La Frahhhhnce

[3894]

This is x-posted at MP, too.

Part I

Why we went: Daughter #1 had just finished her study program in Dijon through her college. We "had" to pick her up ;-). Since Dr. Muggle and I hadn't been to Europe for a couple of decades (!) and are unlikely to go again, we decided to treat ourselves to something very special: a walking tour of the prehistoric cave art of southwest France.

This is how special the trip was: Dr. Muggle actually bought a jacket to wear in restaurants. It's Burberry (ah-hem! and thank you to Palo Alto Nordstrom's for their men's sale a couple of weeks ago) and he wears it with khakis - casual and handsome that guy is.

Our itinerary: Chicago to Dublin to Paris via Aer Lingus. Great fares, nice airline but, wow, Dublin Airport is wacky.

Train to southwest France where we met up with the walking tour.

The walking tour: Everything great about France is abundant in the southwest of France. On top of the hills and down in the patchwork of sunflower fields and walnut groves are castles and villages. This is France's food heaven, the home of foie gras, truffles, lots of wines. Humans have lived here for millenia and the caves peppering the hillsides contain cave paintings by early humans.

The brochure of the walking tour used words like "amble" and "easy" and "compact walks". Ha! One day we walked 9.8 miles, most of it uphill (omg) and that wasn't exceptionnal. The guide was super knowledgeable but also super driven. It wasn't what I had pictured, although there were great surprises, too. For example, we met the great truffle master Monsieur Édouard, who taught our daughter how to hunt truffles with his golden lab, Ti-Touffe.

The tour lasted six days. The food and hotels were truly fabulous.

Best meal of my life: Before we met up with the tour, we spent one night at Castel Novel, a château that used to belong to the writer Colette. If you know the movie "Gigi", you know her work.

So, we're on the grey stone terrace as the sun is setting. An exhuberant riot of flowers is in full bloom over the castle walls and in the garden below. In the distance, sheep and cattle graze and swallows flit in and out of the castle's turrets.

The waiter comes out with the mixture of cassis and champagne called kir royal and a surprise gift of assorted hors d'oeuvres: smoked salmon balls, eggplant wontons, foie gras foam in a tiny glass with a tiny spoon, and homemade potato chips.

Then comes the appetizer we ordered: a large prawn in a pool of green avocado purée and red pepper purée, followed by a foie gras tasting done three ways: with tomato jelly, in tiny cubes, and with truffle. We tried it; we ate it; we didn't love it, which leaves all the more foie gras for those of you who do love it.

For the main dish, Tom and I had lamb, which was served with a tiny lamb brain (I ignored that as much as I could), quinoia, and the tiniest baby carrots. Our daughter had a fish called St. Pierre, a tiny artichoke, and handmade macaroni with shaved truffle.

Now for the cheese course. You can choose as many of the local cheeses as you want. I told the waiter to choose mine, since I didn't know them. He carved off six different cheeses, some hard, some soft, cow, sheep, goat. Mmmm.

And for the most important part of the meal, dessert: first came a plating of three strawberry desserts for each of us: strawberry with homemade marshmallow, homemade pistachio ice cream with a burnt sugar sail and a strawberry and a homemade graham cracker with the best whipped cream you ever tasted and strawberries.

Then another surprise! The waiter brought a tray of tiny strawberry milkshake shots with vanilla foam, chocolate truffles, Turkish delight, and tiny raspberry and ginger tarts.

So we're sitting there in the afterglow of this perfect meal, when splat! something landed on the lapel of Tom's new Burberry jacket. Yes, the swallows had given him a gift.

Which the waiter hurried over to dab off. Who doesn't love a laugh with a perfect meal?

More later ...

[Snowflake]

Okay, now I'm hungry...................

Great 3894! More, please!

[Strangler Lewis]

Did you eat at the Ikea in Dijon? It was quite good.

[cirquelover]

It sounds like an amazing time so far. Well except for the heavy walking on a light walking tour!

[Not Afraid]

I am SOOOOO hungry right now! I've been watching The Tour de France and always love the riot of sunflowers in bloom. Ahhhhh, France how I love thee.

[dlrp_bopazot]

hey ! i'm glad you loved it here . Weather has been good and warm in the south of France. Did you stop to a Grocery Store here or walked thrue a Foreign Markets ?

[alphabassettgrrl]

Oooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh, I'm jealous! Thank you for this- more? It sounds *wonderful* and I want to go more than ever! I'll even do the walking!

[3894]

See how the back wall of this house is the cliff itself? That's what's called a troglodyte house. Our hotel in the town of Les Eyzies de Tayac was a troglodyte hotel and the National Museum of Prehistory is a troglodyte museum. In fact, much of the town of Les Eyzies de Tayac is a troglodyte town! See? This town is the best place to stay for much of the prehistoric art available to be seen by the public.

Let's lace up our walking shoes and hit the trail. Destination: la Gorge d'Enfer ... Hell's Throat. A lot of the canyons here have amusing religious names; my favorite is Calvin's Flesh. Up, up, up hill we trek, the day getting sunnier by the minute. Now down, down, down, up another hill, pushing over a barbed wire fence to pass through, up and around and down and up. Don't rely on that railing because it's rotted! You'll fall to your doom! And don't look down because that crevass? That's La Gorge d'Enfer, and that green metal door in the side of the cliff is the entrance to the Shelter of the Fish.

It's locked. Listen, what's inside is insanely irreplaceable. The guardian will be along in a moment. Out here, t's hot but inside the shelter (which is really a small cave), it will be cool as a cucumber.

And dark. The cave is dark. Our guide has a flashlight. He shines it around the walls: nothing.

Now up on the ceiling ... oh!

The fish is a carving of a salmon, about a yard long. How old do you think it is?
Answer: It dates from 25,000 B.C. All those thousands of years ago, someone stood right where we're standing and carved it.

Now, how about some lunch? No, not fish. It's a five minute stroll to a café that serves the best mushroom omelettes. The name of the mushrooms is cèpe. Everyone considers them a delicacy and I agree. So much better than f.g., the goose liver paste that, like Vldmrt, shall never be named.

And for dessert, we could have the crème brûlée. You know I never say no to that!

More later ...

[Strangler Lewis]

It's actually the specials board from opening night at a primitive restaurant. Not surprisingly, salmon became the nightly special.

[3894]

I posted a couple of photos already in a Lounge Lizard thread but here are the details:

Monsieur Édouard, truffle master, lives in such a tiny village that he is related to everyone, except one. He is a charming, twinkly-eyed gentleman with a passion to educate all of us about the round black mushrooms he finds and ships off to the finest restaurants in the world. Among the things he wants us to know:

• Chinese truffles are no good. Black French truffles are fantastic but the best are the white Italian truffles. The Italians search for their white truffles by moonlight. This is only because they don't want anyone to know where they find them. Lately, black French truffles are being successfully grown in Oregon.

• Cook a truffle and kill the taste. This is why that little bit of truffle in a pâté tastes like nothing. Instead, shave fresh truffle over rice, pasta, potatoes, or eggs. It has a delicate, easily overwhelmed taste that pairs with neutral foods.

After the truffle lesson, it was time to meet the truffle dog, Ti-Touffe. The French also hunt with female pigs. Dogs have the advantage of never eating a truffle. You can find truffles without a pig or a dog, however. Just look in a likely spot under a likely tree to see if there are any truffle flies. Yes, there is a species of fly attracted to the beet-like smell of truffles.

Monsieur Édouard encourages the dog by saying over and over in the gentlest, kindest voice, "Je ne la vois pas. Elle est où? Cherche, Ti-Touffe, cherche." (I don't see it. Where is it? Look for it, Ti-Touffe, look for it.) Here's a video from the internet of Monsieur Édouard's dog in action.
Safe for Work.

When Ti-Touffe indicated a truffle, Monsieur Édouard asked our daughter to dig it up.


After, we were invited to the garden to eat ravioli with the truffle shaved over it and bread with truffle-infused butter.