Bourgogne

We enjoyed a relaxing Easter weekend in Bourgogne, France (that's Burgundy for you Americans). Erin's friend Delphine and her family have a country house there that served as our home base for the long Easter weekend. Lucky for us Friday and Monday were UK holidays so we could stretch the enjoyment a little longer.

We left on the Eurostar for Paris on Friday morning. After a quick lunch in Paris, we met Delphine and loaded into our rental Citroen, for a couple of hour drive to the house. The area was beautiful, culminating in about a kilometer drive down a dirt road in the middle of a farm to their house.

Later in the evening Delphine's mother and nephew (Noe, 2) arrived on the train followed by her partner Christophe and their son Viktor, 4 (they should have been on the earlier train too, but Christophe forgot to pick Viktor up from school first....oops). It was a full house. We enjoyed a late dinner with everyone that started with escargot and this amazing meat pie. I'm not sure what was in the meat pie but it was fantastic. Then of course was the cheese course. We particularly liked the Epoisses. Delphine describes the particularly pungent cheeses as mechant, which translates as mean and angry...I'm amazed that I like the mean ones...I must have grown up a little in the last couple of years. Of course I was the only one who didn't speak French, but everyone tried to speak English when they could, until they couldn't express their passionate objections to American politics then they'd be in full French. Just when it got to the interesting stuff I couldn't understand. "blah, blah, blah....George Bush...blah blah...stupid idiot...blah blah".

On Saturday, after a leisurely breakfast of pain au chocolat and yogurt, Erin, Delphine, Christophe and I loaded in the Citroen to go visit a couple of wineries and have lunch at a super fancy Michelin starred restaurant. Unfortunately traffic was awful and we missed the wineries and showed up an hour late for lunch. The restaurant was fantastic though. I'll add the name when I find it. We sat in the garden for champagne and amouse bouche followed by an excellent lunch in the dining room. After lunch we walked through a beautiful hill-top town of Vezelay.

Even though we missed the winery tours, we stopped in a couple of tasting rooms and sampled the local grapes, primarily Chablis and Pinot Noir. We made a bit of dent and brought home about 9 bottles of wine including a couple of bottles called Ratafia. Ratafia is a lot like Port and apparently was brought to France by the Romans. Whenever a pact was signed or ratified they drank Ratafia. It's goood.

Saturday night we were joined by Delphine's sister Clair and her husband Mathieu, parents of little Noe. Everyone sat around the fireplace talking, drinking wine and playing with the kids. It was fun. No dinner though since we gorged at lunch.

Easter Sunday was fantastic. No one there was particularly religious, so none of us went to church, but we had a great Easter celebration regardless. Erin and I got to hide all of the Easter eggs for the kids on Sunday and had a blast watching them find them. It was a beautiful sunny, 75 degree day and so we went for a walk through the fields and through the little forest.

When we returned we were greeted with the start of an Easter lunch extravaganza. All meals of course start with an aperitif, which is a tradition we need to take back to the states. Our aperitif was the Ratafia. Next course was a giant plate of Fois Gras served on toasted bread with an onion jelly and truffles. Complimented with a chardonnay. What a great way to start Easter. After that was a roast pork shoulder with garlic and rosemary and potatoes. The wine moved on to some of the local pinot noir we bought the day before. Fantastic. Following the pork, when I thought I was stuffed for the week, the cheeses were back out. Certainly it would be rude not to have a little of our favorite "machant" cheese. Almost done, just a little chocolate and almond cake to top it off. What a great day sitting on the porch of a French farm house in the middle of Bourgogne getting a sun burn with a multi-generational French family....in french. Totally cool.

Once I finished doing the dishes (the only job not requiring translation), I had the best nap stretched under a tree on the grass. Best that was until Erin woke me up because I was snoring too loudly and it was affecting her nap. But if that's the worst part of the day....

We even ate dinner later that night. Amazingly. We had a light dinner of duck, salad, asparagus and bread....oh yeah and cheese and wine. I never thought I'd eat again after lunch...but I'd hate to be rude...

Monday was another leisurely day, then Erin and I drove back to Paris for our departure back to London. It was a fantastically relaxed and enjoyable weekend. I look forward to moving into the house next summer for four months to help with home repairs and eat....at least that's what I'm going to start trying to figure out how to do.

Happy Easter.

Ted