...the perfect apres-snow meal: Tartiflette...

Big day in the life of Lauren: first day 'avec raquettes'. Or something like that... I went snowshoeing today! Straight up the Jura at Monts Jura in Crozet. It was beautiful, but quite the challenge. I wish I had a photo of how far we went! I had absolutely NO idea.

The photos show you the view from the top of our journey (they don't do justice!) If you look at the bottom photo close enough, you can see from the left: Lake Geneva with the Jet D'Eau, Mont Blanc and the French Alps, Le Saleve (dark mountain in front of the white ones), all the little villages between Geneva and Crozet... pretty incredible.

After burning all those calories (believe me it was a TON!) We came home and made Tartiflette. This is an amazing regional dish to the Savoie Region of Switzerland and France. For your enjoyment, I've included the recipe. You can substitute the cheeses if unable to find the one the recipe calls for, but if you have a Whole Foods nearby, you should be able to find Reblochon there.

Tartiflette

Potatoes to fill a small gratin pan

1 medium onion

200 grams (6 ounces) of smoke and salt cured pork in any combination: poitrine fumé or the best smoked bacon you can find, smoked bacon plus salt cured Savoie ham or Southern style country cured ham. Just get what’s the best cured pork available to you.

1 clove garlic

2 tablespoons fat: butter or duck fat

Salt and pepper

1/3 cup crème fraiche epaisse or heavy whipping cream if you don't have creme fraiche

1/2 cup dry white Savoie type wine (this is how I discovered my love for Sauvignon Blanc!)

1/2 of a Reblochon de Savoie

Fresh parsley

- Peel the potatoes and cut them into slices.

- Roughly chop the onion.

- Heat the duck fat in a heavy skillet and add the onions, bacon and ham, and sauté gently for 3-5 minutes.

- Add the potatoes and continue to sauté for 5 more minutes.

- Add the wine, give the potatoes a stir, cover, season with salt and pepper as desired, and let simmer and steam in the wine for 10 minutes more.

- Grease the gratin pan with duck fat, crush the garlic clove, and rub the garlic clove all over the inner surface of the pan.

- Reserve the remaining garlic for another use (the vinaigrette for the accompanying salad, for example).

- Add the crème fraiche to the potato onion bacon mixure, and transfer it to the gratin pan.

- Slice the Reblochon in half with a sharp knife flat wise, and place the two pieces on top of the potatoes, rind side up.

- Place into the very hot oven and bake for 10 minutes at 250C or 550F

- Turn the heat down to 200C / 400F and bake 10 more minutes

- Turn off the oven, and leave the dish in the oven without opening it for another 10 minutes.

- Serve hot with a salad, crusty bread, and the the wine you cooked with.

the flat

How in the world does anyone keep up with a blog?!?! Time just keeps passing by without informing me I'm missing out! Bah!

I can't recall all that's gone on since I last posted anything on here... but currently I've got photos of my sweet apartment. Thanks to my wonderful Hannah, I've been mulling over the thoughts of what it means to make and have your home as a sanctuary. A place you WANT to go home to. A place where you're able to RELAX and leave your troubles outside the door. :) A place where you can SIT and just BE. A place where you can really focus on things that are more important than what's 'going on'. A place where you can cook and bake and be at home. A place where you can walk around looking like a fool. :) Here are the photos I'd promised weeks ago:

The lovely living room looks out over Mount Blanc... and the Geneva International Airport. ;)

Kitchen and Laundry. :) Probably my favorite room.

Take note of Elvis keeping everything in line over on the microwave. He's a keeper.

Pictures of my Aidan boy all over to make me smile. :)

WIDE OPEN windows in the summer.

Showa un gowa.

...and, of course, the WC.

More later. I'm pooped.

Nice! Beautiful South of France...

*sigh* First, I have to apologize in advance for the detail... part of the reason I wanted to create a blog was so I could look back and recall memories and lessons I've learned... so, I'm going to try to get as much captured as possible. :)

This summer has been really great... but it's also been tiring. The time I spent with the family I work for was, for the most part, really successful. I was able to spend more time and one-on-one time with Aedan (he'll be returning to school when they get back from Iowa). I met some really lovely people. I experienced le Tour de France. I got to go to the pool a fair amount. I moved into this amazing apartment and was able to spend lots of Sundays with good friends. Looking back, I had a really good summer. How better to end a really good summer than with a really good holiday? ...make that the perfect holiday.

The picture above is my favorite beach photo taken in Nice. Everything was perfect. I went with my friend Amanda, from North Carolina. Thankfully, we were in the same mindset of what the holiday needed to consist of: relaxation. And that's exactly what we did.

Wednesday morning we got up at 5 and drove to the airport to catch our flight at 6:40. Little did we know, we had to leave from the French side of the airport (as opposed to the Swiss side). Makes sense... just didn't cross our minds. So we get to the EasyJet kiosks and our flight wasn't an option. After hunting someone down to explain why our flight wasn't available we discovered we needed to be on the French side. We get to the French side and have the same problem, only this time, there's no one there to help us. Argh. The lady we asked to help us told us we were too late (EasyJet doesn't wait if you're late) we explained to her we had been there for 15 minutes trying to check in (obviously unsuccessfully). She must have had pity on us or something because she then helped us get checked in and we did make it to our flight. (We weren't the only ones who had this trouble.) We thanked God for getting us on the flight and on our way down to Nice. We were fully expecting to just have to catch a bus or make fun here in Geneva.

The flight was the first perfect thing of the trip. I hadn't slept much the night before as I was excited and had lots to do (wrapping up other things I had been doing the previous few weeks), so when I dozed off and woke up over the coast of the French Riviera, I was on cloud nine. We got to the airport and had a little trouble finding the bus to get us into town. We did eventually and asked the driver which stop we needed to get off at to get to our hotel. He told us and we were on the lookout, but didn't register until after he'd pulled away from the stop. He stopped the bus in the MIDDLE OF THE ROAD and told us this was where we needed to get out and that our hotel was just up the road (just know this is NOT something that would happen in Geneva/France - here the drivers don't even wait for you if you're right outside the door!) We were so impressed and pleased.

We got to our hotel and had to ring the doorbell. The man who runs it answered the door with sleep lines all over his face and definitely disoriented. We couldn't check in quite yet as it was only 8:30 or so, but he did let us leave our bags while we went to the market.

The market was great. There were probably 50 different salts! (Even lavender salt! ^ Lavender is HUGE in the South of France.) I have been looking for whole nutmeg for months and finally found that down at the market. During the day there's a produce and flower market and at night the old town comes alive with an arts and crafts market! Both are amazing and beautiful.

After the market we explored the beach. With little sleep the night before we decided a café crème was appropriate. (Above: the lovely Amanda!) We found a little cafe across from the beach and enjoyed our coffee and talked about how amazing it is that we're living in France. Needless to say, this was a highlight for me.

We made it back to our hotel and settled in then set off to explore the beach! It is so beautiful!! The water is this breathtaking blue - unreal! We went sea kayaking and then swam in the water. Did you know the salt helps you to float? It was so much fun!

Wednesday night we went out and ended up having dinner at this cute Indian restaurant. On the way we met Michael from Belgium (blonde in the front) and he organized a super random photo as you can see. One of the best things of this holiday was that everyone there was on holiday... so everyone was happy! People didn't mind being bothered just to chat. :)

Thursday was a great day for meeting people. We met some Canadians on our way to the market. Some delightful Brits (above from left: Carole Ann, moi, Jim, and Dot) at lunch and a cute Irish couple at dinner! Then we met up with a friend from chruch who was biking through to Corsica with a friend of his from home (New Zealand).

We had so much fun Wednesday sea kayaking, we decided we'd go back for more. Only this time we decided to parasail... it was AMAZING! It was like a dream! We had the most incredible veiw of the coast and of this breathtaking water I mentioned earlier. Just cruising. The driver of the boat dipped us in the water every once in a while, which I enjoyed, but Amanda was just being dragged across the water... less enjoyable. :-/ At one point we were sailing up there and a cruise ship was beneath us, so we waved while the whole ship waved back at us... it was like we were in a movie or something! *sigh* Did I mention it was amazing?! Haha. Then we just enjoyed the beach and eventually made it to a lookout for the sunset. For dinner we found a restraunt called "Pasta Basta". YUM. Amanda and I both got gnocchi, Amanda had hers with a 4 fromage sauce and I had a basic tomato sauce. This is where we met the couple from Ireland. They were super cute too! After dinner we met up with our friend Michael and his friend Jeff, we introduced them to the famous Finocchio's ice cream shop. They've got more than 100 flavors of ice cream including avacado, black olive, tomato basil... seriously. I didn't try any of those... but I did have my fair share. :)

Friday was kind of bittersweet. We were still in paradise, but we knew our return to reality was approaching quickly. :( We made the best of it. We had these yummy salads for lunch, just chef salads at a little place called "Granny's". We made our way to the Marc Chagall museum. It was really great, unfortunately I didn't have my ID on me, so I couldn't recieve the under 26 discount OR the audio commentary. I loved that the photos they had of him and his family they were all smiling. I think of Frida Kahlo and Picasso and the depressing lives they lead, but this Chagall seemed to really enjoy his life and used his gift of creativity to share that joy with others.

This is a photo of his piece called "L’Arche de Noé " or "Noah's Ark". Chagall chose to paint the inside of the Ark rather than its construction. "The meaning of this biblical episode is in the gathering of humanity and its delivery, arranged by God, to a new life, cleansed by the anticipation of a baptism: the Flood." I think it's so great how he focused on the new birth of humanity after the flood. I love a change of perspective. :)

After the Chagall museum we made our way back to the beach for a final farewell. We also made a pitstop (or two...) for some more ice cream before returning to reality. Here's a photo of my favorite place we found ice cream. It was fluffy and perfectly delicious... not to mention beautiful!

Goodbye, Nice. Until next time. :)

25 July 2009

25 July 2009

Okay... rewind one week – 18 July 2009. A friend of mine has been in the Geneva area for nearly two years and is preparing to head back home to the states early September... naturally, she’s got the urge to do as much traveling as she possibly can in the next few weeks. She invited me to join her and her boyfriend on a day trip to Turnio, Italy. Of course I wanted to go! Well, as life is, plans changed, the weather was uncooperative and one day just simply wasn’t enough and funds wouldn’t allow quite as big of a trip as Italy, so we toyed with some other ideas and ended up in Lyon, France; "Gastronomical Capital of the World". It was super fun... they had rented a car and were surprised with an upgrade (VW SUV). I’ll put up pictures up on Facebook as soon as I can... that doesn’t mean soon, but yeah. Lyon has beautiful European architecture. We made it to the market as it was closing down. I enjoyed an empenada from Chile and this amazing nameless pastry– this amazing dense cake-like bottom, nearly cheesecake consistency, with a meringue-y top. I should have written this last week, so I could really give you good details... my apologies. We explored the downtown area and hit a sale at Promod. This is where the excitement began, we headed toward a little mall specifically for food vendors or retailers, this area reminded me a lot of Pikes Place Market in Seattle. It was inside, but beautiful and alluring to all your senses. Here we sat down for a glass of wine and some bread then picked ourselves back up for more exploring. I had my first macaroon experience. O, wow. We hiked up probably a thousand steep stairs to find a gorgeous cathedral and this breathtaking view of Lyon. Here we enjoyed our macaroons. Yay. For dinner we went to a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant called "Le Petit Fleur". It was authentic French cuisine, I wasn’t super impressed by the food, but the ambiance and the company were definitely stellar. :) We then headed home. That’s my adventure to Lyon in a very small nutshell.

This has been a pretty exciting week:

- Lyon on the weekend

- an amazing message over trials at church Sunday

- started the moving process to my new apartment in Ferney-Voltaire

- Le Tour de France where I saw Lance Armstrong in the flesh - serious

- girls night, Saturday market, magic bars, and a lakeside BBQ tomorrow after church

So, Thursday 23 July 2009. The family I work for kindly took me on an adventure to Annecy, France to experience le Tour de France! It was SO much fun. I got to sit between the kids on the way down just holding their hands and talking and singing songs with them. The parents were really fun as well, joking and conversing with me. Not terribly surprisingly, we had to find a new entrance to Annecy as the traffic was bad and major roads were closed. We were afraid we’d only get as close as the security guards keeping everybody out. We did make it to the race, with plenty of time to spare. The sun was shining and we had to park pretty far away from everything, so we were confident and didn’t bring the rain boots, rain coats, and umbrellas we’d packed for the kids. Bad idea. It ended up hailing. Haha. That was short lived though and it was still warm out. We watched the race for a while and ended up asking someone when Lance Armstrong was expected to come around. They gave us the details and we prepared ourselves as best as possible. We had planned that I would take a video and Brendan, the dad, would take continuous shots to make sure we didn’t miss this big deal. So, Lance was coming around the bend and everyone around us were getting super excited. American flags started popping out of nowhere. I was ready for number 22 to come along and grace us with his presence. He was zooming, zooming, zooming... I had my video ready and taping. The excitement and adrenaline were nearly unbearable. As I watched my camera and tried to keep an eye out, Julie said, "Number 34? What?" So, I wanted to preserve my battery to make sure I did get Lance on video. Then I saw him, right before my very own eyes. Yep. It was real. I yelled in slow motion: "Nooooooooo...." I had missed the moment. Major disappointment. I still can’t believe how it happened. Honestly. But, it was clearly out of my control. It was bizarre how once the race was over, EVERYTHING shut down. I had hoped to find a mug or a t-shirt with le Tour de France on it... but all the souvenir shops were closing up. We were on our way to the carousel for the kids when we noticed a crowd of people around this gate/fence thing. I asked if I could go check it out... I weaseled my way to the front of the gate to see a big white truck. Boring. Everyone was excited though, so I stayed, it was a good spot. I had my camera out. I was read y for whatever what happening. Then out of nowhere, my second chance presented itself. Lance Armstrong walked around the big, boring white trailer/truck/bus thing. I started saying, "Fellow American" then realized that was creepy and strange. He was still red and sweaty. He was tiny. Much smaller than I had expected. I suppose he has to be to be as fast as he is. He signed maybe four autographs then disappeared into a black Volvo. The family and I went to a park for a bit then ended the night perfectly at Subway where we not only ate these amazingly, delicious sandwiches and cookies but were also able to listen to wonderful American music on the radio (‘November Rain’ was one of them!)

I'll add photos as soon as I can! As of right now... I'm about to be kicked out of McD's!! =-o