Good Food! Good Friday!

A few photos from our Good Friday Fancy Lunch last week in Nancy. I am well aware of the fact that I must look like a total dork while I'm taking photos of every course of my meal, but gosh darnit, having the photos helps me remember and re-enjoy the meal. Yuuuuuum!

Sidenote: Don't you love it when a restaurant gives you a surprise dessert AFTER your first dessert? *swoon*

Diet Sabotage.

The only thing harder than sticking to good eating habits during vacation, is sticking to your good eating habits when your mum comes to visit. For me eating has always been a social/celebratory event. So having invited guests for a stay is absolutel and utter diet sabotage for me.

Also since she doesn't get to France often, I feel obliged to treat her to delightful french meals complete with champagne, a 3 course menu, 2 types of wine, followed by a buttery/creamy dessert.

This week I'm going to try to control myself and me mum. Otherwise I'm afraid we'll both end up a total of 20 lbs. heavier by the end of the week.

The One with the “Lady Menu”.

I can’t even remember how many times I’ve been to Paris now, but each time I go I still swoon. I always wonder. “When is this gonna get old?” When will I stop getting giddy at the sight of Galeries Lafayette all lit up?

When will I stop giggling at the graffiti in the Metro?

But it never does get old, and I don’t want it to! For this reason I’ve decided that I will never live in Paris. That way, in my head it will always remain a magical place of charm, romance, and possibilities. Of course there are other reasons I will never move to Paris as well:

But whatever, back to the charmy stuff.

On our last weekend trip we spent all of our time shopping at the high-end boutiques. And by shopping I mean walking in all wide-eyed, and touching and drooling on stuff until they asked us to leave. I think I scared the lady at the Ferragamo boutique.

Anyway we eventually found ourselves exhausted and starving from all the window-licking and we started looking for a place to grab a bite to eat. Unfortunately, we were at Place de la Concorde and the only thing around was The Hotel Crillon. I of course insisted we should eat at their restaurant.

Now, FrenchBoy was extremely leary of dropping into the fanciest hotel in France and asking for a table sans reservation, but I guilted him into playing along by reminding him that it was Saturday and on Saturdays dammit, we have fancy lunch!

So that’s what I did. I walked into the fanciest old-school restaurants in France, without a reservation, wearing jeans and sneakers, and very politely asked –in French--for a table….and got one.

Side note: This is where FrenchBoy and My sensibilities part company. He would have never strolled in there had I not forced him. I am constantly forcing him to do stuff he doesn’t want to do. Even after all these years, I still think he sees me as this crazy American girl. And if he is honest with himself, I think he would admit that this is one of the reasons why he married me.

So, we’re sitting at our table at L’Obelisque and I’m so excited because I’m thinking that my ass is firmly planted in a chair that at some previous point in time probably held the celebrity ass of Thierry Henri, Johhnny Depp, or Madonna… and I’m checking out my menu---which has no prices. I ask FrenchBoy if we should order champagne and he chuckles. It took me a second to realize that he was laughing because he thought I was making a joke. But I wasn’t making a joke at all because my “Lady Menu” didn’t have prices. Meanwhile on the other side of the table FrenchBoy has the “Messieur Menu” which DOES have the prices clearly marked, and he can see that the price of the fancy vintage champagne is 23 euros per coup. Uhm, voila.

I was too embarrassed to whip out my camera and take pictures of each course of our lunch, but I did take a few shots on the sly. Over-all the food and the ambiance were excellent, but the service----the service was absolutely fantastic. Fantasic I say! You see, good service is all about anticipation of a client’s needs. A good server knows what you need before you have to ask for it. I got a kick out of how often they refilled my water glass. It’s as if they magically know that in exactly 3.3 more sips, my glass would be empty and a momentary empty water glass would ruin my entire dining experience.

Anyway, I’m not sure what the name of my dessert was, but it was so incredibly creamy and delicious that I had to sit awhile and sip my coffee as I waited for it to digest before we could leave. I don’t recognize the shape, but the components were a bit like an Opera.

Anyway, don’t ever let anyone tell you that money can’t buy happiness. That’s all bullshit, because happiness = cake and money can buy fancy lunches that end with cake. And thus money does indeed buy hapiness. It's simple f*cking math people.

End of discussion.

Fancy Fungi.

Whenever I look in the mirror and think to myself: “Damn, how did I get so fat?” I only need to look to my own blog for answers. I eat a lot. But I figure it’s a good trade off. I take on a few pounds (each year) but I get to taste all this magnificent food. And anyway, who really ever regrets eating French pastries? The only reason I'm even nice to people is that when I die, I desperately want to go to pastry and champagne heaven.

One of the best things about living in France is the food. Face facts, if you have an American-style metabolism and an American-sized appetite, France is not a country you move to in order to shed a few pounds. I always joke that I moved to France for my husband, but I stay for the pastries. And it’s not so far from the truth. The food is AMAAAAZING. Whenever I go back to the US I am constantly complaining and moaning about the food. I am a traitor to my own country’s cuisine.

(Except the Cheeseburger. The French will never master the Cheeseburger. Never. They can't even say it correctly. "Sheesbergeeer?" "No, CHeeeeZbURger m*therf*cker!")

To make matters worse, since moving to France I have had the occasion to sample over and over again the things that I had previously only read about in books or seen in films. Foie gras? We eat eat it on a bi-monthly basis chez nous. Champagne? Once a week! And this you see is the ultimate luxury for a girl who grew up in Des Moines, Iowa where champagne (from California) passes over the lips only once a year at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve. So it’s no surprise that in November of this year I had truffles for the first time in my life. And not just any old truffles. We went all out and ordered the full truffles menu et El Theatris.

Truffles on risotto! Truffles on Carpaccio St. Jacques!

Truffles on Filet Mignon! Truffles on Duck!

Truffles on ice cream and crème brûlée. OK, not really, but still you get the point.

That’s a lot of fungus my friends!

A Month's Worth of Fancy lunches

French people hate Fusion food. Maybe it has something to do with their xenophobic suspicious culture or their absolute distain for change or anything new, but whatever the reason they like their recipes with a little dust on them. So the first time we went to Thierry, I knew it would take some time or FrenchBoy to warm up to the menu. I on the other-hand was about to do summersaults as soon as I started reading through the menu and saw the phrase “Wasabi Sauce”.

FrenchBoy of course was not convinced. His reason being that for the same price we could go to Pampre D’or and eat “real” French cuisine at a Michelin rated restaurant. The idea being that just because its traditional French food, it is immediately of higher quality.

A-ha! And there it is. “Real “ French food. Which is slightly problematic for all sorts of reasons. In fact I would argue that it’s just as problematic as describing what a “real” French person is. What is real French cuisine anyway? I’m not sure who gets to decide these things, but I often feel as though I live in the land of the food Nazis. “You can't possible serve this with that!” "Are you really going to drink that after you’ve eaten XYZ?”

Suddenly it makes sense. I’m not a huge fan of “real” French food because I’m not really French nor according to most, will I ever be “really” French. So technically it’s not that the French hate Fusion food, it seems they may very well hate all sorts of fusion in general.

Moving right along...

Last week we once again went out in search of a decent Chinese food restaurant. In general there aren't many, but finding one that is actually palateable has been even more difficult. For the last 5 years, whenever we've wanted good Asian food of any sort we've been forced to go to Luxembourg and pay an arm and both legs for it. And we have done so quite happily because we love good Chinese and Thai food. So this weekend we lucked out. I found a small little restaurant that had great food, good decor, friendly service, and a decent price. I forgot to take photos of our hot steamy food, but here is a photo of our cocktails, complete with jewelry!

And last but not least, sometimes you just want a greasy cheeseburger and fries. Hence..

The Mc Fancy lunch!