Strasbourg - Cuisine

One of the things we enjoyed most when we were in Strasbourg was the cuisine. Because it's so near the German border, there is a decidedly German influence to their food. The sauerkraut was delicious, the beer was excellent (according to Larry) and the wine was good. Riesling is the local wine specialty (which is one of my favorites). Alsatian Riesling is a little drier than the German labels of the same name.

Our favorite dish there was something called Baeckeoffe. The local story is that baeckeoffe is the original crockpot dish. Supposedly years ago, the women would put the ingredients into a clay pot, and bring it to the baker's on their way to church. The baker would seal the cover of the pan with a simple dough of flour and water and put the pot in his oven (that was cooling after the morning's work was done). It would cook for the 3 hours the women were in church and they would pick up their cooked meal on their way home.

We decided that Baeckeoffe is Alsatian comfort food. The dish is a kind of stew made with pork, beef, lamb, potatoes, carrots, spices and Alsace Riesling. One ingredient that initially "threw" us is the pig's foot. It's added to the pot not as something to be eaten, but there is some kind of fat in it that works to keep the wine from evaporating during the cooking process. Baeckeoffe is absolutely delicious!

I bought myself a baeckeoffe pot and recipe and will try my hand at making it this weekend. Each pot is handmade and signed.

So you think you want to visit Paris!

Guest post by Larry
Note : I didn't have my camera with me, but I found some photos from December 18th. Exactly like what I saw!

I was going on a day trip for work to Paris. 6:15 Air France flight to Paris, meeting, and a 7:50 return flight. Home by 9:30. No problem.

What should have been a 30 minute ride from Paris to the customer office, turned into 2 hours. We only got as far as the PTC office.

I watched the usually crazy traffic in Paris turn into a skating rink. Any incline in the road caused gridlock. A motorcycle slid right out from underneath its rider. Yes, they do ride motor cycles in the snow!

It snowed until about noon, only about an inch of snow on the ground. We just needed to get to the airport. That's when it turned into "Planes, Trains and Automobiles".

When we left for the airport, all the flights from Paris to Toulouse were still taking off. Three hours later, we made it to the airport. Our flight was delayed 90 minutes. Okay, we were going to have a nice dinner in Paris. Before the food arrived, all flights out of Paris were canceled. This was my view during dinner.

We tried getting on the hotel shuttle, no luck. We thought about taking a taxi, that line was an hour long. Finally, we took the train from the airport to the subway, then a bus, and we walked the last three blocks.

Friday morning my nieces were flying through Paris on their way to Toulouse. I was their ride home, I'm still in Paris and my car is at the Toulouse airport. No chance!

Plan B: Amy and Katie would just ride the usually reliable Toulouse Metro subway system, take a bus to the airport and bring the girls home. It snowed in Toulouse too. Yup, complete gridlock. No buses running.

Plan C: My boss (stuck in Paris with me) called her husband in Toulouse and he graciously offered help. After some long distance coordination, my boss on her phone talking to her husband and me on my cell talking to Katie, we got them all together. They crawled their way to the Toulouse airport and back to our flat.

Meanwhile, back in Paris, I unexpectedly got on an earlier flight. Once the doors closed the pilot told us we needed to wait an hour for the de-icing truck. Really!!! It was only 30 minutes but we finally took off and had a normal flight back to Toulouse.

Now, when I think of Paris, it won't be about the Eiffel Tower or the Seine or the Louvre. Nope, I'll think about SNOW!!!!

Christmas in Toulouse

It appears that I've inadvertently deleted my post about Christmas in Toulouse. So, I'll try to recapture my thoughts. I've been asked by a friend if they "do" Christmas in France like we do back in the states. The answer is yes and no. Yes there are decorations though not as many (though I'm told that they do more of that in the north of France). Yes they have Père Noël (Santa Claus) but I haven't observed him to be as rotund as back home and he leaves small gifts of fruits and candies. Yes, the retail stores are decorated and busy selling their wares, though I don't get the impression that the French go to the same excess that the states do. Every French family has a creche as the focal point of their decorations.

The marron (chestnut) vendors have set up shop in the local parks and squares. Now maybe you've experienced those before but since I never had, I was curious about those "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. . ." as the song goes. One night earlier in December, we walked around town admiring the decorations and bought a bag and sat at an outside cafe enjoying the evening. They kind of reminded me of the texture of a filbert but had an almost sweet flavor. I understand the French use chestnuts quite a lot in baking. One of my friends from French language class took an afternoon cooking class and they made several different things with chestnuts.


Toulouse has its own Christmas markets with over 120 little chalets of vendors but after Strasbourg, it seems rather small. But the capital square looks very festive with the market. My favorite park, Place Wilson has the decorated tree and it's great. The tree is actually growing in the park. That's the chestnut vendor in front of the tree.

Strasbourg - The Christmas Markets

THE ULTIMATE HOLIDAY SHOPPING EXPERIENCE


I mentioned in my earlier post about Strasbourg that they've been doing this for 450+ years. There are actually 9 different markets around the city with the largest, Christkindelsmarik , taking over more than a city block. The other larger market was situated around the Cathedral (I'll blog more about the history of the city later). In total, there are 13 different market locations throughout the city. Each year the city invites another country to be their special guest. This year it's Russia. The picture below is of the Russian market.


The Strasbourg Christmas markets are a lot like the Great MN get-together except that instead of everything being served on a stick, it's served on a baguette and the beverage of choice is vin chaud (hot spiced wine) instead of beer or the malts at the dairy building. The crowds remind me of being in the Grandstand on a record breaking attendance day - shoulder to shoulder trying to buy your item of choice (which in our case of course was vin chaud or some particularly beautiful glass tree ornaments).

The Christmas markets run daily from the end of Nov. through the 3rd of Jan. and as it grows dark, the lights of the markets just add to the festivity of the city. An aside: I did think though, that unlike at Disneyworld, there wasn't music being piped everywhere. A little Christmas music would have been nice.


We got a really good picture of the chestnut vendor at Christkindelsmarik.


And of course, what festive atmosphere would be without balloons for the little ones (we saw holiday versions of Dora the Explorer and Mickey and Minnie Mouse).

Strasbourg - The Christmas Capitole

This past weekend we visited Strasbourg, in the northeast of France, in the Alsace region, very near the German border. I have lots to tell you about this fascinating city but for this post I'm concentrating on Strasbourg as the Christmas capital. Strasbourg has been celebrating Christmas officially since 1570 so I guess it has reason to claim it's the capital. It also has a lot of Christmas markets - more about those in my next entry.



This city was really "decked out" for the holidays. The streets and store fronts were very festive. Did you notice the stork (stuffed) in one of the pictures above. There were stuffed storks all over the city. Storks are a kind of symbol for the city and there is a stork wildlife refuge near Strasbourg.

Their electrical decorations are the best I've seen. My favorite was the delicate snowflakes. The tree stands in one of the city parks and the little lit village sits underneath it. They called it the Village of Sharing and it's represented by charitable organizations.

Snow in Toulouse

Okay everyone, the good Lord certainly does have a sense of humor. He just didn't want me to be too smug about the weather here and the snow and cold back home.

I thought that this next post was going to be all about our weekend in Strasbourg (it's coming later in the next day or two) but when we got back to our flat, it started to snow here. Now the ground isn't cold enough for it to do anything other than melt as it hits the ground, but the locals talk about how rare snow is here.


It's falling in big puffy wet flakes and it is really very pretty. I hope you can actually see the flakes falling out on our patio.

Here's a little quiz - which of these things doesn't belong in the picture above, the Christmas tree, the olive tree or the snow?

Le Temps (the weather)

This post is especially for our friends in MN and the Midwest.


Up until now, the weather here in Toulouse has not been that different than what you have back home in MN. Usually the weather here is a little warmer, but not more than 5-10 degrees (except in August when it was really hot). I understand that you are experiencing your first major snowstorm of the winter and the prediction is for the thermometer to take a plunge after the storm is over.

As I write this, the sun is shining and the temperature is 59 degrees (at 2 PM). Yesterday I had a petite fête (small celebration) with my two friends from French language class and we took this picture out on our patio (notice we didn't need coats). Last Friday night Larry and I sat at an outdoor bar and enjoyed drinks and people watched. For someone who has lived all her life in MN the idea of eating outdoors in Dec. is incongruous.

So, my friends, enjoy the snow. I'm sure it's pretty and I know I'll be wishing to see a bit of it on Christmas Day (but I'll get over it) :)

a bientôt