Tag Archives: food

Paris : La Ville Lumière

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Vues de Paris

Oh Paris, Paris, Paris! Choosing just one place to start describing this city is hard because there are too many monuments, buildings, museums, and cafés that we could talk about. Although seeing and exploring each place of Paris was amazing, there was nothing like seeing the whole city from the top of places such as Montmartre. Seeing all the beauty of Paris at once was breathtaking and was one of the highlights of our excursion. Neither the time of the day nor the weather stopped us from enjoying the view of the city.

Overlooking Paris from the top of Montmartre-Sacré Coeur

Les jardins et les parcs

The beautiful city of Paris is home to some of the most amazing gardens in Europe. During our week in the city, many of us were fortunate enough to be able to visit a few of the many incredible gardens the city has to offer which include le Jardin du Luxembourg, le Marais and le Jardin des Tuileries.

Le Jardin du Luxembourg is one of the largest in the city centre, covering 23 hectares, and it is home to over a hundred statues, monuments, and fountains, which are all scattered evenly throughout the garden.

Lessi and Cate horsing around, and some immaculately pruned trees, both in the Luxembourg Gardens

Don’t be fooled! This isn’t a scene out of Stewart Little! This is the Palais du Luxembourg where children frequently come to sail boats in its fountain.

Le Marais is an aristocratic district of Paris, known for its well preserved buildings which contain both historic and architectural importance. Within Le Marais there lies La Place des Vosges, a square within the city that holds a commemorative statue of Louis XIII. Situated along the corridors of the Place des Vosges are small art galleries that the group enjoyed exploring.  

These uniform red brick buildings line the perimeters of Place des Vosges. The square is the perfect place for eating lunch, reading a good book, or people watching!

Le Jardin des Tuileries is located at the front of the Louvre and stretches to the centre of the city at Place de la Concorde. Also attached to this park is the Musée de l’Orangerie where many of Monet’s immense water lily paintings reside, as well as the works of several other famous impressionists.

The expansiveness of Le Jardin des Tuileries

Versailles: la grandeur de Louis XIV

On Tuesday morning we took a short train ride outside the city to the Château de Versailles. Upon arrival, we were struck with the immense beauty of the palace that was surrounded by a magnificent golden gate. Once inside, we got to explore the elaborately decorated rooms that were once home to Louis XIV and many other important figures in French history. The château was built in the 17th century and contains over 2,300 rooms, one of the most remarkable being The Hall of Mirrors.

Molly in all of her regalness in the Hall of Mirrors, Château de Versailles

After we had explored the palace we headed downtown for a delicious lunch at an Italian restaurant. After ordering, our waiter complimented our French and expressed his love for our home away from home, Bordeaux! Once we had warmed up and enjoyed some good food we headed back to wander around the famous Jardins de Versailles. This wasn’t an average backyard garden by any means. Stretching over 800 hectares this garden contained meticulously shaped bushes, flowers and trees. In addition, it incorporated beautiful sculptures, fountains and ponds with trails that could leave you exploring for hours!

Macalah, Julia, and Lessi (our freshman crew) in front of Le Château de Versailles, and les jardins.

La cuisine parisienne

Many of us have been taking French classes since elementary and middle school, and therefore we were eager to finally see the monuments and sites that we have learned about countless times in our classes growing up, but had never seen face to face! However, since coming to Bordeaux and learning about how the French culture is deeply rooted in gastronomy, we also made sure that we ate well while we were in Paris. Aside from the always popular street crepes, croque monsieurs, and macarons, we found ourselves at three wonderful group dinners over the course of the week where we all tried some new dishes and practiced the art of conversation- something the Parisiens seem to be experts at!

Our first dinner of the week occured at Le Procope, the oldest café in Paris, founded in 1686 and located in the 6th arrondissement. (Side note: an arrondissement is just a fancy French word that indicates a district within the city. There are 20 of them in Paris and we found ourselves frequently trying to see who was the best oriented with the map of the city. I think we would all unanimously agree that Lessi was our champion navigator.) At Le Procope we enjoyed an entrée of un oeuf poché avec une sauce aux champignons et parmesan, Coq au vin for our main dish, and une tarte citron for dessert. And, of course, wine to accompany our dinner because it wouldn’t be dinner in France without some good wine and some good bread.

Group shot at Le Procope, and l’oeuf poché avec une sauce aux champignons et parmesan.

Coq au vin, and une tarte au citron, both from dinner at Le Procope

Our second dinner of the week was pretty relaxed. After walking around in the cold Parisian air all day and seeing a couple of plays, some warm Italian food really hit the spot. While we clearly did not eat French food this night, this meal turned out to be many people’s favorite. We had a great time together and it made us look forward to our last group meal in Montmartre towards the end of the week!

In Montmartre, we once again escaped the cold and windy streets of Paris into a restaurant called La Bonne Franquette just a short walk away from Sacré Coeur. Moms and Dads out there will be happy to know that we all got in our veggies with a nice salad at the start of our meal. While most of us ate a salmon dish for our main course, the restaurant was very accomodating to our vegetarian friends and everyone headed into dessert quite content. However, dessert got some mixed reviews from our group. Some enjoyed the crème de marrons avec crème fraîche that we were served, while others were either not a fan of the dish at all or were simply downright confused as to what they were eating! Oh well, even in France not every dish can be a homerun!

Group dinner at La Bonne Franquette (left) and le crème de marrons avec crème fraîche (right) that left our group bewildered

 Stay tuned for Paris Part II, Coming Soon!

On s’adapte!

-Lessi, Cate, Sebastien, Sarah, Macalah, Charlton, and Azlyne

 

 

 

First Banquet

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Bonjour from Banquet Team 1 – Grace, Julia, Azlyne, and Sarah! We were in charge of preparing the first banquet of the semester, and we are going to take you through our journey!

Banquet Team 1 (from left): Sarah, Grace, Azlyne, and Julia

After some deliberation, we decided to make Boeuf Bourguignon as our plat principal (main dish). Julia, who is from Montreal, suggested one of her family’s traditional recipes for Boeuf Bourguignon that she really enjoys. After confirming our plat principal with Dr. Caldwell, we chose the food for our other courses, and settled on the following menu:

Aperitif: Kir Royal

An aperitif is a drink served before the entrée. A Kir Royal is champagne mixed with Crème de Cassis, which is a sweet blackcurrant liqueur.

Entrée: Asperges á la Périgordine

Our appetizer was asparagus in the style of the Périgord region. Most Périgord dishes contain either foie gras or truffles. In our case, the asparagus was paired with foie gras and mini bocconcini.

Plat Principal: Boeuf Bourguignon à la Québécoise / Nouilles aux oeufs

This was the recipe from Julia’s family.  Boeuf bourguignon is a dish originating in the Bourgogne region of France.  For over two and a half hours, the beef is slowly cooked in a red wine from Bourgogne. Towards the end of the cooking process, mushrooms and small onions are added in the pot. The boeuf bourguignon was served on egg noodles, with a side of cooked carrots.

Salade: Salade verte à la sauce Julia

A green salad with a traditional french salad dressing, consisting of red wine vinegar, olive oil, dijon mustard, salt and pepper.  

Assiette de Fromages: Bleu de Gex / St. Félicien / Comté / Palets de Sud-Ouest

We selected a blue cheese from the border of Switzerland, a cow cheese, a hard cheese aged 18 months, and a goat cheese, respectively.

Dessert: Gateau au coeur fondant de chocolat

Rather than baking a dessert, we adopted the French tradition of buying a high-quality dessert from a bakery, or the Marché des Capuçins in our case. We chose a soft chocolate cake.

Vin: Château de Citran 

We paired our banquet with a red wine from the Haut-Medoc region of Bordeaux.

Our menu, handwritten by Grace, on display at the banquet.

On Friday afternoon, we made a trip to buy the majority of our ingredients at the Auchan grocery store – a process that took a few hours. We also had to buy some pots and pans in order to make a meal of this magnitude. After shopping, we dropped everything off at Dr. Caldwell’s apartment and went over final logistics.

On Sunday, the day of the banquet, we started the preparation process at 11:30 AM. Azlyne and Sarah went to the market at this time to buy fresh ingredients for the meal. They bought a giant loaf of organic bread that was so big the worker had trouble slicing it, pâté which they discovered was really foie gras, provencal green olives that had one black one mixed in, four cheese varieties that took forever to choose, and a chocolate cake that was simply amazing. They were even successful in ordering everything in French!

While Azlyne and Sarah bought the final ingredients, Grace and Julia started preparing the meal. Meat was sliced into cubes and started in the pot, salad dressing was made, mushrooms and onions were prepared for cooking, and asparagus was boiled (in the microwave!).

Julia starting the process of Boeuf Bourguignon with the first step: cutting the meat

Boeuf bourguignon can be a tricky meal to make, especially when it comes time to blend in all the ingredients, such as the wine and the bouillon (broth). This is because the timing is key while pouring each ingredient, in order to avoid clumps in the sauce. Julia was worried that the sauce was going to be too clumpy, so she decided to make a transatlantic call to her mom via skype. Luckily, her mom picked up the phone! She spent some time advising Julia mid-banquet on how to proceed in order to make the perfect Boeuf Bourguignon. On s’adapte!

We fashioned the room in Dr. Caldwell’s apartment for the banquet by rearranging his desk into an extra table, and then set the places at both tables beautifully for our guests.

The smaller table and entrée 

Our guests arrived at 3:30 PM, and we started them off with an aperitif (the Kir Royal), peanuts, and olives, while we finished final preparations to serve the entrée.

Our valued guests (Sebastien, Molly, Fiona) with their aperitifs

The first course, Asperges à la Périgourdine, was served around 4:30 PM. Since we had two vegetarians in the group, we gave them extra asparagus, carrots, and mozzarella balls in place of the foie gras.

We proceeded to eat the Boeuf Bourguignon, followed by the salad and cheeses, completing final preparations between each course. We ended our meal with the chocolate cake (not without fighting over who would get the biggest piece). As the evening drew to a close, there was a special guest appearance from Mina Carolina, Grace’s childhood pop star alter-ego.

Beef Bourguignon on egg noodles, our plat principal

The banquet itself lasted six hours, from 3:30 PM to 9:30 PM. It was a wonderful way for us to spend our Sunday, an event filled with eating, drinking, and socializing. As we finished up our final courses, we were able to admire the beautiful nightfall over the Pont de Pierre.

A beautiful view of the Garrone river from the window Dr. Caldwell’s apartment.

Our team really enjoyed the entire process of the banquet. We are all looking forward to our next banquet – when we get to arrive as guests!

Banquet Team 1 signing off! Stay tuned for our adventures in Paris. Au revoir et à bientôt!

Grace, Azylne, Sarah, and Julia

 

Toulouse and Carcassonne

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Bonjour from Toulouse and Carcassonne! This is Blog Team 2: Charlton, Grace, Alena, and Fiona!

Blog Team 2 hard at work giving you a glimpse into our journey!

This weekend the program took an excursion to the beautiful city of Toulouse, which is approximately two hours South-East of Bordeaux. Toulouse is known as “la ville rose,” or the pink city, due to the pinkish color of the brick buildings.

Toulouse, “La Ville Rose.”

After arriving in Toulouse, we got settled into our hotel rooms and got bundled up to go explore the city. Dr. Caldwell took us on a walking tour where we learned a lot about the history of the city. Most notably, we took a long detour into the Basilique Saint-Sernin, a beautiful Romanesque-style Basilica in the center of the city. Probably because we are an odd-looking group of American teenagers, one of the curators asked if we wanted to see more of the cathedral. Most of us took him up on his offer and were lucky enough to climb up to the second floor, the “tribunal.”

The Basilica Saint-Sernin

    A beautiful sunset at le Couvent des Jacobins

After the basilica, we went to see “Le Couvent Des Jacobins,” a Gothic-style monastery. This was also so beautiful, and there was a garden there that we were admiring when the sky decided to completely downpour on us. Luckily, there was a chic cafe across from the Place du Parlement, so that became the next stop on our tour–we admired the Place du Parliament as we drank some Chocolat Viennois (hot chocolate with whipped cream).

Macalah, Molly and Fiona, all smiles with their chocolat!

The place du Parlement

From there, we went to a restaurant called Le Point d’Ogre where we celebrated Grace’s 21st birthday over three courses – and lots of wine! We hit a record of 3 ½ hours for one meal. Some popular choices for food were: gateau du canard (duck cake) and pied de cochon (pigs feet).

Celebrating Grace’s birthday

Out for dinner in Toulouse

On Saturday we traveled to Carcassonne to explore the medieval fortified city and castle. We spent the morning exploring the corners of the city, the education museum, and the candy shops. In the afternoon we explored the inside of the castle and walked along the surrounding wall admiring the beautiful views of Carcassonne.

A beautiful view contrasting the medieval, fortified city of Carcassonne with its lower, modern counterpart.  

A group shot (minus Sarah) in front of the medieval city

Charlton, Zach, and Julia standing on the castle wall looking out on the city beyond the castle.

After a morning well spent exploring Carcassonne, the group was treated to lunch at the Compte Roger, where we were able to try a local dish called Cassoulet. Cassoulet is a rich, slow-cooked casserole that was initially created by the Romans. When it was first created, Cassoulet consisted of pork, sausage, goose, duck, pork skin and fèves (fava beans). The recipe later substituted fèves for white beans. The chef explained his dishes and the wines offered to us, and finished his explanation by telling us his cooking is so good it can make the sun come out. After leaving a finally sunny Bordeaux just to spend two days full of rain in Toulouse, we were hopeful. And then, what do you know – just as we took our first bites of his delicious entrée, the sun finally peaked through the clouds!

Toulouse’s specialty dish, the cassoulet

Another of our chef’s beautiful plats, chicken and risotto

Back in Toulouse on Sunday, we spent some time in the art museum La Fondation Bemberg at l’Hôtel d’Azzézat (a renaissance structure) as well as exploring the inside of the Place du Parlement’s Capitolium building. Sunday morning hit the group hard after a Saturday night out in Toulouse, and almost everyone was fast asleep as we rode the train back to our lovely home in Bordeaux.

Sebastian, Macalah, Emily, Lessi and Azlyne exploring artwork at Fondation Bemberg

Alena and Sarah in front of some of the artwork in Place du Parlement

We’ll see you next week as Blog Team 3 gives insight into student life at our French universities. As always, on s’adapte!

Grace, Alena, Charlton, and Fiona