Last night we had a meal that made my top 10 list. It was a meal like nothing I have experienced. Alexandre Gauthier came to the Stratford Chefs School bringing his front of house manager and his pastry chef. Gauthier is a Michelin Star chef with a restaurant called La Grenouillère. Sela was lucky enough to be the student chef during the dinner we attended last night. It was a snowy night but thanks to some great driving by our friend, we made it. There were 7 of us who added to the festivities, and the meal was a tasting menu that knocked our socks off. I can’t tell you how many courses there were. I can never figure out how to count the amuse-bouche at the beginning and the petit fours at the end. There were 12 distinct dishes that we ate plus delicious dark bread. There wasn’t a menu, just a list of ingredients and we continually got the unexpected. What we had: there was a corn tart, a veal and sardine tartar with cauliflower, scallop and avocado roll, a souffle with crab, beet ravioli with eel, a lobster salad, lamb with broccoli puree and wheat berries, an apple curl with celery cream, butternut squash ice cream with meringue, a strawberry gelée, and a truffle that exploded in my mouth. The pace was faster than any meal I have ever enjoyed and the drama of each course kept me on the edge of my seat. I felt excited each time a new course came out. I couldn’t wait for the description of what each dish contained and had to hold myself back. The colors and textures were striking and the uniqueness of each dish was remarkable. Several of the dishes were a little intimidating–it was a little scary to take the first bite of the blood red eel ravioli. But the flavors in each dish were so deep, rich, balanced and satisfying that the food provided a thrill and a world class...
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I made it to yoga for an 8am class. I don’t like rushing into yoga but I realized at the last minute I could make this class. I like being 15 minutes early and having my time on my mat before the class starts. I feel excited to be there but it feels like not very long from the 6:30pm class yesterday. I have this feeling that I haven’t had enough recovery time. I had really crazy dreams last night. Nightmare after nightmare. In one I dreamed I got trapped under a tree under water and I couldn’t move. I could imagine Mel trying to save me and I just tried to get to a place of acceptance really fast sending loving thoughts to all my family. It was a super intense dream and I accepted my own death. It seemed very yoga-esque as I let go of my attachment to life and accepted the situation as it was instead of struggling and suffering. I didn’t do all the poses today. I could feel the fatigue in my body. I did a few of them but then spent time lying in shavasana on my mat. I probably did about 1/2 the poses. I started tracking my food and exercise and I was motivated to track more minutes of yoga and I think this was a mistake. I think I didn’t allow it to be okay to be tired. I asked “more” of my body than I needed. I need to be very clear to be gentle with my body and to allow it to do as much yoga as feels right. I don’t need to push beyond that. I felt exhausted after today’s yoga and full of sugar cravings. I have been having these sugar cravings since I started, as if my body is trying to find energy. I ate a bunch of protein today to see if that would help. I also had a glass of wine. I felt kind of yucky...
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This summer we traveled to France. We spent 3 days around Paris, a week in a medieval village in the south of France called St. Ambroix, and a week in Sancerre. We rented a car and got to drive the highway in one direction and drove through all the smaller roads coming back. We didn’t have a GPS in our rental car and it felt quaint to attempt all that foreign driving with a map and a conversation. We drove through hundreds of roundabouts and our policy was to keep going around until we knew which way to go. We twirled around quite a few traffic circles on our journey. One of the threads of conversation that wove through this vacation, was the concept of “France–the brand” and how it compared to France–the reality. In North America, the concept of France and French products act very similarly to an upscale brand. If something is from France, it is guaranteed to be expensive, potentially hand-crafted, and new and cutting edge from a design perspective–innovative. France, the brand products might also center around fairly expensive European style food. In other cases, the word french is added to something ordinary to make it sound upscale. Some examples of how “French” is used to make a product more upscale would be French roast, French vanilla, French press, French toast, and of course French fries. France has nothing to do with producing coffee, vanilla, fries, or bodum coffee pots, but the word “French” gives them a little something special in their branding. Apparently before it was called “French toast” it was called German toast–apparently in previous centuries the German brand used to be more popular than it is today. Now, French is chic. French lavender is another example. Apparently French lavender is a variety native to Spain–maybe North Americans aren’t the only ones who use the word “French” to make their products more marketable. We found France, the country to be so different than France, the brand....
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