Reinventing Reality

Amboise

We've seen London, we've seen France - and we have no more clean underpants.  

Just kidding...mostly.

Anyway, we are currently on our way home but we still have a few more blog posts to get through.  You want the complete picture, right?  Yeah, I thought so.

So after the cooking class we went to Pau, a university town in southern France near the Pyrenees.  More on that later.  Then we travelled north forever and spent a million dollars on gas and toll roads -  driving in France is expensive.  But it was worth it - we stayed several days in Amboise, a wonderful town in the Loire valley.  We rented a sweet little apartment right across the street from the castle - the area is known for its castles.  This is the view from the front window:

When we showed up it was boiling hot and we thought we might die - the area doesn't usually have hot summers so they don't believe in air conditioners...I think it is clear where Red and I stand on that issue, no need to beat that horse anymore.  But our fan got us through one night and then the weather cooled off and it rained a little.  

About this time, Bob and Kathleen joined us.  They had been traveling in Germany and were glad to stay in one place for a few days...of course we shuttled them around and barely let them relax, but that is what kids do!  We had a blast cooking, touring and sampling wine:

A view from the apartment at night - we were also right by a river:

So the castles - amazing.  The one across the street from the apartment was lovely - great garden area and impressive views.  We also went to Chenonceau, a bigger castle; it had this separate tower that Red and I are planning to move into - cozy, hmm?

The rest of the castle and river area:

The castles are so neat - full of history and surrounded by beautiful scenery.  At this castle we smuggled in a picnic and snuck off into the woods for lunch - Kath and Bob bring out the rebel spirit in us:

Thats it for now - more later on Pau, Paris and London - talk to you all soon!

Goat Post Part 2

So we left off here:

We milked the goats with Cathy and Babeth (pronounced Bobette) and then we went with Cathy to make the cheese.  

We started with the previous day's cheese which sits in plastic molds which help drain excess water.  We turned them over in the molds (they need to sit one day on each side), she lightly salted them, and then we started filling the new molds with fresh cheese.

Milk taken the previous day sits in huge tubs with a few added ingredients that turn it into cheese (whey and rennet, an enzyme that helps separate the liquids/solids) and after a day the watery whey sits on top.  You spoon off the whey and then use shallow ladles to spoon the cheese into molds.  You can see them stacked and organized behind us.  As you ladle, you can put herbs, raisins, chili powders, and nuts into the cheese - so delicious!  As it turned out, our favorite cheese was the fresh plain kind - Cathy and Babeth served it to us on our last night with a salad - just goes to show how simple, fresh ingredients do not need a lot of fussing.

Here is Red showing off our hard labor:

So, now after a week of Italian cooking class and a day of goat milking/cheese, we are experts in all things Italy and goat.  We plan to start a farm when we get home since we know everything there is to know about raising/caring for goats and making cheese.  Don't worry, we really paid attention and know that when you are presented with homemade cheese you will trust us without hesitation.  

Lastly, our hosts adopted this dog:

 

His name is Obi - we thought after Obi-Wan-Kenobi but its actually after Obama.  They found him abandoned the day that Obama won the nomination and were so happy that he was named in honor of the future president.  He is a rascal of a dog - he routinely tried to snap my hand off when playing - but he came with us on every walk to lead the way and once he actually protected us from a mean pack of dogs!

Overall our time at the farm was like a dream (a somewhat smelly dream) and we miss Cathy, Babeth, Obi and all of the other goats, dogs and cats.  

But before the French cooking class came the Rhone Valley (north and south!) and Mt. Ventoux...

Goat Post Part 1

After a few lovely days with my mom, we began to plan the next phase of our travels.  We had such good experiences renting apartments before so we decided to continue in that vein and find a place that we could continue practicing our cooking and that would be centrally located to explore the Rhone Valley (and wines).  We looked online for a bit and saw a surprising place - a goat farm that had an apartment for rent!  We laughed our heads off and said, “God, we aren’t THAT desperate”.  So we found several good places throughout Southern Rhone and sent out 5 emails.  All came back negative - already full (did we mention that all of France goes on “holiday” for the month of August?).  So we sent out 5 more emails.  Then 15 after that.  In total, Red probably sent out 25 emails and two came back positive.  Guess where we are?

The Goat Farm in the mountains of Luberon!

When we arrived we were greeted by three excited dogs and two friendly older women.  They showed us the apartment:

You walk in and it looks like a normal ranch-style studio: the kitchen is very nice (first gas stove we’ve seen in Europe), functional bathroom/bedroom area, cosy interior, etc...then you open the back door and there are the goats, having dinner.  No matter - we were there to stay and quite frankly the country scenery and warm welcome were exactly what we wanted (this pic was on our first night):

After settling in our hostesses told us that the next morning we could help with the milking if we wanted to, so we got up early and went to see our new neighbors.

They use a milking machine and they distract the goats with grain - otherwise they seem to stamp around and get restless.  

We got over our shyness quickly:

The next post will be about making goat cheese - really fun and tasty.

But before we sign off, the one tiny thing that we have had to adjust to: the apartment can kind of start to smell “goaty” if left closed up too long.  It used to be an old barn, so while charming, the walls seem to be steeped in goat (poop) scent.  We are constantly deciding which to prioritize - the goaty smell or opening the doors which airs it out but also lets in flies (and not just one or two - hundreds).  Such a dilemma.  

But this place is awesome and we love it - another random bit of luck on our trip.  

France! Cassis and L'Cadiere d'Azur

We are in France (and have been for a while - oops)!  After several train rides and picking up our new rental car (a cool little ride - BMW!), we are on our way.  We stayed one night in Nice and practically spent the whole time at the beach.  The water was refreshing and the people we met were friendly.  Here is Red in the ocean:

From there we went to Le Cadiure d’Azur, a small village with a renowned restaurant.  It was absolutely delicious and chic (we had the most interesting cheese course that the entire table sampled - some against their will!), although we have to admit that everything we have eaten in France has been good.  But the main reason we went to Le Cadiure d’Azur was my mom - we all met up and had a blast.  She even wine tasted with us (reds and whites - very adventurous mom!)!

While we were all together we went to Cassis, a beautiful coastal town.  We watched people jump off the cliffs and tan on the rocks - the water is a breath-taking color.  Some of the group even went swimming.

After that we went to Aix en Provence, a busy college town famous for its Roman fountains.  We walked around, shopped and soaked up time with our out-of-town visitors - it is great to see people we know from home in a foreign country!

Next up: Red is posting about the regional wine and then we will show you a UNIQUE place to stay.  Check back!

Florence Apartment Scenes

Brian came to see us in Florence and we had a super time.  The following images would suggest we did not do much and resorted to idiot behavior but I promise we did cultural things (Galileo exhibit, Uffizi gallery, etc).  We also cooked quite a bit (practicing recipes from cooking class of course), and the boys made clean up time fun.  

I am calling the series "My Favorite Potheads".  Enjoy.

Florence Apartment

We are taking a short break from all of the food posts to tell you about our first few hours/days in Florence.  The apartment we rented in Florence is just the cutest thing.  It is newly remodeled - hardwood floors, modern kitchen, nice bathrooms - looks nice, doesn't it?  

We are the first tenants it has seen, and everyone keeps saying that as if it is a good thing - to say the least, its a mixed bag.

We got in and were told that the internet was “not here yet”, as if it were a train that might arrive soon.  Then we tried to take a shower and there was no hot water.  We called the offsite manager and he said, “It is not possible, it is a new apartment”.  Well buddy, it sure is possible.  Anyway, they came out and had a look and said that the owner’s son would come the next morning to take a look.  Alrighty, only 24 hours of cold showers and ineffective dishwashing.  Not a huge deal in the scheme of things.  Oh, also the toilets make a diabolical noise when flushed - they groan obscenely for about a minute.  

Anyway, after discovering the hot water problem we turned on the air conditioning and basked in its glory for a full hour before the power went off.  We stomped around for a while (after checking all inside circuit breakers), made some expensive calls from our cell phone, and the manager said, “What do you want me to do about it?  I am in Lucca - I cannot help you.”  What we want you to do, pal, is give a crap about us - it's only your job!   Our dinner was cooking on the electric stove when all power ceased, so obviously eating was out of the question.  Needless to say, we had a drink.  Then we played some cards because we figured we should soak up the daylight before the apartment dark for the night.

So eventually we heard voices speaking English outside our door (hallelujah) and we practically pounced on them to see if they had power (of course they did, just our special apartment was off).  One of the guys actually owned his apartment and walked Red down to show him the main circuit breaker for the whole building which was hidden in some wooden cabinets on the first floor.  

So once again all most was right with the world, and we went back to making dinner (although the power went off 2 more times while we were cooking).  

The next day we had to fix our bank accounts (also having problems in Italy) and when we came back they were fixing the water heater.  YAY!

But don’t hold your breath because then two hours later when we fired up the AC, the stove and the hot water all at the same time, the circuits had a meltdown.  But why would we expect to be able to cook, use the AC and maybe run the dishwasher all at the same time?  Are we too American?  Is this too much to expect?  Oh, and you can’t use multiple water sources at the same time either...as in when you are in the shower, if someone turns on the kitchen sink the pressure drops to zero and there are drips coming out of the shower head.  Red and I are constantly screaming from the shower, “What are you doing????  Whatever you are doing STOP, JUST STOP”.  Good thing this amuses us...hahahaha...hmm.

But really, sometimes we just don't care about all of that because the apartment is a 5 minute walk from this:

The Duomo.  

Italian Riviera

After thoroughly enjoying the Piedmont region, we started making our way to Lucca for our first cooking class.  Since we had an extra day we decided to check out Sanremo, a beach town on the Italian riviera.  A guidebook had said that the town used to be similar to Monaco many years ago but that its image and prestige had waned - we expected a sleepy beach town.  We rolled off the highway and immediately started driving in circles (sometimes in multiple circles around the roundabouts too - what the hell, when you are lost it buys time!).  We saw a random hotel and decided to check it out.  It shall remain nameless.  We went into the lobby and immediately smelled like lifelong smokers.  A woman showed us a room (supposedly “large bed, good views, balcony”) and later we laughed at how we both starting feeling depressed immediately...as in the room was so bad it felt like a dungeon - a dingy, depressing, dilapidated dungeon.  We said we would think about it and started to the car to make our escape, but the lady followed, hounding us for passport info to reserve the room.  Thankfully, as I was about to cave and say yes to staying in the torture chamber, Red the Hero took a stand and said no.  The clouds parted, angels wept and we left.  We drove along the coast and found this beauty - an apartment-style hotel room in a small town.  We shopped at a local grocery store for dinner (that was comical), made a caprese salad and toasted our good fortune that we were not chained in the room at Hotel Cry-Yourself-To-Sleep.

The other thing we don’t have pictures of is our experience on the train (Genova to Lucca).  God if someone had been filming.  We somehow got good tickets but didn’t really know what we were doing, so we got on the last car possible...the furthest car from our seats.  For those who don’t know about trains in Italy, the aisles in the economy cars are not wide enough for a cat to squeeze through and people sit/stand in empty areas - you sort of throw yourself and your suitcase along and hope you don’t kill anyone.  We proceeded to “scuzi” our way around and over people through 9 cars with our massive luggage.  We were sweaty (shocker there) and exhausted when we found our seats...everyone else looked peaceful and rested (and a bit disgusted by our arrival into their pristine environment).  Then we got to our next destination and long (boring) story short, our next train was cancelled (strikes) but we waved our train tickets at a bus driver and he took pity and let us on.  FYI, we don’t take pictures when we look like road kill, so just picture us hot and bothered throughout all of that. 

Alba, Italy

To begin this post, a hysterical story from Red re: starting out in Italy.

Below is a picture of our silly little Italian rental car that we lovingly call "the egg”.  The rental agent in Milan sternly informed us that the car was DIESEL so we were only to use DIESEL FUEL.  After a few hours of driving on the Italian Autobahn we had a moment of panic when we realized we were on a toll road with no Euro for the toll booths. As soon as we pulled off to get some Euro we found out you have to pay right at the exits. Fortunately, we found a lane that accepted carte so we headed there while fumbling around for our credit cards. After we stuck the ticket in a voice blared some incomprehensible Italian and we jammed our credit card in only to hear more instructions in Italian and no automatic gate lifting to let us through. Finally we got the machine to accept our damn card and we were on our way. After some painful wrong exits and general misdirection we made it to a highway gas station near Asti to fill up. We were very careful to pick the diesel pump which as it turns out is labeled black instead of green as in the U.S (very confusing). A moment of sheer frustration ensued when we could not fit the diesel gas hose into the car - it was just too small so diesel shot up in our face like a shitty drinking fountain. We cleaned up in the bathroom and asked the gas station attendant to help us using ridiculous hand gestures and pointing to the gas tank and yelling DIESEL NO FITTA IN OUR TANKA. He quickly noticed that the gas tank was labeled green and had a small green “unleaded only” label on it (again opposite of U.S.). Our car was a #^&@%& UNLEADED ONLY CAR!! Props to the competent rental car agents at the Milan airport. 

The car is actually smaller than it looks...definitely not even mini-pooper cooper size.  

So despite car issues we actually arrived in Alba, a cute town that we used as home base to visit Neive, Barolo, Barbaresco, the Alps, etc.  In fact, the hotel we found was booked for the night (we are winging some of the hotel reservations to make life “more interesting”) and the amazingly nice hotel owner Nico referred us to his friend’s inn in Neive (see gorgeous views from the balcony).  Both hotels and their owners were so welcoming we thought we had died and gone to heaven we were treated so nicely.

 

Ok, so learning-wise, we now have been to several Enotecas (wine shops), a few wineries and I have to say, the northern Italian wine is simply incredible.  Some cheap, some expensive, all tasty.  But Red has a bit more to say on that, and he will say it better than I, so you will just have to check back again.  That said, the food and wine in Italy does not disappoint.  My favorite thus far was a meal of homemade ravioli of meat and vegetables with a traditional zucchini sauce (think tiny grated zucchini with olive oil and other miniscule veggies).  The waiter kept implying it was a good local dish so I (reluctantly) went with it.  But it turned out to be so fresh tasting and delicious - even Red said it was the best dish of the night!  I suppose it is usually good to follow recommendations of locals, but sometimes you have to get over preconceived (aka weird sounding - meat ravioli and zucchini flower "sauce"?) notions, yes?  Following the pasta was the most delicate, creamy panna cotta I’ve ever had - it was the smoothest custard in the world.  

In a closing moment, Red and I also visited the Alps.  We drove on some windy roads, hiked around for a bit and had a nice picnic.  All in all, spectacular.  

Okkkk...enough talk.  Tomorrow Red plans on uploading his amazing wine entry - lots of good info coming.  Miss everyone - leave a comment or email! 

Hi from Germany and Prague

So its been a while since our last post...we were all excited, got blogging (at least I did, this is Rose), and then sort of lost steam.  Most of you are probably rolling your eyes since you know we have been unemployed for a month, but HAHA, there is more to do than you would think.  Gag, right?  Ok, moving on.

Lets get going with the pictures.  I'm going to be as brief as I can with the commentary, because it will be too long anyway, and I know half of you will tire of reading.  So here we go.

This is Konigssee, a huge, beautiful lake surrounded by mountains in Germany.  You see a boat in the pic...you can take these cool tours around the lake and get off and see a church and of course take in all of the cool scenery around you.  Unfortunately we did not do that - just pictures on the walking path.  Below are Brian and Red in front of the lake - how cute.

I can't resist this next picture because it kills so many birds with one stone (I kill myself with my own humor).  #1: I don't like birds and I love telling people about my dislike.  #2: Hopefully the picture is funny and makes you laugh.  #3: I love how the bird is moving to get away from Red.  Sadly, it did.

Moving along, next Brian took us to the Kehlstein House, a place that Hitler had built that was miraculously not destroyed during or after the war.  You have to go up a windy road in a hot bus...although they were kind, Brian and Red made fun of my iron grip on the seat handles and death stare during the ride (curvy roads + heat + rose = sick).  But it was worth it.  The views were breathtaking and we had fun hiking around the rocks near the house/cafe.

Lets take a break from what we did and discuss some differences we've noticed thus far between Europe and the United States.  #1: Strange to say, but in America it is rare to find a twin bed in a hotel room.  Don't know why, but it seems we just don't do that.  We have gotten very comfortable sleeping about 2 feet away from Brian (thank god he doesn't doesn't smell or take offense at sharing a room with us), and he has gotten very comfortable in twin beds.

#2: We Americans love our air conditioning and for the most part it seems that Europeans have learned to live without it.  Bravo to them - energy saving, less money, etc.  But sleeping is tricky when you are sweating...a lot. 

#3: Escalators seem to be short in America.  Check this out - it looks like it never stops and when you are at the top or bottom it feels that way.  It has got to be longer than a football field (it leads to the subway in Prague).  I'm sure the guys will say I am a lunatic, but I think I'm right.

#4: Things seem to be smaller in Europe.  Sigh, is this a commentary on America's "bigger is better" concept?  No, this ain't a political blog.  But look at this elevator - every time we step into this thing the person standing near the door loses part of a butt-cheek when it closes.  It uncomfortably fits 3 people (without an ounce of luggage) but it does get the job done.

Ok, so Germany was absolutely beautiful, clean, and fun, and then we drove forever and came to Prague.  Like Germany, there are cool buildings all around - in fact every time you turn around there is an amazing church or pretty building that has detailed carvings or statues on it.   

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But hands down, one of my favorite times of the trip so far has got to be the following moment on the St. Charles Bridge.  Great views all around, people walking and hanging out, the river, the street art, and then this jazz group playing a mellow tune.  Prague is said to have quite the jazz scene and this little group represented well.  The next pic is from the bridge and we went to have a relaxing beer at the river-side cafe.  

Ok, we're nearly done with the first segment.  Have we done very much food/wine sampling, tasting or learning?  Yes we have.  The traditional food of Germany and Czech is delicious but rich, and although we have had wine, the best drinks so far have been beer - everywhere in Germany has a Hofbrau Haus that brews its own beers and even though I am not a huge beer person I find myself liking the Radler (beer and lemonade mixed) and even some of the Weissbiers.  Perhaps we will explore beer tasting for our place at home.

Alrighty - we miss you all and hope this hasn't been too boring.  I'm working on the photography (the camera is amazing but the photographer is remembering how to work a nice one!) and there will be more once we get to Italy (we leave tomorrow!).  Leave us a comment - or an email!

PS: Red is currently sweating.

PPS: Brian is awesome and has been the best tour guide.  He deserves a gold medal in the olympics of touring Europe.