Trip to Annecy

Today was the day of my day trip to Annecy with Marie. Even though we were only meeting at 7, I was awake from like 2 because I had already slept 6 hours by then and couldn’t go back to sleep. We met at the metro in Grange Blanche and am glad I had my hoodie and beanie as the air was soooo cold. But I still wore shorts because I’m a badass like that...

We met with a lady named Claire and 2 Chinese girls who were travelling with us. We used a site where you organise a carpool with people who are travelling from one city to another, where you can see what kind of car they have, what time they plan to leave, what size bag you can take and how much it costs per person. You then pay to make the reservation and get sent a code. You give the code to the person you’re travelling with AFTER your trip and then they receive the funds like that. It’s a really cool system and works out pretty cheap as it was 9Euros each for the way back...and it was about a 2 hour drive so it’s reasonable.

First off I was famished so we headed to the closest cafe I could find...I had one of those terrible coffees and a raclette and Grison Panini (Grison was some kind of charcuterie, nothing amazing)...after kinda settling my hunger we walked around a bit and headed to the “vieux ville” or old city.J

It was very quaint and had a beautiful feel to it but everything was closed..and it was 10am! I don’t get these European shop times. While staring through one shop window, the owner opened up and we had a look around at the cool small house feel to the shop with the rafters and beams exposed in the ceiling, all wooden...saucisson and jambon hanging all over and liqueurs and honeys and jams in various shaped bottles and jars. I bought a violet liqueur because it looked and sounded cool...

Walking around, you notice loads of neatly cared for bushes of brightly coloured flowers which makes the old city and cold stone seem more alive. Another charcuterie had a selection of dried sausages and salamis on display outside and I noticed they had one with donkey. Yep, donkey! Unfortunately I didn’t try or buy any of that.

You feel like you’re in an Alice in Wonderland movie with all the beautiful old houses all around you, bridges adorned with plants and flowers, overlooking the peacefully flowing river.

Everything is just peaceful and patient. We check out a painters “atelier” or studio...he had some nice oil paintings, vivid in colour and capturing the feel of an Alpen town.

We then walked through the rest of the old city and started walking around the perimeter of the lake, “lac de Annecy”. Even though the air was still frigid, the sun was shining and it made for a beautiful setting...the water was so clear and blue. Even the leaves in the park on the wayside were full of character...colour and texture.

For lunch we finally decided on a Belgian restaurant as it was really busy and we both liked what was on offer. J I love that stuff....but this wasn’t as good as Alex’s tartiflette as they used cream and less cheese and lardons to obviously make it less expensive. This came with a small salad with some jambon cru (gotta love that stuff too...) all washed down with a deliciously refreshing Hoegaarden.

Marie had onglet with frites and salad and I had tartiflette!!!!

We did some more window shopping and I bought a tarte chocolat for dessert and a jar of caramel beurre sale which I think would be sick inside a cheese cake...booyah! Definitely making one when I get back.

After that we missioned up to the Basilique de Visitation. It was a cathedral which sucked out all the sound...there were only 4 other people there but everything was muffled by the immenseness of the ceiling. Quite imposing actually. We chilled and chatted a while before walking up to the beginning of a selection of hiking trails. We ended up just going with intuition as the signs weren’t that clear after a while and just enjoyed the silence and fresh air. If I was a hermit I’d want to live in a place like that. So picturesque...I loved the patterns on the trees and the moss covered stones and swathes of crunchy leaves covering the ground like a carpet. 

At about 5pm we started to make our way back down and then met with our ride back to Lyon and 2 Mexican girls this time. Aurélie works for some handicapped organisation in France and we had a conversation most of the way back in pretty much just French J

If you’re ever in France you have to visit Annecy.

Good Food, Great Wine, Gracious Friends

Today was a pretty good day. Started helping Benjamin with the shaping of the pate Blanche and then was with Alexandre at the “fournil” (fournil is the area near the oven, four is oven in French), helping load the breads. Pretty solid with my scoring and baking...it’s just a bit intense when you’re controlling 5x2 separate batches and rotating the dough that’s proving so it’s not proving too slowly/too quickly. My French is also pretty good so in the mornings I serve the customers while imp baking if they want a baguette or croissant and I can understand them as long as they don’t talk super-fast.

After the morning baking was done around 10am I went to help Alexandre and chef with some canapés. There was an order for the chambre des meitiers de meilleur ouvrier de France( MOF ) as well as some other orders so we were pretty busy with them. We made some burgers like last time and some new canapés like foie mousse in jambon cru with black fig, cream cheese with chives, parsley mayo and tuna mayo in a hollowed out cherry tomato as well as smoked salmon filled with asparagus puree and garnished with an asparagus tip... I got changed after it was all done but then got invited to have a glass of wine with “le patron” and Alexandre so I was like ok J had a jambon beurre sandwich with that and then an opera cake

Opera Cake

for dessert...mmm like a crispy biscuit base with crisped rice in it, pralinee (here, praline is the red stuff with almonds, they call the hazelnut paste “pralinee” and chocolate mousse.. I ended up helping chef glaze the canapés even though I had changed... it’s just not natural for me to see my boss working if I’m not.

Canapes

I know my French is improving if I can understand most of what Mr Pozzoli says and actually joke with him J but after a while the wine started to kick my ass so I decided to go home.

I planned to only sleep for a few hours as I had been invited to dinner at Alex’s place with friends but ended up oversleeping and only waking up around 19h00 (when I was supposed to meet) so was over an hour late but it was all good in the end as the food wasn’t ready on time.

He stays in Grange Blanche, which is close to Monplaisir (near the Lumiere Institute). The area has most of Lyon’s hospitals and lots of schools so there are loads of students staying in the area. So for dinner it was Alex, his housemate Hugo (a former Maison Pozzoli employee), Pierre (the baker who works in the afternoon), jean (a baker from the vaise branch) and Laura (his American fiancée).

Tartiflette

For dinner we had tartiflette which is a dish made with potatoes, lardons and a cheese that I forgot the name now but it’s like a lasagne vibe with potato, bacon and cheese. YES PLEASE!!! Soooo damn good. We had that with some dressed salad leaves and some bread and a beautiful 2008 chardonnay that was utterly sublime. Probably the best wine I’ve had here. Soft, deep flavours, beautiful golden hue and not to sharp alcohol. I love how here in France you always have bread and bottles of water with every meal. It’s definitely something I want to continue when I come back to South Africa.

Afterwards we had a tarte pomme fin which was a pate brisee base with sliced apples that gets brushed with melted butter and baked with sprinkled sugar...with some glacé pralineé that Alex made as well as some chocolate and peanut butter chip cookies and oat and orange juices soaked raisin cookies that Laura made with a really good red wine. Can’t remember what. 

Wine Fridge...these guys mean business !

Soft, deep flavours, beautiful golden hue and not to sharp alcohol. I love how here in France you always have bread and bottles of water with every meal. It’s definitely something I want to continue when I come back to South Africa.

Tarte Pomme Fin

Afterwards we had a tarte pomme fin which was a pate brisee base with sliced apples that gets brushed with melted butter and baked with sprinkled sugar...with some glacé pralineé that Alex made as well as some chocolate and peanut butter chip cookies and oat and orange juices soaked raisin cookies that Laura made with a really good red wine. Can’t remember what.

Alex and Hugo have a really cool apartment...and I noticed some GTO comics too J seems like anime is quite popular in France. Only got home around 23:00 so had under 2 hours to sleep but I had a great evening so I didn’t mind.