A day in our life...with our friends from FIAAC

Leading on from my last blog post, a couple of days following our FIAAC days experiences I sent an email to Pascale and Didier, and also to Evelyne and Pierre. I wanted to let them know that chance meetings like this are a rare and special part of our journey. I also wrote in the email that I'd love to reciprocate the hospitality that they showed us on the day of the FIAAC, but I understood that we were over an hour away from them so that may not be the easiest thing to achieve.

To my great surprise, I received an email back from Pascale, accepting my invitation and they would be at our house two days later for lunch, 1pm they would arrive! I was beside myself with excitement, and a little terror - excited to enjoy another experience with some French people, and terror for a couple of reasons, firstly, we had to cook for French people that we didn't know very well, and secondly, I hoped that the conversation would flow easily enough throughout lunch not to be awkward.

Well, I needn't have worried. Pascale and Didier arrived at 1pm and we didn't farewell them until 7pm! Let me share some of the days experiences.

It started the day before, we had planned our menu and headed off to the market in Sancerre. We had visited Sancerre a couple of times already but hadn't been to the market yet. I assumed it would be a fairly large market as Sancerre is a reasonable sized village, with a lot of tourism due to the popular Sancerre wine. We drove the hour to get there, only to find no market on - I think our booklet of what days the markets are on may be a little outdated!  

Bugger! What were we to do. We really wanted to do a sous vide salmon, and needed to buy some spectacularly fresh salmon to do this. We had spotted some at the market in Cosne-cours-sur-Loire the week previous so we'd had our fingers crossed. It was nearing midday so we needed to change our plans quickly as we headed to the only fresh fruit and veg shop that we knew of that was in Cosne-cours-sur-Loire. As most people here buy their produce at the weekly markets, the quality of the produce in the supermarkets is not very good and also doesn't offer a lot of choice.

We arrived at the fruit and veg shop just on midday, so just before it closed for its two hour lunch break. I found everything we needed and the owner of the shop gave me some clear directions on how I should cook the Morilles (a type of mushroom) I had bought and also some fresh herbs that she threw in that she said I need to use with the tomatoes I had purchased.

We headed home to Varzy and visited our local boucherie (butcher) to get our lamb. We had changed the salmon sous vide to a pistachio and mint crusted lamb loin - trying to explain which cut of meat I wanted to the butcher was a little difficult and got several laughs from the others waiting in the shop as I gesticulated to the butcher as to which part of the animal I wanted.

We started the following morning preparing the meal. Main course was to be the pistachio and mint crusted lamb loin on a pea puree (this has turned into our favourite side since having it at the 3 Michelin starred Maison Lameloise), accompanied with pomme Anna (a French gratin of potatoes and butter) and a green salad with our truffle mayonnaise as a dressing. For dessert, I was making an apple tarte tatin with vanilla cream. Of course, before dessert we would have cheese, as is the French way, we had some truffle brie,  some crottins de chavignol frais (fresh goats cheese from Chavignol), some fourmè d'ambert, and some Livorot. And of course, lots of baguette and wine!

(For those after recipes for the dishes...they will be coming in following posts!)

As soon as Pascale and Didier arrived, any feelings of anxiety disappeared. Conversation flowed easily and everyone was very comfortable. We took aperitif upstairs in the music room, a bottle of champagne of course and we were all set. We sat down to lunch at close to two o'clock and we all tucked in. The kids devoured their meals quickly as they were starving and they went off to play. The four of us sat around the table talking and joking about many things from the French "Chin" way of speaking, to bringing a FIAAC festival to Melbourne, to places in France that we still wanted to see, or that we had already seen.

At some point of the conversation it was decided that we would all meet up again when we went to our next house in Belves, in the Dordogne. We booked a table for a special dinner at Bras - another Michelin starred restaurant that they had also wanted to go to but had never gotten around to. The restaurant is about 2 hours away from Belves, in Laguiole (famous for their beautiful knives - of which we have several but are planning on buying a set of steak knives when we visit there) so we have also booked a nights accommodation there and a babysitter for the night for the kids. We are very much looking forward to welcoming Pascale and Didier to our house in Belves for a night before, and then heading to Laguiole for my birthday dinner!

By this stage we had all eaten (and drank) a little too much so we went for a promenade (stroll) around our village. It was great looking at it through the eyes of a French person - they pointed out little signs and markings of people that had lived in this sleepy little village when it was lot more alive - things that miss our eyes as we do not quite understand the life here. We also visited our local Église (church) - Église Saint Pierre, which was quite amazing, and Pascale told us of the death by guillotine of Saint Eugenie, now we have to decide whether we rename our bread cutter - we had already named her Josephine...

It was now nearly 7pm and Pascale and Didier were about to head off. We were out farewelling them in the car park in Centre Ville (the streets are so narrow and winding here that most people park in the centre of the village and then just walk to their houses) when I spotted some girls getting out of their cars, dressed for what looked like a yoga class or gym class of some kind. We waved goodbye to Pascale and Didier with promises of seeing them soon in Belves and I headed over to one of the girls entering the town hall. I asked in my poor French if they were exercising or doing yoga. She explained that they were about to start doing Zumba, I asked if I could join and they said "oui, pas de problème" - (yes, no problem). 

I ran back to our house, got changed and ran back and joined them for my first French Zumba class. One of the girls in the class spoke a little bit of English, and that was it. I laughed my way through it with them all and when "Love Shack" came on I did a little karaoke as we Zumba'd away.  The class lasted for 1 hour and 45 minutes and by the end of it I had definitely sobered up! With promises of joining them again next week and for each week that I was here in Varzy, I said au revoir, headed home and collapsed in a heap!

What an amazing day!!

Au revoir!

(I was going to post the recipes now but Kayla wants to write a blog post too so it will have to wait for another day!)

Kim
xo