This post is dedicated to my dear friend, and caramel slice ally, JF, who has a "thing" for the bubbly stuff!
Every time I come to this place I feel like I'm living in a cliched French gourmet movie - I have to pinch myself to check that I'm actually me!
You see, HOS and I are lucky enough to count amongst our friends a wonderful French family who make champagne, in Champagne...in the cutest little village called Villers Allerand. They produce champagne for Nicolas Feuillatte as well as their own label, and they live just like we all think the good French life should be.
Firstly, they drink a lot of champagne!! They have it with lunch, pre-dinner drinks, dinner, then the heavier stuff comes out after! I won't layer it on any thicker by adding that their wine cellar, too, is robust, and is shared out generously!
You see the group there in the first pic - a typical summer pre-dinner champagne and nibblies in the garden after a day in the vines! Sigh...magic. You see a few more vine pics above, including one of the sons trimming the vines on their special tractor, and of course two taken down in the "cave" (underground limestone cellars where the champagne is stored and matured) - one is of the bottles which are turned by hand daily, and the other is a date scratched on the limestone wall...1873. Living history and gourmet decadence all in one!
Secondly, the food is unbelievable. Now, I know I've said that many times, about many things...but this is a real French wife and Mum, doing real home-cooked French food that would put most aussie French restaurants to shame! The food is simple, rustic and absolutely heavenly, and as we mostly visit in Summer, alot of it comes straight from their potager (traditional kitchen garden). Yep, it was like living in the Food Channel!
Some of her delights, pics above, show the entree of crab, yoghurt and dill, then you have Laurence's Stuffed Tomato Pie (which has veges layered with a wonderfully salty minced veal and pork mixture), the ever famous cheese plate to follow (they have one of these to choose from every night, even when we're not there!), and finally fresh raspberries (picked from their garden at 5pm that day) with mascarpone...oh myyyyyyy...that was for dinner on our arrival - TOUGH GIG!
(Btw, the cheeses you see there are Reblechon, Pont L'eveque, Camembert, Marioilles, and Ementhal...mmmmmmmmm)
And then you can see the breakfast set-up we awoke to - fresh bread and croissants from the town boulangerie, fresh picked raspberries from the garden and two types of HOME-MADE JAM - I know, what can you say!!! You can see the fresh raspberries growing in the raspberry canes in the garden...check them out!! Those plump red raspberries were used also for that yum looking almond and raspberry tart thingy. Sigh.
There's a few more pics there of the garden. You can see The Princess and HOS checking it out, measuring up to make our own at home I suspect! Then there's the artichoke plant there, I'd never seen anyone with their own artichoke plants before...the word is they are divineeeeee straight from the garden. See what I mean about living in a gourmet movie???!!! I mean, who lives like this????
Now, while we were enjoying the bliss of local French Champagne living, we still managed to drag ourselves out and about to have a look at another great French institution....Le Tour de France!! Purely coincidentally (hmmmm), HOS landed us near Reims (the big city of the Champagne region) the day before Le Tour was finishing in the beautiful city...and as The Princess had never seen a stage before, we took her for a sneaky peak. We rocked up to see the finish with a couple of hours to spare - we wanted The Princess to experience the Caravan as it came through - this is the bizarre tradition of all the sponsor trucks and float type things driving ahead of the cyclists throwing samples or caps or keyrings or other dodgy stuff into the crowds! HOS, The Princess and I are very much into participation which rewarded us with 4 different types of hats, including the very attractive one worn by HOS above, 5 packets of Haribo lollies, and 3 keyrings. Unfortunately we missed out on the Quik and washing detergent samples...oh well, better luck next year!
So, sportsfans, there you have it...two nights in French paradise, where literally it was the land of Champagne, gourmet food, amazing hospitality, and even a Le Tour finish thrown in!
Oh...these guys just happen to have a ski chalet in the French Alps...we were heading there next for 4 days for HOS to cycle...yep, TOUGH GIG!!!
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