Quick recap of the sights: First stop was La Rochelle, which is a nice harbor town about 1.5 hours from Nantes. It has two towers at the entrance, and these towers are on every postcard we saw there (so I obviously had to take a picture).
Next we stopped at Rochefort to see the Corderie Royale, which is an incredibly long building where rope was made. It's now a museum.
Xavier-Freddy's house in Chaillevette was fantastic. Plenty of space for all of us, and it was a weekend free of tv, internet and phones (for some of us anyway).
Royan is a town not too far from Chaillevette where Elise and I were able to go flying with Xavier-Freddy. It was very interesting to see the view that a pilot has in a plane, instead of just looking out the side windows like you do on a commercial flight.
Now, onto the food!! I really don't think I need to eat anything for about a week after all the deliciousness I consumed this weekend.
When we stopped in La Rochelle on the first day, we ate at a nice little restaurant by the harbor. I had salmon pate with bread for my appetizer, then a salmon steak with cream sauce and spinach for an entree, and an amazing L'ile flottant for dessert. L'ile flottant literally means "floating island" and it is an "island" made up of egg whites whipped with sugar, baked and then it "floats" in a sea of sweet English cream. It's absolutely delicious.
For dinner that night, we had Raclette, which is a small grill in the middle of the table where each person cooks his or her own meats, cheeses and vegetables. We had plenty of chicken, beef, duck, cheese and mushrooms. So tasty!
For dessert, Jerome's wife Elise made a great gateau au chocolat.
The next morning, I had cereal and a croissant. That was actually the first croissant I've had since I arrived in France, and it was perfectly flaky and buttery. Yum!
For lunch, we had a real seafood feast with raw oysters, shrimp and little fried fish. I'd never had oysters before, and to be honest, I'm not a big fan, but at least I can say I tried them. The shrimp and fish were good though! We followed that meal with various cheeses and breads, and then had some pastries for dessert.
Dinner on Friday night was a real treat, with "Eclade de Moule." It's a very famous dish in the region made of mussels cooked under burning pine needles. We went to the forest earlier in the day to collect dry pine needles from the trees.
When we got back, Xavier-Freddy, Jerome and Elise went to work setting up the mussels in a very specific pattern so that they were all standing upright in a circle.
Once the mussels are set, you put the pine needles on top, and then light them on fire. The fire burns for several minutes, and then you put it out and fan away as much of the ash as you can. For the most part, the mussels are still closed, but a little tap on the table opens them up and then you can eat them. It takes a little practice to avoid getting the ashes in the mussels when you crack them open, but they are perfectly cooked and taste great!
We had more raclette after the mussels, as well as tomatoes and endive. For dessert, we had a fruit tart from a local bakery.
On our final day, breakfast was once again cereal and a croissant. Lunch was beef and lamb cooked on the grill. Took a while for Jerome and Gairik to get the grill fired up, but once they did, they did a great job cooking the beef and lamb.
Xavier-Freddy also cooked up some fresh green beans and mushrooms that really complemented the meat well. We had another fruit tart for dessert.
I should also mention that throughout the weekend we tried several types of wine. A new favorite is Pinau, which is actually more of an appertif or sipping wine. Very sweet, but rather strong. We also tried some wine from 1971, which had also become very sweet over the years. Though not a wine, Xavier-Freddy also had two jars full of fruit and some type of alcohol- one with cherries and one with prunes. I tried one bite of the cherry and it was far too much. Others seemed to enjoy it though!
After all of that fancy French food, we decided to make things easy on ourselves last night and ordered pizza at Jerome and Elise's house. We had a few different varieties, but my favorite was ham, cheese and honey. It sounds really strange, but the mix of salty and sweet was just right!
I really hadn't known what it meant to eat like a French person until this weekend, but I'm so glad that Xavier-Freddy, Jerome and Elise were there to show me the way.
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