labyrinth

Where you can pick escargot.

After another yummy picnic lunch we went to the Marc Brédif wine caves to sample the wine and walk though part of the 2km long storage caves.

For dinner that night we went to the beautiful town of Loche. While working up (walking up) an appetite we came across the Château de Loches, particularly it's defensive buildings.

After dinner we headed back to the B&B (here's our room, by the way) for a rousing game of hearts and a good night's sleep.

Thursday: 

We played with the resident donkey before packing up and 

 Taking the Twingo to Versailles,

 Which was oddly filled with Japanese art (but still beautiful).

 

Postcard reads: "Greetings from Versailles!"