Guest Blogging: R in France

I arrived in France yesterday. R has been here for about three weeks now and....HE HAS BEEN TAKING PICTURES OF FOOD! It hasn't taken long at all for him to go from making fun of me for taking pictures of food to taking pictures himself, by his own volition. So...I have convinced him to write a guest post, talking about some of his culinary-oriented experience in France, so far. Without further ado... In the words of Neen and Do, I pass the baton.



This was the main course that I had a cocktail reception in the champagne region. It was very flavourful, but it had a bit too much olive oil. I also had some nice champagne that night.



This was the dessert from the cocktail reception. The lady that I was sitting by didn't want her dessert, so I dominated it for her. She's a big coffee fan, so I gave her my coffee as a thank you.



I visited two champagne houses and the first one was Pommery. This is a picture of a cheesy decoration in one of the tunnels. Champagne is kept in tunnels underneath the ground where the temperature is always around 12 degrees Celsius. Making champagne is a very complicated process. The bottles are slowly rotated and tilted upside. Eventually, a sediment forms in the bottom of the bottle (the neck when it is upside down) and then the neck is dipped into a solution that is about 25 degrees below Celsius so that the sediment freezes. Then, the bottle is opened and the pressure pops the frozen sediment out of the bottle. Because the sediment is removed, champagne does not improve with age like wine.



The second champagne house I visited was Moet & Chandon. The tour was very similar to the tour at Pommery, but I found it a bit pretentious. This is a statue of Dom Perignon, the monk that invented champagne.



This is a view of one of the buildings at Moet & Chandon. Obviously, the company isn't hurting for cash.



This is a macaron. My friend in Paris told me I had to have a macaron. Apparently, people line up outside some of the nice pastry shops in Paris, especially around Christmas time to buy macarons. It was good, but it wasn't cheap.

Psychgrad's note: You can check out a recent round up of macarons here.



In the Montmartre region of Paris, we stopped at a cafe for lunch. I was a feeling a bit deprived of fruits and vegetables, so I ordered a salad. It was dynamite. I really enjoyed the "lardons", which are sort of like little pieces of salty bacon.



Here's another view of the salad. The cheese is parmesan.



I spent one night in Paris and went to a restaurant called "L'ardoise", which was recommended by the concierge. For 33 euros, I had a wonderful three-course meal.



This is the appetizer. There was a lot of dill, which I loved.



This is the main course: lamb and peas. The sauce was amazing.



Voici le dessert. Il y avait beaucoup de canelle. I loved the cinnamon!

Psychgrad grabs the baton back...

Wow...I'm surprised at how factual R's guest post was. He's usually a big joker. I think organizing the pictures stressed him out.

Stay tuned...We'll definitely have more posts about our next couple of weeks in France.