We’re celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend and JT and I traditionally head up to my brother’s cottage in the Muskoka’s. We’ve had all sorts of weather during this weekend over the years, from swimming in Lake Rosseau to a little snow. But what ever the weather, there is always lots of food, reconnecting with family and lots of wine. We wish you all a very happy Canadian Thanksgiving and safe travels. Remember, it’s never smart to drink and drive (Hungary has a Zero tolerance rate and France is 0.5!) Just choose a DD and give them lots of dessert instead! Happy holidays friends.
For this post, I’ve had to change my plan and divide Lyon and Paris into two posts so that I don’t bore you too much. I also figured out how to add a slide show (boy, that was painful!) but it’s done. So if you have a moment, please visit with us in Lyon.
A little history of why we chose Lyon; it is said to the Gastronomic Capital of France. I’ve read that there are over 30 Michelin star restaurants in the city. The people clearly love food and since we do too we thought it would be a perfect match. And it was…for the most part. We had read that we must experience the traditional Bouchon in Lyon and I’ve read many blogs advising that, so it seemed like a good idea at the time. Unfortunately Bouchon’s are generally small places and serve only a fixed menu of three to four courses, and unless you reserve well in advance you simply cannot get in (they only cook for the number of seats in the restaurant, and there is only one seating!). I simply cannot eat three to four courses and feel good, so we decided to just go to a bistro specializing in the cuisine of Lyon and order one course. We did this on night one, the day before our trip to Geneva to meet our friend Ted and his partner Ji. I ordered the andouillette of Lyon (warning…this may be offensive to the ultra sensitive) it is a ‘sausage’ of various ofal particularly some kind of tripe. Now I can eat practically anything, but this dish had an odor (Charles described his experience that he thought someone left the W/C door open, but now I’m getting ahead of myself) I thought it smelled of barn yard, very earthy and very strong. I didn’t take a photo as the lighting was really bad (and I’d rather not be reminded of the experience). It was served in a cream sauce (very rich) and a gratin of potatoes (quite yummy). I could barely eat it, but I persevered and had about a quarter (JT finished the rest). I did not have a good night that night and didn’t recover until lunch the following day! JT had smaller, more traditional sausages that reminded me of bratwurst, without a heavy sauce. Neither were high on my favourite list. But we were entertained for the most part by a street entertainer who was quite funny mimicking people and making rude balloon objects! We figured he could take 100E per set, and given an evening, he probably does 3-4 sets in different neighbourhoods.
Also, you can bet a tomato will taste like a tomato in France. They still care.
Note: if you click on the first photo in the gallery below, it will enlarge and you can click through them like a gallery!
Sorry, but it doesn’t work on your iPhone.
Geneva trip 1:
We made arrangements to meet up with our good friend Ted whom we haven’t seen for at least 10 years. He and his partner Ji traveled by train from outside Zurich to make this possible. We enjoyed a wonderful lunch in Geneva’s oldest restaurant/hotel in the historic district. I may have even sat in the same chair as George Clooney; check out their guest book. Geneva is a beautiful city whose population is manly made up of people from somewhere else; there are many company head offices in Geneva as well. We had hoped to meet up with other blogger in Geneva too, but sadly she had to travel for work on the date we could make it. We shall have to return one day.
Geneva trips 2:
We had booked a tour at C.E.R.N laboratories so that we could see what all the fuss was about. This was a very bad weather day; traveling on the highways, it rained so heavily that at times we were unable to see the hood of the car! The tour itself was lead by a physicist and was interesting but we both felt that since we were in Lyon for such a short time, this little side trip could have been avoided without much loss. Plus it was a gorgeous day in Lyon which we missed entirely! And we had to rush back for our cooking class! Not-withstanding the tolls which over the two days were in excess of 100E! Oh well. Live and learn.
Upon our return to Lyon we tried to return the car with the tank empty but they would have charged us 175E to fill it themselves so we opted to find a station and fill it ourselves for 52E. It took over an hour (mainly waiting for people to fill their cars) and return…only minutes to spare for our cooking class. Chef Villard was ready for us waiting in the lobby of our hotel! I barely had time to change and freshen up!
Cooking Class with Chef Jean-Marc Villard
Our cooking class was amazing and I would definitely recommend it. Chef Villard is fluent in English and is a kind instructor. His kitchen in tidy and calm, but then again there were only two of us. I shall list the menu, but as you can well imagine, I shall be blogging about it in future blog posts! Chef Villard kindly created a little hors d’œuvres of sausages wrapped in home-made brioche (he served the meal with a lovely local wine made with a Viognier grape), we then had a wonderful creamed pumpkin soup fragranced with vanilla bean, drizzled with hazelnut oil (OMG, you MUST smell this!) and served with three seared scallops. Chef Villard mentioned that it depends where you are in France with the fat is that they use…not everyone cooks with butter! Our main course was a Monkfish wrapped in bacon with a delightful veal sauce with green olives (the sweetness of the veal stock and the saltiness of the olives really went well with the fish, and the bacon wrapping was not too salty at all), with olive oil sautéed fingerling potatoes and some lovely snap peas with an arugula (rocket) pesto. For dessert we made a pear and chocolate clafoutis with a glorious caramel sauce. Yes, this will be a dinner for several friends over the next month or so. Of course, I will try to make it marginally healthier (although for a French Chef, he didn’t use as much cream as I thought he might!). This was a very enjoyable dinner. If you are in Lyon, you must try to get into one of his classes, you will not be disappointed. We ate with Chef and Mme Villard and chatted as if we were long-time friends. It was a very enjoyable evening.
We’re off to Paris next on the TGV! See you soon.
Now you have me salivating and thinking…that always leads to trouble. 😉 Pumpkin soup with vanilla bean and seared scallops! That is a fantastic fall meal. I’m thinking I’m going to figure something out along these lines for my good friends. 🙂 Wonderful tour of Lyon and Geneva Eva. I’m so glad you guys had such a great trip – and that you share it with us. I love seeing places I’ve never been before. Here’s to many more wonderful worldly trips!
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Thanks Kristie, I really enjoyed writing the post because it allowed me to re-experience our vacation, which flew by much faster than expected. I will be recreating the cooking class menu for Barb (Profiteroles and Ponytails) so the recipes will be posted in November.
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oh wow that looks like so much fun! Especially the cooking class!! So glad you’re enjoying yourself! I went to Geneva too and absolutely loved it!! it’s so multi-cultural like Canada! Happy Thanksgiving!! I just celebrated mine too! 🙂
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Hi Sammie, Geneva sure is cool, I love a city around water! The historic part is lovely!
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Happy Thanksgiving Eva! We got lucky with the weather in Ottawa (we were able to pull off a football game – 30 of us – in the backyard of Stornoway before the rain fell! ;-)).
Your pictures are incredible and I’m utterly impressed with your slide show. Painful you say? That’s too bad because it really looks impressive imbedded in your post. What program did you use for it? Your trip and travels are utterly inspiring. I need my kids to grow up faster – haha!! ;-).
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Thanks Kelly, the slide show is part of WordPress’ features. What was painful about it was the learning curve…hopefully the next one will be easier.
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WOW! You are so well traveled- its amazing and love hearing about your trips.
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Thanks Jessica…we really enjoy going to Europe but don’t get there as often as we like. It helps to have family there too, so at least the first part of the trip is not as expensive because we stay with them.
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I can’t wait to hear the commentary in person Eva, but the photos are amazing. I recognize the river in Lyon — the flat that I stayed at was not far from the river…it’s all coming back to me. It is so nice to see you and John having fun in the kitchen together. It must be a great shared memory
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Thanks Barb, did you stay on the side of La République or the other side?
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Oh Eva – you poor thing. I should have advised you before you left. One of the first Google hits I found for Andouillette was someone’s blog describing in detail just how (and why) this vile sausage is so terrible. Some French people I know claim to love it, but I suppose there’s no accounting for taste 😀
Lovely photos – it’s so nice to see the photos from your trip. I see what you mean about the fig tree… the whole cooking class must have been so much fun, and I bet the trip to CERN was fun… I’d have loved it I think!
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Thanks Charles, the andouillette was my own stupidity, and after that, I’ll be sure to ‘research’ the food before I dive in! Sure there are other delicacies that are much more palatable.
I would recommend that cooking class as a lovely ‘weekend’ trip for you and your wife. Lyon is a very pretty weekend city.
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I reminisced about my time in Lyon through this post Eva! And glad to hear that JT is getting better too 🙂 Isn’t Lyon heaven for food?!
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Thanks for your great tips for Lyon, Lorraine, we really appreciated the time you took. Did you see the shoe designer Janie Philip on La République? I think I’m in love!
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I am surely looking forward to some of these dishes Eva – I know a lady who spent 10 days at one of these places in France a few of years ago and she could only say good things about her experience.
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Thanks Zsuzsa; I am also waiting on a few recipes from my Aunt Ági that I will enjoy blogging about.
It would have been lovely to have more than one day of cooking class, but the one was quite a splurge financially.
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What a super job you did on the slideshow, Eva! I’m going to have to check out how to do that and see if I can master that particular skill someday! This segment of your trip looks amazing, from the scenery, to the food (well, almost all of the food sounds good…the offal sounds awful), to the markets, and your cooking class…what fun! Happy Canadian Thanksgiving to you, and I look forward to our next stop, and the surprise that I already know what it must be! 😉
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Hi Betsy, mum’s the word on the surprise as it spans three bogs and two continents! Everything was such fun and despite the weather. I’m quite excited to share our Paris installment because it allows me to re live our wonderful holiday.
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You are going to be wowing us with all kinds of fab food for months to come, what a fantastic line up of images and plates and a cooking class to boot. you definitely made the most of your time, i like that ! lovely pages.. c
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Thank you kindly C, your sweet words mean a lot to me. I am looking forward to your lovely travels and stories.
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Great photos of your travels in Europe. Thanks for sharing with us. Nice slide show.
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Thanks Angie, it seems like a life time ago now!
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What a great trip! I love how you always have decent hotel views. I want anchovy for breakfast now!
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Thanks Greg, the views are by luck, and I didn’t photograph the ones without a view! I have grown to really like anchovies, I have some gorgeous white anchovies in the fridge waiting for a delicacy to be woven into.
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Holy cow, Eva, what a trip! I loved the slide show – you’re very clever. I would love that cooking class – chef has such a kind face. Looking forward to more about that.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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Thanks Maureen, Chef was indeed kind and patient, and we picked up a few tips too that will come in handy. It was a lovely experience.
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Sounds like you two really enjoyed Lyon and I’m happy for you. Lyon is such a beautiful city and I’d no idea it was such a foodie paradise. Being able to take a class, a very much personal class, has to be a highlight. Cannot wait to see what dishes you’ve brought back. The Clafoutis sound remarkable!
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Thanks John, Chef Villard was a lovely teacher and he chose things easy to make and even substitute if some ingredients can’t be on hand. I would live to live that close to the Mediterranean for the fresh seafood.
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Wow Eva, you are brave for ordering the andouillette! As much as I would like to try a bite, I would be too scared to get a whole order. Lucky you had JT to polish it off for you. Sometimes, I think it is one of the many good husband duties. Did he get sick?
I would love to visit Lyon and try a 3 or 4 course Bouchon. One sitting is very interesting, I guess it works for them.
The cooking class looks intimate and lovely.
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Thanks Genie, no JT had no ill effects, fortunately! I think it was just too rich for me.
The three courses would likely be OK if you pace yourself but I find the food simply too rich.
The cooking class was fantastic, Chef Villard was incredible and the food was very tasty.
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Wow! What a great post. It was so lovely seeing your slideshow and I’m super-impressed with your technology skills! I’m feeling very old-fashioned having just visited Charles’ blog with his video! Seems like you had quite an entertaining time with smelly sausages and rude balloons and sheet rain etc xx
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Thanks Charlie, it took a bit of finessing to get the order of the slides right, but that was the hardest part. It seems like a lifetime ago.
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What a magnificent trip!!! I must get back to Europe sans children so I can enjoy some of the culinary specialties (except andouillette!). Thanks for sharing all your wonderful photos and experiences. Looking forward to your next installment!
PS…Happy Thanksgiving!
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Thanks Liz, it was a very lovely vaycay!
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This reminds me of the cooking school and chef I went to. Wouldn’t it be fun to have our own.. and have people drop into our kitchen? If you say yes.. yours is the first place I’d visit for a demo on some of your recipes 😀
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Hi Barbara, yes indeed that would be very cool. I tried to get JT to set up a ‘guy’ class to teach guys some simple meals do that they could help out more, but he wasn’t into it.
I am very flattered that you would want to see my recipes demo’d, thank you kindly.
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Btw.. I did a slide show today.. it wasn’t difficult but mine looks different from yours?? I just opened the camera/media to see all my uploaded photos and scrolled to the bottom where it offers a Gallery or a Slideshow.. and it inserted a link that is a slide show when saved. How did you do yours? It looks neat with the “Frame” set out like that??
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Hi Barbara, I did it the same way, but I suspect that the theme of the blog dictates how the slide show shall look. I’m going to check yours out when I’m in free wifi, we’re driving down from the Muskoka’s now from my brother’s cottage.
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I also wish we could select which photos are in the slideshow.. eg just the ones of my daughter and not include the food photos..Oh, well! Enjoy your drive.. it must be stunning!!
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It looks like you get one slide show per post, and all the slides from that gallery go into the slide show regardless. Not very robust but it’s easier than entering each photo individually.
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Quite a trip. You sure packed a lot of activities in a short time. The cooking class looks like it was well worth it. Guess it was all arranged before you left home. Love your slide show. Looking forward to reading about Paris.
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Thanks Norma, I’m hoping to be back on my noel schedule next week. Yes, we arranged the class from home, Chef and Mme. Villard were very accommodating. In fact we didn’t have to put any money down and just paid cash. The food was quite tasty too.
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Eva, you are becoming a specialist in caprese salad all around the world 😉
Seriously, I hope you have tasted some more Lyon specialties than only the sausages and the andouillette (I think I have told you I also hate it; in fact very few Frenchmen like it). I have never experienced the big menu problem in any bouchon (but I think I have been only to two or three in my life so maybe I was lucky or maybe I could take a salad starter and then a light dessert plus main dish… I don’t remember).
I’m glad you have had fun during the cooking class. The chef looks also like a very nice person. The food you have prepared sounds great. I really regret we didn’t meet but maybe during your next trip to Europe? Or mine to Canada 😉 Who knows…
Most of all, congratulations for the slide show! I cannot even imagine how I could do it. It’s a big pleasure watching the photos this way. I am impatient to see your Paris post!!!
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Hi Sissi
I’m afraid I was a little put off true bouchon cuisine after my first experience. My stomach took a couple of days to recover! On my next time I will research and ask what the best things to order are.
The chef was very friendly and quite knowledgable and it was nice that it was just JT and I in the class.
If you do ever come to Toronto I would be thrilled to share a meal or even a coffee with you! I shall, in turn endeavor to come to Europe again hopefully soon!
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Great pictures, Eva. Not all the food choices were particularly appealing as these days I can barely manage to choke down a small yogurt, whole wheat toast (my nephew is doing the grocery shopping these days and he’s being healthy and economical in his choices) and hard boiled eggs. A half cup of seafood chowder if I’m REALLY feeling good as it’s much too rich for my wonky post-surgery tummy.
I hope everyone is enjoying this long weekend, whether you are celebrating Columbus Day/Thanksgiving in the US/Canada respectively or just hanging out with friends and family on your regular 2 day weekend in the rest of the world.
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Thanks for the comment, Maria. I do hope your surgery went well. It’s a lot to put the body through but I’m sure you’ll be happy once your rehabilitated and dancing around again! It’s nice of your nephew to do the shopping even if his choices wouldn’t be yours. Happy thanksgiving and hope your feeling more like yourself soon.
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It’s almost hard to take in all your experiences my friend – in regards to Lyon I have heard about the exquisite nature of their food and you definitely showcase it!
Geneva sounds stunning and the fact that you got to visit C.E.R.N is incredible!
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
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Thanks CCU it was a lovely trip!
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