French microbrewery

I'm drinking their stout, and it's not half bad. A little overcarbonated, but other than that, a excellent beer.

http://www.b-a-s.fr/page/accueil.html

There's a few others that I've found in the the supermarket, I'll have to try them.

Poor Man's Fondue

We had another lovely food oriented weekend here. We picked up a small wheel of Mont d'Or cheese and baked it until it was gooey inside. When dipped boiled potatoes into the melting goodness and ate it all up. The only thing that is lacks compared to fondue is that toasted cheese cracker that forms on the bottom of the fondue pot.
I discovered another good beer, Appenzeller Holzfass Bier, from those crafty brewers at Brauerei Locher AG. It was a perfect match for the hearty potato and speck soup that Natalie made on Friday.
We are both looking forward to Vienna this weekend. It's a shame we can only spend the weekend there, but it should be quite fun.

Food-centric weekend (yes this describes most of our days)

Yesterday, we decided not to go the Bern and were planning on going to the market in Ferney Voltaire to have oysters and white wine for breakfast again. When we got up, however, it was pouring, so we hung out at home until everything cleared up and watched a little bit of American tv from this past week. At around 11, it was clear so we headed into town to walk through our local market and then head into Geneva. We got to the bottom of the hill only for Matt to realize that he left his wallet back at home so we had to head back up (he did buy me an eclair to make up for this). Since there wasn't another bus for awhile, we ate lunch here and chilled out for awhile and then tried again. This time we successfully made it into Geneva, tried to do some shopping at H&M, but were dissuaded by the lines. We then went to the different department stores and picked up some necessities (bread, cheese, wine) at Coop city and headed into Ferney to eat dinner.

On Thursday, we went to have pizza to celebrate my passing the bar and were planning on having champagne afterwards, but I was completely exhausted and just wanted to relax and pass out. So Saturday was more of a celebratory night. We have also been craving spicy food and had heard that there were a few good Indian restaurants in Ferney so we tried one. When they brought the picked hot pepper condiment, we began eating it with a fork. We also got nan avec fromage, which is just absolutely amazing and filled with brie. After a great dinner, we took the bus home and split a bottle of champagne, while chilling out.

Today, we bussed into Geneva again to attend the expat expo and picked up a lot of flyers from various organizations, along with bagels and hummos from an American style bakery. We then headed to the autumn bio (organic) outdoor market in Ferney. We arrived, and had not had lunch, so got a few crepes with an espresso (for Matt) and cider (for me). Forgetting I was in France and thinking that this was an outdoor market in the fall, I was expecting hot cider while instead it was fermented cold cider. It was a fantastic mistake though as the cider was bubbly, fresh, and really delicious. We bought vegetables, chevre, and bread, and then explored the wine sellers. They all invited you to do tastings, although compared to tastings in the U.S., they would just hand you a full glass of wine to try. It is an interesting experience -- these wines are really good (the NY Time has even developed a crush on them), but the labels for the bottles from these small producers seem to be made on inkjet printers. Since I have complained about the price of everything here, let me say that these wines from the vineyards were really well-priced, especially for how good they are. We also picked up some lavender honey and a honey spice cake and my stomach is growling thinking of dinner tonight.

Why is the Mariachi singer screaming like Hitler?

We are watching a show that is the Bavarian equivalent of Lawrence Welk and is completely surreal, not only because it is in German. It is a musical variety show and when we first turned to it, there was a man with feathered blond hair singing some sort of love song in German. Tons of women from the audience (wearing dirndls) kept coming up bringing him flowers and giving him kisses, except for one, who brought him a bag of chili cheese chips. I have no idea and neither does Matt as to the significance of the chips. Eventually, there was a large group of women standing around the guy, all swaying in time to the music. Then, in a move designed by some horrible public relations person, children with downs syndrome in lederhosen came running up to hug the singer.

Next, an older woman named Dagmar came out and sand a song with a bunch of dancers dressed like Vegas showgirls behind her and two young men continually kissing her hands.

Next came a few German brothers singing very earnestly while the women in the audience (all in dirndks) swooned.

Next came a guy who began singing with flamenco dancers in the background and then passed by a mariachi band, where to be funny (??) some guy started yelling at him in German and sounded as though he was issuing the orders to invade Poland (again).

Then, the marching bands arrived, including one whose name Matt began giggling at as soon as he saw because its name translates to "the blowing orchestra," which while true, is still a "no really" sort of name, the equivalent to "the musician orchestra." After them came a parade of women bearing linzer torte on platters.

Lesson for the evening: the Germans may be way more perverse than the French (in our limited, not intending to stereotype entire countries and cultures, opinion). C'est vrai.

La Pharmacie

I am nowhere near the first (or millionth) person to write about the particularities of the French pharmacies, but they are worth all of the commentary. The pharmacie is a strange combination of an actual pharmacy and beauty store combined with amazing customer service. First, if you want any sort of medication at all (or even items like contact lens solution), you must walk up to the pharmacist and ask for what you want or describe your symptoms and have them give you something. This is increasingly strange because, while it applies to very basic medication like Advil, it also applies to things that in the U.S. must be prescribed by doctors, like codeine (yes, Mom, I remember that I am allergic to codeine, it is just an example). Also, many beauty products, particularly skincare, are considered to be essentially medications, or as important as medications, so if you walk in and begin to look at the various body lotions or face creams (or even cellulite cream, which is hugely popular here, it seems), a pharmacist will come to assist you. You tell her what your skin issues are or what you are looking for and she will recommend things and have you test them out there. Pharmacy brands here are also not the super cheap ones. It is not as expensive as the private beauty brands with their own "by-appointment-only" boutiques certainly, and most drugstores carry a range, but it is more expensive then what one can get at the grocery store or Coop city. Even though it is a pharmacist assisting you and taking this process very seriously, it is not clinical -- when I last bought lotion, she expounded about the smell of some of them or the sensual experience of using another. Then, when you check out, like in a department store in the U.S., you get tons and tons of free samples.

I should all mention that this isn't in one of the big or fancy pharmacies, but the small one in our little town. Oh, and the beauty products here are pretty amazing, which may explain the statistic I read that the average French woman spends something like 20% of her income on various beauty products and perfume.

Gruyeres

Yesterday, we got out of town and went to Gruyeres for a day trip and to celebrate the start of fondue season. We took an incredibly picturesque train ride over to Gruyeres and went on a tour of the cheese-making facilities. The cows graze in the lower pastures in the winter and pastures higher up on the mountains in the summer. We got to see a lot of the cows, who were madly grazing. They are moved, in part, to ensure that they eat a wide variety of grasses and flowers, since those flavors are reflected in the cheese. The Gruyeres milk and cream is absolutely amazing -- its very high in fat and the taste is better than any other milk or cream I have had. After that tour, we walked up to the town itself and had a small lunch of chocolate fondue with fruit. After lunch we wandered around the town a bit and went to the Castle and city walls.

I really enjoyed the visit to the castle. It was constructed around 1000 and based on the Savoie model of incredibly thick walls and a central, interior courtyard that all the rooms faced into. The last major renovations for the castle were completed in the 1400s. We got to see a rotisserie spit and the tour guide told us that they were unsure exactly how old the mechanism was, but that the museum archives included the bill for its repair from the 15th century. We got to walk through some of the fireplaces, since they were about 6 feet deep, 8 ft high, and 10-12 ft wide. We got to see the Burgundy cloaks taken as spoils of war, hear about battles with the armies of Bern and Burgundy, see suits of armor, and look at graffiti from where the counts made treaties or recorded other events by either writing or etching them on the interior walls.

After a look at the very old, it was time for an experience with the modern, so we went to the H.R. Giger museum and bar. I did not know much about Giger before the trip, except that he designed the alien from "Alien," and regret that the museum did not give more information about him, instead just showing his work with little context. While I appreciate the intricacy of his work and the need for art that is disturbing and thought-provoking, I did not really enjoy the museum. I thought the furniture was fantastic, but the art (particularly the adult only room). I did like some of Giger's collection of art and really liked the furniture he designed. While I was not a fan of the museum, I really liked the Giger Bar. It was certainly still dark and eerie, but the design was detail oriented and impeccable. They also had great beer (for Matt) and hot chocolate with meringues (for me). We proceeded to walk around some more through the town and around some of the walking trails and saw the decorated cows for a festival and heard men playing alpine horns, which was surprisingly beautiful.

For dinner, we went to Le Chalet for fondue. There are a few superstitions about fondue. First, you never ever ever drink cold water with fondue because it will cause a stomachache. This belief may actually be true, or it may just be an excuse to drink Swiss white wine. Either way, you drink either hot tea or wine with the fondue and many people have a Coke afterward. Second, there is a season for fondue. While it is possible in some places to get fondue out of season, it is rare that people order it or restaurants offer it. Thankfully, since it has not gotten cool (especially high up in Gruyere) then fondue was appropriate. The meal starts out with a plate of cured, dried meat for everyone at the table (this sounds bad, but it was very similar to Prosciutto or Coppa ham) along with bread, butter, and a bowl of picked onions and cornichons. The next course is the fondue -- Gruyere cheese with either wine or kirsch and made much better with a good deal of pepper. Along with the fondue is more bread and boiled fingerling potatoes. At the end of the course, the last bit of cheese bakes into something like a toile and is scraped from the pan and eaten alone. For dessert, I had raspberries with cream, which was even more decadent and wonderful than the fondue. We headed back, stuffed and happy (though anticipating very strange dreams from the Giger museum).

There are photos up at our Flickr account.

Here are links to some of the places we visited:

Chateau Gruyeres
Giger Museum
Giger Bar
La Maison du Gruyeres (the cheesemaking demonstration)
Le Chalet restaurant

Snippets

A few things from today:

-In perhaps an incredibly revealing tidbit about where we live and French attitudes, I learned tonight where to buy good beer: the Santoriz. That is, the health food store. I, for one, am not surprised that beer is a health tonic!

-The milk farmers in France and Switzerland are protesting for a variety of reasons, including lack of price protections for milk. This morning, as we were walking down the super steep, small road next to the Mairie, I started smelling something amazing and realized that in the middle of the night, the farmers placed a large sign up across from the Mairie and dumped quite a lot of hay over the sidewalk.

-A few days a week we both head into Geneva early and wait for the bus in the same place and at the same time as all the high school students. I love the ritual of greetings -- every time a new person arrives to the group, they have to do the three cheek kisses with every other person. When the groups get larger, there can almost be no conversation because each time a new person comes in, they have to stop for several minutes to greet everyone. This is not just a teenage thing; if I leave work with a group of coworkers, we all have to exchange the kisses and individual pleasantries before saying goodbye. It is also interesting because it is perfectly appropriate to exchange the bises (cheek kisses) with a person with who you are still vouvoye with (i.e. one that you do not call "tu" but "vous"). Interesting, there are also different terms for different types of kisses. Bises are the cheek kisses, bisous are romantic kisses.

-It is expected that some people do not have cars and use the bus for all of their transportation needs. Therefore, the buses allow people to bring items not allowed on buses at home. For example, one's dog can ride the bus, but you have to buy it a full price ticket. This is how we found ourselves on the bus at 7:10 this morning listening to a series of plaintive meows as a young guy had his cat in a carrier on his lap. On the big bus, everyone was crammed in and his carrier was on the floor, so most people didn't notice it and whenever the cat yeowled, the riders glared at the guy who was listening to loud heavy metal on his headphones, thinking the sounds were part of his music.