Wayyyy back in January I made some gnocchi Parisienne for Cheryl’s birthday dinner. Well one of them. It was much more decadent than this dish since there were copious amounts of black truffles shaved on them. Cheryl remarked that it would be ok if I made gnocchi Parisienne more often. I was flipping through Michael White’s Classico e Moderno trying to figure out what to make for Sunday dinner a couple of weeks ago and saw a recipe for gnocchi with walnut and gorgozola cream sauce. I wasn’t in the mood to do the whole potato thing and I also didn’t want to use pre-made, so, remembering Cheryl’s words I decided it would be a good time to make the gnocchi Parisienne again. And she says I don’t listen! (more…)
A Passport Tells A Lot of Stories…
Happy Groundhog Day! Much like the wily marmot monax I’ve been hibernating a little bit. It’s all good though, more on that later. One of the things on my to-do list this week was to send in my passport for renewal. I can’t believe it’s been 10 years already. (more…)
Happy New Year! Cooking with Mom – Chicken Provencal
Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s. We finished off 2016 in Edinburgh, Scotland spending Christmas with Cheryl’s sister Shelly and her husband Ross. On the way back we stopped off to see my family in the beautiful Mid-Hudson Valley of New York which is where we rang in 2017. As a bonus, I got to cook New Year’s Eve dinner with my mom which I really enjoyed doing. (more…)
Cauliflower Soup with Petit épeautre
I promise this is the last post related to our trip. On our first night in Avignon, we dined at L’Agape, a restaurant recommended by our Airbnb host. Awesome dinner. One dish which really caught our attention was their cauliflower soup. Now you’re saying to yourself ‘had to be an amazing cauliflower soup’ and it was (especially for Cheryl to like it!), but the thing which stuck with us was the chewy grain in the soup. (more…)
Truffle Hunting in Provence
That’s Mirabelle. She rocks at hunting truffles.
I didn’t want to put this in last week’s post because, let’s be honest here, black winter truffle deserve their own post. When we were planning our Thanksgiving week trip to Avignon I remembered one of the people/places I follow on Twitter is Les Pastras, a farm in Provence. But not just any farm. One with truffles. And truffle hunts. Once we booked our place to stay I sent a request regarding joining a truffle hunt if they had any scheduled. They did! (more…)
Avignon – Thanksgiving Week Abroad
View from the flat
I promised you some photos from our trip to Avignon in Provence and here they are! Too short a trip as always but that’s ok, because it just means we’ll have to go back. Over the past few years we’ve discovered traveling internationally over the Thanksgiving holiday/early December can be quite reasonable and enjoyable. Yeah, the weather may be a little drizzly and damp depending where you go (in Europe at least), but since it’s the off-season you don’t have to fight the crowds of tourists. And you save a little money too since you’re not paying high-season prices. (more…)
Joyeaux Thanksgiving from Provence!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! That’s right, we’re abroad in Avignon, France for the week and will be settling in for our own Thanksgiving dinner (duck breast) as soon as I make it. Much smaller affair than if we were back home and it was very easy to do all of the shopping this morning. Warmer than Chicago too. Some very fun posts coming in the next weeks. Cheers!
