A Moveable Feast

Foie Gras lollipops

I spent Friday and Saturday in Grenoble (life #1 location), which is always creating very mixed feelings. I am happy to see former friends and colleagues, stop by my favourite shops, restaurants, cafés. But each time it is hurting a little bit, because I cannot help asking myself why I gave up living and working in that town, while I am there. Especially when the Alps are still snow covered, contrasting with a pure blue sky. It is too beautiful.

Friday night I was very lucky to be invited to dine in one of the best restaurants in Grenoble. L'Escalier. The owner, Alain Girod, was one of my "consultants" that I contacted in 2006 before leaving HP to get more feedback on my plans to become a cook. Among several cooks and restaurant owners, Monsieur Girod was the only one, who warned me that my biggest issue would be my future coworkers. A comment that I didn't really take too serious at that time, but now I know how true his prediction was.

He joined our table for the aperitif, and supported his point again, underlined by some funny examples from his own experience.

My favourite course that evening, the foie gras lollipops, that were part of his very original "Menu baroque".

Full official title of this starter :

"Trois sucettes (chupa-chups) de foie gras enrobé de chocolat :
- chocolat blanc gingembre confit
- chocolat au lait poivre rose
- chocolat noir poivre de Séchuan"

Besides the original presentation, a very creative and surprising combination, you bite into chocolate and you find foie gras. I think I will do some experimenting at home, to reproduce this...

L'Escalier
6 place Lavalette
Grenoble
(+33) 4.76.63.01.58

Le Yumming Tasting Club

Last Saturday I was invited to an amazing dinner by chef Diane. She was my class mate in the Ferrandi Anglo class (one of the three mousqueteers), and after her stage she continued her culinary education by joining the prestigious "sup" ( as in superieur) class of the ESCF. In parallel she created her first business, which she named "Le Yumming Tasting Club". Apparently I inspired the name, as I had told her once that she has the habit of always using the word YUM when she wants to say tasty, good, delicious, etc.. "This is YUM !" is one of her most frequent exclamations...

Instead of cooking in a restaurant, she creates gastronomic dinners in her home, a beautiful typical French appartment near the Louvre. I always tease her and her husband Eric of living in the King's and Queen's appartment, as even their adress is "rue du Louvre". So her customers can enjoy at the same time outstanding French gastronomic cuisine, and the typical setting of a Parisien family home. A bigger cultural event, than just going to a restaurant. She will soon host a relatively big group, so that dinner last Saturday was also a little test for her, and I was very happy to have been selected as one of the guinea-pigs (although I was dead during work last Sunday as a consequence).

I have no worries for the quality of the food and the service Diane provides, only that she won't charge enough ;) Here are some pictures of that evening's menu. It was insane....

If you are interested in such a dining experience at chef Diane's either for yourself or for a group of friends that are visiting Paris, let me know and I will get you in touch with her.

Merci and Bravo Diane.
19.9/20 !
Good luck for next weekend ;)

Amuse Bouches
Gaspacho Andalou, Beignet de Parmesan, Dattes farcies de foie gras enrobeés de Lardo di Colonnata, sauce poivrons rouge

Entrée
Salade de Chèvre, caviar d'aubergine fumé, crevettes, coulis de tomates et tapenade

Plat
Ballotine de Poulet avec farce mousseline aux épinards, abricot et pignons de pins torréfiés, navets nouveaux aux champignons, quinoa vert, purrée de cresson.

Fromage
Rocamadour avec salade d'endives en deux façons

Dessert
Anti-stress (chocolat/framboise), jus de fraises, sorbet.
(my personal favourite of the evening, an Alain-Ducasse-inspired recipe. YUM.YUM.YUM.YUM.YUM)

How I became a waitress

Last weekend I became a waitress. Now before you get worried about another career change in my up and down adventures in French kitchens, this was just for a couple of minutes. And it was in Germany.

My mother had planned to celebrate her birthday last Friday with my father, my sister and some of their closest friends in a restaurant near their home (a little town in north-west Germany, somewhere between Hannover and Amsterdam). What she did not know, was that my sister, my grandmother and I had prepared a big surprise together for that evening since a while. My mother thought that I was working in Paris, and that her monther was at her home in Bavaria, about 700 km away, but in fact my grandmother and me met on Thursday evening secretely at my sister's home, my grandmother (87 years old!) arriving by train and me by plane.

Thursday the three of us spent a day together "secretely" in Hanover, where my sister lives, and the next day we all travelled to the restaurant (2 hours from Hanover). I had told the restaurant owners about our surprise plans, and they were all excited about the idea and wanted to help us make it a big success. So while my parents, my sister and their friends arrived, my grandmother and I were hidden by the owner family in the breakfast room of the hotel/restaurant. Then, when it was time for my family and their friends to look at the menu, the restaurant owner came into the breakfast room, I put on the waitress uniform, took the menus under my arm and went out in the dining room. Everybody looked at me with this "a new waitress ! And she reminds me of someone"-look, and when I handed the menu to my mother, she couldn't believe it. I think the pictures tell the rest. The surprise was more than perfect.

   

I messed up the subsequent distribution of the menus, so I did not get hired by the restaurant. I gave my mother a couple of minutes to recover from "the shock", before I gave the secret sign to the real waitress, and ordered a glass of champagne, which meant, she was now supposed to get my grandmother from the breakfast room, whom my mother believed to be in Bavaria. And then my grandmother appeared with a glass of champagne. This was too much...and my mother didn't know anymore whether to laugh or to cry.

We did not stop laughing all evening, and it was lots of fun for everybody.

Below two snapshots of my "little" sister and me. Difficult to say who's the younger one of us, isn't it !?!. First still well behaved, then a couple of glasses of wine later falling with our heads -pretending to be tired- on the table during a boring speech of one of the party guests, whose identity I will not make public here. But I can say we did not fail to get more attention than the speaker by doing this ;)

   

Because I work Sundays, unfortunately I had to travel back already the next day to Paris. So it was a very short trip but definitely worth it. But I'll be back soon on a friends & family tour through Germany (and the US) in August, when the restaurant will be closed for 4 weeks...

Jetzt faengt das Leben an...

Liebe Mami, bonne anniversaire, und viele liebe Geburtstagsgruesse, feier schoen, flipp ruhig ein bisschen aus.

Fuer das Geburtstagsstaendchen moechte ich Dich gerne auf diesen Blog-Eintrag verweisen :

http://moveablefeast.typepad.com/a_moveable_feast/2007/11/mit-da-faengt-d.html