Degas, le foie gras et le gratin dauphinois
Back after a bit more than one week, here I am again with new updates and I must say that I was wondering how I should start as a lot happened since!
So first, thanks to of all of you for the comments left on the blog, I was so pleased to receive so many great feedback, merci à tous from Sydney to Paris!
Each week, I will try to share with you some of my experiences in different areas covering some topics as socio & cultural, travels, gastronomy, professional and political… always finishing with THE expression of the week!
Then, to name a few, as It could be quite exhaustive, here are some details on what I did on last week.
I experienced 3 great things, the first was Vicky Christina Barcelona, the last Woody Allen Movie with Penelope Cruz, Scarlett Johansson and Javier Bardem. A brilliant movie that reminds me a lot from Pedro Almodovar and the Iberian culture as it occurs in Spain : food, wine, folk guitar music, Gaudi architecture, complicated love relationships (ménage à 3)… Penelope Cruz is stunning and so beautiful in this neurotic Spanish female role -no surprise that she won the 09 Academy Award for the best supporting Actress! Brice organized this movie session as a surprise on friday night at the Govindas, a great Indian vegetarian food buffet (plan some light meals during the day as you will need room to enjoy it) and the best of this place is the movie room itself where you watch the movie in an almost lie down position with cushions to make it really comfortable as a real pasha . Great night and really affordable as $52 for 2 people (buffet & movie)
On Saturday night, we had a French diner at Lucie & Olivier’s place, starting with some foie gras à l’Armagnac (Rougié), which was a bit special as the flavor of the alcohol is quite strong, so make sure you match it with some fig jam or pan fried it a bit to soften the taste of Armagnac. Olivier honoured it as one of the best French gastronomy specialties (thanks mum & dad for your latest treasure box from Paris, we couldn’t believe that the Foie gras came through the customs!). After this entrée, Lucie made as a main dish a Gratin Dauphinois, the veritable DAUPHINOIS (vs. Savoyard, the most commonly known and cooked) !! yes, there is only one gratin called Dauphinois which is made with potatoes, milk, cream and butter (for béchamelle), and a bit of garlic, WIHTOUT ANY OTHER additional ingredient : no gruyère on the top as the crusty part is obtained from the butter, either Nutmeg ground (noix de muscat), just keep it authentic , potatoes’ lovers would die for it!! Lucie also made her exceptional cookies, her first ones made in Oz, mentioning that we’ve been dreaming of it for a couple of months now and it was a real délice!!! The recipe experienced a couple of turbulence between Grenoble and Sydney as it is often quite tricky to find specific ingredients due to different packaging and location in the supermarket, adaptation time! Can’t wait to the next ones.
We spent the rest of the evening playing poker and Belote. It was the third time that I was playing poker and with a bit more practice to get enough confident with the strategies (tricks, rules and statistics) I might soon join the boys to their ritual tournament on Tuesdays nights.
On Sunday, I woke up at 8.00am, a bit hard as I had a short night, to travel to Canberra with Nadège for the special Degas’ exhibition (impressionism), a must see, so Auzzie mates, don’t miss the opportunity to see some of the authentic and so famous Degas’ master pieces (painting, photos, sculptures)!
That is it for today so have a great week and stay tuned!
Expression of the week: “same shit, different smelling” dixit Tammi.
