on a plane

left from Lyon St. Exupery today. A bientot!

Leaving Party and Dinner

We had our "Work" leaving party today, to which we brought all of our remaining alcohol (Chartreuse VEP, nice Sake, Ouzo, wine by the case, etc etc). People really loved the cheese plate, and in particular the Camembert au Calvados. Surprisingly, the second and third packages of party time crabs were also a big hit! Earlier in the day, we had managed to set up our mail forwarding to the US (very farkin expensive) and sold our Clio 1.4 RT for a song to a postdoc at the IBS.


The giant cheese plate had been ordered from les Alpages, and we had picked it up earlier that day. I had almost started crying when the Fromagiers at les Alpages pointed to my show announcement up on the wall and asked me how the photography was going. I realize that some explanation is necessary, since those of you who know me probably realize that this is a somewhat atypical response on my part.

When I had first arrived in France in 2002, I had immediately fallen in love with Les Alpages. We lived a block away in Place Vaucanson, and even though I spoke two words of french, it was the first store (apart from boulangeries) that I managed to summon the courage to enter alone. I spent a not insignificant amount of time preparing for my first unaided visit, having looked up the words in the dictionary and gotten advice from Chloe. I picked a time of day during which I had hoped that very few people would be in the store, and moved in for the kill. As I trudged forward in the line, I rehearsed my lines to myself. I looked at all the cheeses that I would NOT be oredering because they were outside my script. I paid attention to the feigned nonchallance with which the old ladies ordered their cheeses : I knew that they were just as terrified as I was. Everything was going according to my plan. However, when I finally got to the counter, I panicked and asked for 500 kilograms of comte instead of 500 grams. After the large bald fromagier in a white apron burst out laughing and asked if I wanted to buy the whole store (500 kg is about a half ton of cheese), I turned bright red and said 500 grams please! By that time, a huge line had built up behind me which stretched out the door. They were all laughing and enjoying the mental picture of this American walking out of the store with a wheelbarrow full of cheese. Then I took a month off from cheese buying. Little by little things got easier, and although we moved further away, I still managed to get back there from time to time. I learned that it was "Comte de Montagne, and not Comte de la Montagne, and Tomme Crayeuse, not Tomme cremeuse. My relationship with the store was a kind of abridged and poetic version of my stay in France; all the heartbreak, embarassment, frustration and joy of expat living in little snapshots punctuated by the ringing of the bells on their big glass door. I will miss you, les alpages.

Leaving Dinner

As our going away present, our lab had generously bought us a meal (they even included the wine!!) at "L'escalier", a restaurant in Grenobel across from the museum. The meal was great, and the portions were BIG.

omlette in an eggshell with caviar


foie gras


seared tuna (this was a little too big for me)


excellent and perfectly cooked steak


the cheese plate


and dessert





Everything was fantastic except the cheese plate, which was a little too avant-garde. It features a parmesan mousse, and horrifyingly, a blue cheese ice cream!!

Farewell Party

Our first of two fairwell parties was tonight.

This one was for various friends that we have made in our 3.75 years in france. My parents had generously mailed us more Party Time Crabs, which were the hit of the party. Here are some friends tasting an enjoying these delicious treats


























Their popularity increased greatly as the wine and alcohol was consumed. Although we had said in our invitation email that it was a potluck, only our friend Franck brought any food, so Chloe had to make some emergency runs to the pizza place.

French-English culinary dictionary

I found this dictionary today: three years too late.

Last day in the tarn

After breakfast in bed


and another castle-bath, we had a fully day of climbing at the Oasif sector where I came close to but repeatedly failed on ils ont marche sur la Tune. On the way out we stopped to take pictures of the beautiful old houses along the Tarn


and then made the long (5 hour) drive back to Grenoble.

Millau, Laguiole, Ste. Eulalie d'Olt

Today was a touring day and we had a lot (pun intended) planned. The first priority was to eat breakfast in the castle, which had too many nice things to mention, so here is a photo


The second priority was to buy some cheap pants that would allow me to actually climb, which we found near Millau. I had read about the new Millau viaduct and heard from our friend Franck that it was stunning, so when I saw where we were staying, I knew we had to have a look. Along the way there was some beautiful light. We pulled over and I frantically got my cameras out. I haven't had my film developed yet, but a few of the digital shots turned out okay

We continued on


to the autoroute entry, and drove across the bridge




paid the 4 euros, and drove across. It's a beautiful and impressive bridge, and one of those things that you really need to see in person to appreciate: the scale of it is just amazing. The piers are more than 300 meters tall, which make it about as tall as most of the climbs I did this summer. It's funny that the same obsession with public works projects that tear up every street in france every summer can also produce something so fantastic.

We continued on past countless pretty villages, where we got stuck in front of sheep again




and we eventually arrived in Laguiole


We weren't in Laguiole by accident; I had read about a laguiole corkscrew in Peter Mayle's condescending but occasionally entertaining Encore Provence. His description made me wonder just how good a bottle opener could be. So I started reading about them, googled them and eventually wandered down to the scary knife store near the Jardin de Ville. The tire bouchon that the lady handed me when I asked for a Laguiole (Lah yole) was shoddily made and actually pretty ugly. Then I started reading more and found out that there are a lot of cheap imitation Laguioles, and many of them (perhaps even most) aren't even made in Laguiole and are machine made. There are a few exceptions, notably the Chateau Laguiole brand and the forge de laguiole brand. When I found a store in Grenoble which sold the Forge corkscrew, I was a little put off by the price, but it was beautifully made, so I decided that it would be a good thing to covet. However, since we were planning on going to the Tarn anyway, and the Tarn isn't so far from Laguiole I held off. In any case, Chloe used her magical route finding skills to take us right to the Forge-de-Laguiole forge and shop in the outskirts of town


and we wandered around the shop for a long time looking at all the different corkscrews and knives that were available. The handles are made from plastic, precieux woods like olive and rosewood and horn.




I hadn't really planned on buying a knife but was won over by the amazing craftsmanship and the fact that many of their knives are hand forged, assembled and finished. So in the end we got an olive wood handled sommelier corkscrew, a rosewood handles knife for me and a pistachio handled knife for chloe. And we applied to get the TVA back. Since it was monday and in between the weekend and another holiday, there weren't very many places open for lunch, so we ended up at a cafeteria like place for crepes and cocas.
From Laguiole, we continued to Ste. Eulalie d'Olt, another of the plus beaux villages de france and we wandered around the streets for a little while to admire the architecture






And the beautiful rock ducks


From here, we had a bit of a long drive back towards the Tarn on winding and headache inducing roads. Finally we made it to Ste. Enimie and had a look around since we didn't have a chance to do so on Saturday.




We continued on past La Malene and the castle to try to scope out climbing sectors for tomorrow, but darkness caught up to us and we weren't able to find very much of anything.

After another luxurious castle bath, we went to dinner. I didn't take any photos of this one, but I had the ravioli with scallops this time, and the perfectly done steak, followed by more cheese and the same dessert as yesterday. It was yet another perfect meal.

Tarn

We got out of the hotel as fast as possible today and headed out to find a topo for the climbing in the gorge. Unfortunately, I discovered that I had forgotten my climbing pants, so despite Chloes generous offer to let me use her pajama bottoms, i had to climb in jeans today. For those of you who haven't climbed before, the problem is that you need a pretty wide range of motion in order to climb, and my jeans are fairly tight. This led to a day of ball crushing, but still enjoyable climbing. The guidebook is now quite a few years old, so we ended up getting a little lost and on routes that weren't in the book. We warmed up on a route called La puerta del sol then on to nulle par ailleurs and then to a few short easy climbs. We found a beautiful climb called rose paille, jaune bonbon which goes up the full height (200 feet in 2 pitches, with P2 alone being ~130 feet!) of the cliff. It goes up the middle of the photo below


After a full day of climbing, we checked into the Chateau de la Caze, which I had found in the Karen Brown guide. There was a problem in the sink of our room, so we ended up getting a suite for the entry level (130 euro) price. This included a huge bathtub, a living room and a super comfortable bed






Here's our porsche in front of the castle and some more pictures of the castle itself







We had dinner in the Chateau's restaurant, which was fantastic, and not too expensive (40 euro for the menu which included entree, plat, cheese plate and dessert). After a few amuse bouches


Chloe had the mushroom ravioli with seared scallops


and I had a gateaux de foix gras


which were both excellent. We both had the grilled bar (not sure what it is in english)
on a bed of cabbage. Normally cabbage is a pretty tasteless vegetable, but it's actually very nice when not cooked to paste. Also, I think that it might have been from the castle garden. The fish had been skinned and the crunchy, oily blackened skin was served on top of the filet


These dishes were all accompanied by a 2001 Bourgogne of some kind -- I don't remember which one. Next came the cheese plate, which was very impressive


All of the cheeses were local (from less than 50 km from the chateau), and in quite a few cases the waitress knew the fromagier personally. There were rustic tommes, some tangy goats milk pelardon, and most importantly: the Roquefort. I knew that we were in Roquefort country, so I asked for it and a few other good looking unpasteurized cheeses. The waitress actually smiled when I chose the Roquefort (pronounced Roque-fort) and said that it was exceptionally good. She went on to say that now (actually october to january) is the best time to taste Roquefort, because in the summer months and September the cheese makers overproduce the cheese, and as a result of this the sheeps milk is less fatty and not as salty. So what you get is a cheese with less character, less creaminess and which requires that salt be added to it. Anyway, I'm not a huge fan of blue cheeses, but this Roquefort was remarkable: it was incredibly creamy and rich, but not overwhelmingly salty. The marbled and slightly translucent slabs were also beautiful to look at. It was a cheese revelation for me.
Dessert was also very good. Chloe had a crumble and I had a chocolate filled chestnut cake with chocolate sorbet (yes, sorbet)






At the end of the meal we filled in a card for what we wanted for breakfast, and at what time, and slowly lurched back to our room.