France: Day 1

Our first day in France, was pretty foggy. We stepped off the plane and into the chaos of Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport at about 8:15. Neither of us was able to really get much sleep on the plane, but alas...we had to keep on going! After picking up our luggage, we found our rental car and hopped on the interstate to head to Cheverny.

Getting out of Paris was a little difficult, between my jet lagged map reading and our GPS which seemed determined to send us straight through the heart of Paris, rather than around it, we had a somewhat stressful departure from the city. By about 10:00, we were headed in the correct direction.

The first stop of the day, was a Chateau de Cheverny. This was a great way to start our trip. It took us about an hour and a half...or maybe two considering our fumbling around Paris, to get to Cheverny. We walked the grounds of the Chateau, stopped and  met the hunting dogs in their kennel, and walked through the gardens before touring the actual Chateau.

The Chateau is located in the Loire Valley and though it is open to the public, still has permanent residents who live on the third floor. This chateau had a very casual and relaxed feel, perhaps because it is actually lived in!

View of the Chateau as you walk down the drive from the entrance.

After visiting the Chateau we went to a tiny little Italian restaurant for lunch...I know, our first meal in France was Italian...but it was open, close by, and we were hungry! We ate our fill of pasta and then headed to the Maison des Vins d'IAOC Cheverny to taste some of the local wine.

This experience was very cool. When we got there, we spent a few minutes touring the small museum before going to taste. The tasting room was something I'd never seen before. There were probably 4 large floor to ceiling barrel structure covered in labels and spouts.

Wine tasting "vats"

First, we each tasted the four wines that were featured that day. I must admit Loire Valley wine is not my preference, but it was very interesting to taste the different types. Our favorite was the Rosé.

After tasting the four featured wines, we purchase three tastings. This is where this process got really cool. When you purchase three tastings, they give you a wine glass with a quarter sized microchip on the bottom (see below).

Wine glass with microchip.

Once you decide between the 50 or 60 options to taste, you place your glass on the pedestal beneath the spout of your chose wine and wait. Within seconds, a small light above the spout blinks and your taste is poured. After your third taste, if you place your glass on another pedestal, it will not refill. Pretty fancy schmancy, huh? Yeah, we thought so too! Because we loved this experience so much, we bought a bottle of rosé (we got to keep our tasting glass too) and headed to Amboise.

We arrived in Amboise and were dragging...that is the understatement of the century...so we took a nap and then showered and got ready to explore the town. Amboise is a quaint Loire Valley town. It was too early to eat dinner so we decided to walk around and check it out. We walked to the church, and then down the river walk. Everything was beautiful.

View of Amboise from St. Denis

Walking along the river.

There is nothing like a good stroll to wake you up! We loved our walking tour of Amboise. We stopped in a few shops and then decided it was time for a drink and a snack. We found the cutest little Creperie, Anne de Bretagne at the base of the entrance to the Royal Chateau d'Amboise and decided to settle in there until dinner time.

We each got our own small bottle of Loire Valley wine.

We had a nice light snack and lots of good conversation before heading down the street to have dinner at La Reserve. And wow did they deliver! Our first French meal was perfect! We split a bottle of Chinon (told you weren't huge fans of Loire wine...) and then had salmon carpaccio and my favorite, foie gras.

Wonderful bottle of wine to warm us up from walking around in the cold!

Salmon carpaccio

Foie Gras with poached pears.

Day one was wonderful. This trip was our first "big" trip with only the two of us and it was wonderful. We have loved our family trips, but this was a very nice and much needed vacation for us. More to come, so stay tuned!

Scenes from Our Trip

February and March were two CRAZY months...and I'm just now feeling like I can catch my breath! In February, we had a little snow/ice storm in lovely (and usually warm) Columbia. The snow hit the week we were to leave to go on our vacation, to France. Adam and I spent the better part of the week at home, as both of our offices were closed, pacing...and praying that our trip would not be cancelled. 

Luckily, the day of our flights out, the weather was sunny and beautiful. I'll be posting more day-by-day details of our trip soon, but in the meantime, here are a few snapshots from our French Adventure!

...I'm already ready to head back! Most of these pictures are of food, because they are all iPhone pictures. My family is kind of crazy about snapping photos of food and sending them to each other, so we documented every meal and then shared later via Whatsapp.

Vin! We had lots of very wonderful food and wine on our trip!

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Macaroons from Ladurée on the Champs Elysées

I broke down...and did a little shopping...

More details to come, but this was Adam's adventure with beef tartare!

The most beautiful church in Paris, San Chapelle

The Hall of Mirrors at Versailles

You can't go to France without getting a Nutella crepe from a vendor on the street!

Scallop and Truffle Risotto...I've got to win the lottery so I can start
keeping a stash of truffles in the pantry!

I am my father's daughter...we had to do a little antiquing!

Another one of Adam's adventurous meals, escargot!

The travelers!

Cheers to another good trip on the books! Now time to plan the next one!

Recipe: Kale and Mushroom Risotto

I recently, thanks to one of the other blogs I read, stumbled upon A Couple Cooks, a great blog about (you guessed...) a couple that cooks.

Their blog has some wonderful recipes that seem to be fairly user friendly but at the same time appear more gourmet than your average beginner recipe.The first recipe we tried was the Mushroom and Kale Risotto. Kale is very in right now, which to me is a little funny because I've been eating kale since I was a small child. My dad always grew a nice crop of kale in our garden and it was a fall and winter staple in our house. I guess we were just ahead of the curve!

Anyway, I'm a huge fan of kale and this risotto did not disappoint! You can find the recipe here.

Starting the cooking process.

My new favorite Parmesan blend from my new favorite
grocery store, Trader Joe's!

The finished product.

We topped our risotto with red pepper flakes. (Can you tell we like pepper flakes?) This recipe made enough for us to have several meals, and I think it was even better the next day!

Recipe: Spaghetti with Clams

One of my favorite Italian meals is Spaghetti alle Vongole, or Spaghetti with Clams. It seems like each time I've traveled to Italy, I've spent at least one meal a day eating this amazing dish. My husband teased my sister and me throughout our last trip, because if I wasn't eating spaghetti with clams, my sister was!

Well, it's been so long I can hardly stand it a while since we've been to Italy and one day recently, I started craving my favorite dish. So, I did what any good foodie does, and I googled it. I found a great recipe, here.

Giada's recipe is perfect. I did make a few changes (added red pepper flakes and cut back on the parsley), but overall, I stuck right to it. If you like clams, give it a shot!

*Tip: Clams, like most bi-valves, tend to have a sand-factor. Though I can handle most anything, I cannot handle getting sand in my mouth when I bite into something. To remedy this, before you start cooking, soak your clams in ice cold water with about 1/2 cup of corn meal for about 45 minutes. Then, drain and rinse your clams and you are ready to go!

Chopping the garlic...this is not for those wary of garlic breath!

For some reason, the bugs felt the need to document this
(please excuse the bad hair and lack of makeup)!

Onions and Shallots

Beautiful bowl of clams!

The whole process takes about 15 minutes total...
so this would make an easy weeknight meal!

The finished product!

This was the first new recipe of the new year that we tried and it might be my new favorite. We've even decided to "add it to the rotation". Have you tried anything new recently? If so, what was it? Will you be adding it to your rotation?

2014

Well, based on my lack of posts this year, I'm sure it wouldn't take a genius to figure out that this year kind of started out differently than I had imagined. Only five days into 2014, I got a phone call from my dad telling me that my sweet grandmother had, after almost 94 years, gone to heaven.

Though we miss her here, I feel a sense of peace when I think about the fact that she has been reunited with her husband, her son, all of her brothers, and many more members of her family. As a woman who lost her hearing at a young age, I know she is listening to the voices of those she loves and the hearing music she had missed out on for so many years.

She was a wonderful woman, with a deep love for God, her family, and friends. After years of struggling with poor health, she is finally in heaven, where I imagine they threw quite the party to welcome her home.