Châteauneuf du Pape

At AUCP, there is a course all about French wines. I'm not in it, but yesterday they had a class outing, and the rest of us were allowed to come along! We went to Châteauneuf du Pape, a region about an hour and twenty minutes from Aix that is quite famous for its wine.

We went to three wineries during the day: Château Fortia, Domaine de Beaurenard, and Ogier. I quickly realized that, not being in the course, I was completely out of my depth. We tasted four wines at each of the wineries, and although they all tasted lovely, I was not very good at describing the differences, nor could I answer any of the wine professor's questions about how the wine was made. I did learn a little about wine tasting and the making of wine, and it was a pretty interesting day!

There isn't a ton of commentary to be given on most of what we did, but I thought I'd share some of the pictures. Our first stop was Château Fortia:

The owners still live in this château

Two of the wines we tasted

Between the first and second stops, we walked up to the actual Châteauneuf du Pape. It has been completely destroyed over the years, but it had a nice view, and we had a little picnic.

Our second stop was Domaine de Beaurenard, which means domain of the beautiful fox. There wasn't someone available to give us a tour since it was Saturday, so our professor just gave us the tour himself. Because he knows that much about wine and how it is made. He's a real expert!

 Another super cool house where the owners live. Owning a winery has its props.

There are 14 types of grape that can be used to make Châteauneuf du Pape. They were all displayed together here.

Our last stop was Orgia. They had really cool garden that exhibits the four types of soil in which grapes are grown to make Châteauneuf du Pape. They also had my favorite white of the day!

I am by no means an expert on wine, but I was quite impressed by what I saw - and tasted - at all the wineries! I was also quite impressed by our professor. He was actually correcting the people who work at the wineries. And he puts more thought into tasting a wine than I have ever seen!

Au revoir, Bruno!

I'm sad to say that my cooking course is over. Friday was our last class of the semester. It went by so fast! This week, we made an avocado tart, fish with lentils, and crepes suzette. 

We started off with the avocado tart. Or rather, what Bruno called a tart. It was actually not a tart at all. It was very pretty, but you can't just make something circular shaped and call it a tart. We mashed avocados and mixed in chopped shrimp, pickles, and capers. Then Bruno did his standard fancy plating, and we topped it with some candy cane beet and olive oil. I was a little nervous I wouldn't like it, but it was actually quite good! It was made even better by the fresh white rolls we had baked which we used to get every last bit.

 Candy cane beet is pretty cool looking

For the main dish, we made fish once again. This time, we used two kinds of fish, of which I do not know the names in English... One was red and one was silver, and we put a piece of each together for every portion. Bruno had made a bisque with some of the shrimp we used in the first dish, and after cooking the fish, we topped it with some of the bisque on a bed of lentils.

Kristen, Megan, and I enjoy our last meal

The biggest achievement of the night was dessert: crepes suzette. Normal crepes become crepes suzette when you flambe the topping. We made orange zest crepes first, and Bruno told us that we each had to try to make at least two. So we all tried; many of us failed. At least one crepe ended up on the floor. But we got them all made in the end! Then, we made a caramel mixture, and when it reached its peak temperature, we added rum, and Bruno set it on fire. It was quite something to watch! Then the caramel mixture got poured over the top of the crepes. They were delicious!! A fantastic grand finale to our course.

 Fire! Not sure why Bruno wanted to hold the pan while it was on fire...

It was sad to say goodbye to the course, and to Bruno, but I am so happy I got to take it. I think it has been one of my favorite parts of studying abroad. I can't wait to come home and try to recreate everything!

La Camargue

Last Saturday, AUCP offered us yet another outing. Though this one required me to leave my house at 7:15 on a Saturday morning, it was worth it. This week's destination: La Camargue.

La Camargue is a region not far from Arles that is maintained as a nature preserve. The official term is "Wetland of International Importance." As the term indicates, it's a wetland. I know, shocker. But it's not just a boring marsh. It is actually quite beautiful. 

This is the symbol of La Camargue: A cross, heart, and anchor

Before we reached the officially protected area though, we went to a little town called Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. It's a quaint little village that dates back to at least the 4th century AD and is centered around a church that was built from the 9th to the 12th century (yes, that's from and to, not between - churches take a long time to be built!). The village is also featured in a few works of classic Provencal literature. After a lunch and a short walk along the beach, we all got to walk up on top of the church and look out across the sea. The views were pretty awesome.

 Kristen liked the bull statue

Afterwards, we got back on the bus to go to the actual preserved part of La Camargue. We got to take a little train ride around the marshy parts, and we saw a flock of flamingos, a herd of young bulls, and something that looked rather like a beaver, but apparently was not... Some things get lost in translation!

After the train ride, we walked along a trail and got to see all the horses that live on the preserve. This is something La Camargue is famous for. There were also two very cute ponies! I took lots of pictures, mostly for Sarah.

It's hard to see, but this was some kind of wild boar.

La Camargue is a few hours from Aix, so we had to head back after our trail walk, but it's cool to see areas like this in France. It's not all little villages and big cities like Paris! There are really beautiful little spots in nature too.

Mange la nourriture; vive la France!

Our third of four cooking classes was this past Friday, and as usual, it was fantastic! I think this one was my favorite so far: soft, white bread, mushroom risotto, duck with a Roquefort cream sauce and potatoes, and a tarte tatin to finish it off! I left in a food coma.

All the ingredients laid out to start - the apples were enormous!

We cook everything all at once, and it's always cool how the ingredients manage to work together. While some of us started cutting up the mushrooms for the risotto, others started preparing and grilling the duck. Then, while the mushrooms and risotto started to reduce, we started the duck and saved the juices produced from searing it in a pan, then mixed the juices into the risotto when it needed more liquid. It was the best risotto I have ever eaten. I could eat it everyday.

 Bubbling away!

 Bruno does some fancy plating

YUM.

The potatoes and duck were relatively simple to cook, but la piece de resistance was the sauce. We took a block of Roquefort cheese and melted it down, then added cream to it to make a sauce for the duck. It was strong, but well flavored, and tasted great with the duck! I have taken quite a liking to duck while I am here. We should eat it more often in the states.

The dessert was a tarte tatin, which is a French apple pie. It's actually rather different from an American apple pie, but still very good. This was the process which I was most involved in. We started with a simple butter and sugar mixture in a hot skillet, and we melted it down until it started to brown. Then, just went it became caramel, we pressed apple slices directly into the caramel in the pan, then stuck the whole thing in the oven. While it baked, we made a simple pastry crust, and rolled out one for each tarte. Then, we took the pan out of the oven, laid the pastry crusts across everything, cut a little chimney hole in the top, and stuck it back in the over to cook for a little longer. When we took it out, we flipped it over onto a plate so the crust was on the bottom and the apples were open on the top. It was delicious!

 In the caramel and going into the oven

We made three!

I think I may still prefer good ol' American apple pie with the double crust and syrupy apple filling (I know, crazy!), but it was exciting to try the French version, and I wouldn't pass on either if they were offered to me!

We only have one more cooking class this semester, and it is this Friday. I will be sad to say goodbye to Bruno and all the delicious food, but I can't wait to see what our last meal will be!

Mes Vacances, Partie 3: Le Retour

And last but not least, part 3 of the vacation adventures! Friday morning, Atticus and I took a train back to Paris to spend our last weekend there. The Louvre is free for everyone under 26 on Friday evenings (woo, free stuff!), so we headed over there. We soon realized we were out of our depths and that the museum is completely massive. They aren't kidding when they say you would need years to see everything. We decided just to see some of the major attractions, and even that was quite the task. We walked a ton and got lost at least twice. I also made Atticus watch The DaVinci Code with me that night because I was thinking about it the whole time we were in the museum.

 Winged Victory

 The grand gallery

 The Mona Lisa!

Code of Hammurabi

Saturday morning we got up early and took the train out of the city to spend the day at Versailles. The weather was beautiful, so it was great! The palace itself was pretty cool, but I have to say, I think the gardens are more impressive. I'm still stunned anyone would ever need this much land. It would take you half the day just to walk from one end to the other!

 That's some fancy napkin folding

 We had to take a selfie! Sorry world...

As Saturday was our last evening, we decided to wander out and find a nice place to have dinner. After wandering around aimlessly for a while, we happened to come across this great place called Le Balto. If you ever go to Paris, I highly recommend it! Our server was quite a character and gave us great suggestions. After a yummy starter salad with duck on top, Atticus had steak tartare and I had the best steak I have ever eaten in my life. It was so delicious. We finished of the meal with Nutella tiramisu which was also to die for. Everything tastes better with Nutella!

Sadly, the vacation had to come to an end, and we both flew home early Sunday morning. It was a great week and lovely, relaxing vacation!