Corners of our almost tidy bedroom

 Our room is seldom tidy, but it's tidier than our five children's bedrooms.
 Amazingly,even though only slept about 3 hours last night(Saturday night), due to a gremlin alarm problem on my phone, I still managed to tidy one corner of our bedroom and half a wall.

 You see the small pile of books, well there are piles more here and there around the house to add to them...so many books to read and now a tidy corner and some spare time (hopefully) before Christmas, so who knows, I might just attack that pile as of today.

I started Christmas shopping a couple of months ago, especially after seeing these cool posters via Door Sixteen that I ordered from Pop Chart Lab.  We have already a couple of their posters (the beer  and the super powers posters) and now we have three more for the children  for Christmas...I'm waiting for the Candy Bar one for Gabrielle, which hopefully will arrive this week and the Monsters poster for our room and finally a beer ti-shirt for Alain.

cooking for children after Verjus

Cooking after last night was a tall order and our children ate take outs last night, so to bring them back to reality and  certainly to real food, they ate caramelized meatballs with a radish and carrot salad along with one of Alexis' famous vinaigrettes from our all time favourite French cooking book "Soeurs Scotto".  This book is so amazing, with a mixture of French cuisine mixed with Italian and Japanese influences that make it so special.
Our family favourite recipe from this book is a veal blanquette with vanilla.

Alain and I ate (diet after yesterday), gambas in a light tempura with stir fried ginger and garlic veggies 

We eat with chopsticks the majority of the time, sometimes the colours don't match but that's fine as long as it tastes good

Verjus (ex Hidden Kitchen) A must

I have read a lot about this underground restaurant called Hidden Kitchen via different food blogs and I've always been curious about learning more and eventually perhaps eating there.

Braden and Laura, the people behind this idea, came from America to open up a private supper club, where once or twice a week, they would host elaborate 10 course meals in their apartment in Paris. Globetrotters, lots of Americans, Europeans and French would share the same table and enjoy the one of the ultimate food experiences one could ever wish for.

They have been so successful, Hidden Kitchen is no more, instead they have opened their very own restaurant and wine bar not far from the Opera Garnier in Paris.

 A couple of days ago, I received an email from Laura to tell me she had two places available to eat  at Verjus, of course we eagerly accepted, and last night was the big night, and boy it was awesome and one couldn't have wished for better company.
We dined with some great people, ate the most exquisite food with perfectly paired wine.
For the amuse bouche we had a spring roll with mussels with a shot of caramelized fennel soup, what can I say, just perfect and the mussels were divine.
Next, we were served a charred sweet onion with a millet and quinoa risotto and citrus. I loved the risotto but wasn't that keen on the sweet onion, that for me, just wasn't sweet at all and hard on the palate.
The butter poached langoustine with red cabbage tortellini mint and caper was excellent overall, the langoustine tail was a little too small, but the amazing red cabbage tortellini made up for that. The texture of the red cabbage was almost meaty and a real delice.
Next up was the house smoked salmon with celery root, buckwheat, mustard and roe served with the best wine of the evening. This was one of my favourite courses, and I definitely want to try to smoke our own salmon at home.
The Veal cheek turned out to be veal shoulder served with pine nut butter, nori, salsify and fried herbs was excellent but a tad too salty, however, the pine nut butter and the fried herbs were to die for.
Ok even though it's only 9 am, this course makes me want to run back to Paris and have more, now, and lots of it.  Beer braised pork belly with white miso labne, raw beets, kimchi vinaigrette was just delectable or as Alain would say le petit Jesus en culottes de velours.

To finish with, we had a dark chocolate ganache with pineapple and rosemary (not habenero) sorbet, banana and hazelnut. I'm not a big sweet tooth and I am hard to please, and although this dessert was good (probably great for others), it just didn't do it for me, the sorbet was good and the banana and hazelnut too, but the ganache was not that dark, with a lack of intensity.

photo not taken from restaurant, I ate the whoopie pie before thinking

But  guess what, just before leaving the table, we were treated to a whoopie pie that just was so scrumptious, and we'll be making some of these today.


If there's one place in Paris I really can't wait to go back too, it's here.  And in the bar, we got to taste some Japanese whisky that was heavenly. Next time we'll try the fried chicken at the bar that's something not to be missed. 


Note;  It would have been nice to have some good butter to go with the bread, butter similar to that of Le Cinq, now that would be something.

Nutella and a book and our old house

Charlotte 15(almost 16)  who adores shopping, loves eating but doesn't cook much anymore, nor does she pick up a book often has been making an effort this past week... she kind of baked (made) her nutella special that consists of smothering nutella all over bread, then pouring over a eggy mixture and then spooning even more nutella over the top and then popping it in the oven for 20 minutes.





I got a shot of the before photo, but alas not the after one as it was eaten fast.


Another thing that has happened this week, is that Charlotte has read a book that I chose for her from the local library, she actually read it all and liked it and that's made me curious enough to actually read this one myself, especially as Alain is away in Norway and I have a couple of hours of calm now the children are either snugged in bed or at least in their bedrooms.

Bonne nuit:)


I yes before I forget, the house we sold in September 2010 is on the market already, can you believe it, apparently, they use it as a holiday home and had hoped to rent it during the holiday season, but things haven't gone to plan, so they have it on the market and want to buy a studio instead in Sanary and a upgrade from their house near Paris to a bigger one in the same  area.

Chateau de Versailles

After living in the suburbs of Paris for just over a year and only 20 minutes from Versailles, we thought it was high time to visit the Chateau.

Despite arriving early, the place was heaving with people, but it was a beautiful morning and the queue was still reasonable and we had printed out our tickets at home (getting organized). The good thing about the chateau de Versailles is that it's free for under 18's,  so all of our children could visit and it would (and did) only cost 36 euros (18 each for Alain and I). However, getting a 15 and 17 year out of bed was am impossible feat, so we went with just three out of five children.  

The children really enjoyed the visit, and Alexis proved to be quite an expert on everything "Versailles" under the reign of Louis XIV, perhaps having played and finished his two cd roms on the subject (Enquetes à Versailles), which I highly recommend.

 Towards the end of the visit, the children were feeling in need of something sugary and they found the answers to their prays in the form of these delicious cakes, oh and boy, the chocolate ones were to die for and worth every centime (6.50 each). 

We had planned on visiting the gardens afterwards and eat out picnic, but the rain put an end to that and we ate our home-made chicken wraps with avocado in the car while queuing to leave.  
Still we had a great day and plan to visit again, next year in the spring.

Halloween

 Alexis got invited out by his best friend (and his mum) to go and trick or treat for Halloween in our village. Normally we don't celebrate Halloween, no candies for children who call, as we always forget, but not this time. We even made a pumpkin and chickpea soup.

Alexis came home two hours later with a bag full of sweets and he has been forced to lock them away in a safe place because Charlotte and Oliver just can't resist stealing when the opportunity arises.

Le Cinq à Paris...anniversary meal

On Sunday, Alain and I went to Le Cinq in Paris to celebrate our anniversary, just the two of us. To be honest, we had planned on going to L'Astrance but it was fully booked for lunch till December, hence our reservation for the 1st of December... so back to Le Cinq, great choice for us as we wanted to eat lunch rather then dinner and we only had to reserve one week in advance.

 We arrived a little early and waited while seated on some comfy sofas, however, we were disappointed not to be offered an aperitif, despite the fact we waited over twenty minutes to enter the restaurant.
The restaurant itself was beautiful, and the service was second to none, but, yes I am going to complain and I am probably in the minority, but the food was hit and miss.
we had the Dejeuner en liberté autour du marché and we just weren't enamored with this menu upon eating it. The wine was great, the champagne expensive, especially a Lançon rosé glass that cost 32 euros (if Alain had only known in advance....)
The beurre aux algues (seaweed butter) was just exceptional (from St Malo), the red mullet, just perfect but veal tartare with oysters, I was really disappointed with this starter.  
I will not bore you further, but Alain will be posting reviews on Trip Advisor and Internaute sometime soon.
Just to reiterate once more thought, the service was fantastic and the surrounding too, but I by far preferred the food at L'Amphytrion in Lorient...

You have to take a deep breath before looking at the receipt, scary really, but the Chablis was worth every centime.