France 4

So we come to the end of 3 weeks here, life has continued at a leisurely pace – while packing in plenty of great experiences!

Sal & I started the week with a drive out to the NW of our village, a direction we had not headed previously, Arne gave us a recommendation for a lunch spot at one of the villages we intended driving thru, but we had got no more than 5 minutes from home, and driving thru the neighbouring village of Serre-Nerpol I spotted a small bar and restaurant, and so I screeched to a halt, threw a U turn and we went to check it out. Ordered a drink at the bar and noticed a few people arriving to eat, so we asked for the menu.

The owner came out, a lovely woman, she explained that the menu included French & Lebanese dishes as her mother is Lebanese, we asked what she suggested we select for lunch and she recommended the trio of meze, frog’s legs in garlic butter, then mains of a lamb kebab dish and a duck breast with risotto. After finishing our drinks we moved into the restaurant and worked our way thru a huge and delicious lunch!

The food was amazing, obviously created with love and passion, the mezes were simple but delicious, the frog’s legs amazing and so full of flavour, the kebabs came with a strongly seasoned salad and freshly made aioli, they were marinated in spices and char grilled. The combination of flavours were amazing and the parts of the dish complimented each other perfectly. The duck breast was perfectly cooked and the risotto was as good as I have had in Italy! So all in all, another example of what we love doing, discovering hidden gems while driving through the countryside with no particular plan!

Of course there were lots of yummy meals at home as well, I also popped over to Voiron to source some freshly roasted coffee as my stock I had brought with us had finally run out.

The confit duck with quince mash was a flavour bomb! The next highlight was a drive over to Saint Marcellin for some shopping, I had offered to cook for a group of friends coming over on Saturday, they were coming to collect a couple of trailer loads of fire wood from Dominique and Arne, and amongst them was the guitarist, Jean-Luc, so I suggested I would cook for everyone, and after dinner Jean-Luc could play for us!! Anyway, whilst in Saint Marcellin we decided to try out a restaurant Sal & I had spotted the first time we visited, it looked very nice and had an interesting menu so we stopped for lunch.

We only wanted a light lunch so we shared 2 entrées, escargot and a tomato salad with buffalo mozzarella. The snails were so good! But the salad was amazing, the mozzarella had some pesto and like a dukkah on top, drizzled with olive oil and of course the tomatoes here taste like nothing we get in Australia! I also loved the little cup and saucer the coffee came in! As we left we spotted the wonderful old Simca Aronde, it was totally unrestored, original condition.

Friday we were lucky to score a special treat, the village we are on the edge of, Notre Dame-de-l’Osier, used to have a very highly regarded pizza restaurant, due to various reasons the owner no longer operates the restaurant, but once every month or so he sends a text to all the locals to tell them he is doing a pizza night, he sends out the menu, you pick the pizzas you want, and then he texts you the time to come and pick your order up. So Thursday night Dominique got the text that it was on this week, so we picked our pizzas and ordered!

They were as yummy as we had been led to expect and we felt very lucky to have been here for one of the village’s famous pizza nights!

So the big day arrived, the pressure was on! Dinner for 9 – and all French gourmets!! Rick’s Bar & Grill (on tour), was under the pump. Sal & I had planned a typical French approach for the meal, we started with a charcuterie, so a selection of local cold meats with some cherry tomatoes, home grown roquette and pickles. We also did a side of rock melon. We then served a main of my famous spiced mini meatballs in tomato red wine sauce with fetta cheese and Sal did a selection of fresh blanched beans and garden vegetables. Then we had a selection of 4 cheeses with fresh figs and the meal was finished with an amazing dessert that GiGi brought with her, a nougat ice cream cake with fresh berries.

By all accounts I think we pulled it off! Everyone seemed to enjoy our contribution to the day and there was very little left over at the end of the night. We also enjoyed a selection of nice wines as well as a delicious champagne with the cheeses as is the French style! Arne lit a log to add to the ambience and add a little warmth as the night air chilled a little.

 

Here is a fairly poor quality video of some of Jean-Luc’s music in the salon, also a bit of footage of the kitchen and dining room!

Finally to close out the week, here are some photos of the view on my walks thru the local villages and forests, I am up to 10km a day now and the scenery is just stunning, sadly the photos never quite capture the steepness and scope of the landscape, but hopefully it gives a sense of what I enjoy most days!

Ok, thats enough for this week! We are off to Lyon for a few days with Dominique, Arne & Rene-Claude so I expect that will be a post of its own next weekend!