A little something extra with your tea

This yummy photo is my weekly contribution to Travel Photo Thursday. I could not resist posting this after last week’s coffee and tea photo of tea and coffee at Budget Traveller’s Sandbox on Travel Photo Thursday. Go to her home page and see who’s posting new photos today.

We were staying at the Chateau de la Bretesche Resort in Brittany in northwest France. After a long day of driving, we settled in and asked room service to deliver a pot of tea. Little did we know what came with the tea! Please see more about the fantastic resorts and restaurants in Brittany in my post for Girls Getaway, about three luxurious getaways.

I retain all rights for this photo, and request that you not reprint it. Thanks. Our stay at La Bretesche was compliments of the Relais and Chateaux resort. 

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Salade Arizona? In Paris?

When I wrote my post on Ten Cheap(er) Places to Eat in Paris, I had been nudged a bit by a Blog Carnival through the Lonely Planet Blog Sherpa group.  Kat, who holds forth on food at Tie Dye Travels, is hosting this food around the world carnival, and I encourage you to take a look at the wide variety of offerings. Eat/Read your way through  Peru, Seoul, Ethiopia, Disneyland, Mexico City, China,Lebanon, Manila, Spain (very popular–four entries–including churros for breakfast), India, Malaysia and Indonesia. There are also two favorites of mine: The Story of Tea from Quillcards, and our friend Kerry Dexter, who keeps us supplied with music for the road trip writes about potato music ! GOT to read that one!

And in keeping with the food theme of the day…read on for the amazing history of apples in the amazing country of Kazakhstan.

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Please take a look around. If you are planning a trip to France, we have plenty of content on trip planning, books to read, movies to view. We cover the world, so wherever you are going, you should find something to help you. Join our conversations and come back soon! If you subscribe, you’ll get all the travel goodies three times a week.

France on Friday

Big Ben Bar, Gare de Lyon, Train Bleu

Ken and I just could not keep within our budget if we ate at the fancy restaurants that we would have liked to in Paris. For example, I would love to have tried the restaurant at the Eiffel Tower, Le Jules Verne. The Eiffel Tower restaurant used to have a bad rep, but now is run by Alain Ducasse-trained workers and the food is reputedly as spectacular as the view. But when the price is over 100 Euros per person, without wine…..well, we made some different choices. (An album of pictures below)

1. Creperie Saint Andre des Artes, in the Latin Quarter. I had read that creperies are a cheap alternative for eating in Paris. Just remember that crepes are generally desserts, but creperies serve gallettes which are main dishes in a folded crepe. I actually had a seafood stew at this tiny friendly place, and Ken had a salad.  Price for everything  €22.10

Cafe Mollien, the Louvre

2. Cafe Mollien at the Louvre. We missed the food court with the McDonald’s located in the glass pyramid–both enrage some people– but on the first floor up, before you enter the galleries, there are some quick-serve sandwich counters. Eat early or late, because the mobs around noon filled all the seats. Hoping for something a little better we went up another floor to Cafe Mollien, which is best in good weather when you can sit out on a terrace and take in the view. It was raining, so we stood in a lengthy line and sat with a view of an ornate stairwell–quite spectacular. We were disappointed to find their fare was pretty much the same as downstairs, packaged sandwiches and limited drinks. Price for 2 sandwiches and water and iced tea: €15.20.

3. Illy Coffee Shop. We were riding the sight seeing hop-on and off bus, and hopped off on the edge of Montmarte when we were hungry. Illy has a striking red and white modern design which I loved and a limited buffet of small dishes in addition to their mainstay, coffee. Price for two very tasty  lunches and water: €22.70

4.Restaurant at the D’Orsay Museum. The D’Orsay is cleverly constructed in a grand old railroad station, and the restaurant inhabits one of the fancy ballroom/meeting rooms decorated in high Gilded Age style with lots of chandeliers and gold paint. We sat next to a high window looking out on the museum plaza and the Museum of the Legion of Honor. Lovely restaurant, lovely service and very good food. Price for two plats du jour and water: €32.70.

5. Chez nous. Of course if you have an apartment, you eat at home sometimes. We shopped at the Franprix grocery store just down the street a block where our first stock-up of tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, fruit, ham, eggs and water cost €13.11. That served for a couple of salad dinners, hearty breakfasts (supplemented with pastries from Paul), and a picnic at Luxembourg Gardens.

Menu, napkin and placemat

6. Paul Boulangerie and Patisserie.  I was a bit disappointed that there were so few boulangeries and patisseries nearby, so we were happy to find Paul, with its lively sidewalk cafe, charming interior and extensive sales counter. (Turns out it is a chain and we even saw one in the Amsterdam airport! However it is a 121-year-old establishment.) We sat outside the one in St. Germain de Pres with our netbook, sipped our tea, and later picked up pieces of pizza to take back to the apartment to eat with a homemade salad. Pizza price: 2 big pieces €6.20.

7. Le Bistrot Mazarin (French site). Another thing about staying in an apartment is that you quickly adopt “your” neighborhood bistro. This was ours…just steps from our front door. We ate there more than once, notably when we were killing time waiting for an electrician to fix the front door so the key card would work and we could get in! We took our time over two hot chocolates, and then nibbled tomatoes and mozzarella and a dish of the world’s BEST French Fries. Our real dinner there: two salads and two cups of tea cost €31.20

8. Cafe Med. If I get back to Paris, I would love to stay on Ile St. Louis. This tiny charming island in the Seine reeks with history and sports adorable shops and eateries. This elbow-to-elbow place with a delightful waitress gave us one plat du jour (which included a ganache and then a chocolate crepe for dessert and a salad for one of us, plus cups of tea). Price: €31.01.

Metal "tea cozy" and cup at Mariage Freres

9. Mariage Freres. (Click on the Rive Gauche location menu!)  Tea can count as a meal if it is high tea and if you are not extremely hungry.  On the day that we were waiting for the electrician, our first stop, at our landlord’s suggestion, was the nearby tea room. Turns out that in this country where not very many people drink tea, Mariage Freres produces the absolute best. The brothers Mariage started trading back in the 17th century, and are still at it. The building is quaint, the service impeccable and the varieties of tea astounding. Price for two pots of tea and one complete plate of snacks: €20.00. This was absolutely one of the high points of Paris for me.

And while I’m on the subject, don’t miss this about tea with CHOCOLATE in London.

10. Big Ben Bar, at Le Train Bleu in the Gare de Lyon. (Trust me–Follow that link!) This meal was as close as we came to a splurge.  I wanted to eat at Train Bleu, or at least to SEE the gilded age glory of this train station restaurant from the late 1800′s. We inadvertently did it right. Because we did not have reservations and were there an hour before they opened for dinner (at 7:00 p.m.) we were served dinner in the bar–really just an extension of the dining room. So we got the great view of the decor. Fabulous food, and paid much less. We walked over from the Place Bastille after visiting Victor Hugo’s House, and had 4 iced teas (in France you cannot get plain iced tea–just bottled, overly sweet, fruit-flavored. AND no free refills!). We ate two great dinners and had one dessert. Price: €86.00.

Do not feel sorry for us because we missed the haute cuisine of Paris. The food we ate was almost always terrific, and when we left Paris, we were privileged to eat in not one, but TWO Michelin one-star restaurants, as well as have more culinary adventures.

This post is part of the Lonely Planet Blog Sherpa Travel Carnival, Food Around the World, this month sponsored by Kat at Tie Dye Travels.

All photographs are taken by Ken or Vera Marie Badertscher and all rights are reserved. We hope you enjoy them, but do not re- use without asking.

How important are eating experiences to you when you travel? Do you just want to refuel, or is the cultural experience of foreign dining something you look for?

UPDATE ( 2011) Now you can take it with you. We’ve published an e-book with an enlarged version of this post. Get it at Amazon for Kindle or Barnes and Noble for your Nook.

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Here is Ben and Bill’s Chocolate Emporium on the web. Their Bar Harbor location is closed until next month, but they also have a store in Massachusetts–and mail order.

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Destination: France

Books: As They Were and Long Ago In France by M. F. K. Fisher

I could list many more books by Fisher above, but these two just happen to be on hand at the moment.

One summer a long time ago we were spending some lazy time on the beach in California and I wandered down a little street in some lovely seaside town and stumbled upon a wonderful book store. Not knowing then that I would be writing about it now, I did not bother to write down its name, but it was one of those wonderful multi-roomed cottages filled with a jumble of books and a pretty little garden of unruly zinnias and roses  in front and out back.

There I discovered a shelf of books about food and living in France and in California,  by a writer I had never heard of before. I bought two or three of the books for reading on the beach and Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher(1908-1992) became one of my favorite writers.  I love food. I love to prepare it, to eat it, and to read about it. So does Fisher, but her sense of food is so much more educated and refined than mine will ever be that I will never stop learning from her.

Not only that, but her writing is inspiring, as well. [amazonify]0394713486::text:::: As They Were [/amazonify] (1985) contains a collection of essays and articles that she published throughout her career, and she tied them together with introductions telling a bit about her life. I love them all, but one stands out. In, “I Was Really Very Hungry,” she is walking in northern Burgundy, and stops in mid day at the country restaurant of a famous chef, empty except for the serving woman. “…who was frightenly fanatical about food, like a medieval woman possessed by the devil.”

Course after course comes out, lovingly described by the waitress as it is served, until  ” ‘You may feel you have eaten too much.’ (the waitress said)  I nodded idiotic agreement. ‘But this pastry is like feathers…it is like snow. It is in fact good for you, a digestive! And why?’….’Because Monsieur Paul did not even open the flour bin until he saw you coming!’”

In all of her work, she draws characters with precise recall of dialogue and with sharp observation and apt metaphor. It helps to understand how she developed such skill  to read about her beginnings as an expert on food and writing.

In[amazonify]0671755145::text:::: Long Ago In France: The Years in Dijon [/amazonify](1991), Fisher was young. It was 1929 and she was 21, newly married, and studying to be an artist. While her husband attended graduate school in Dijon, she went to art classes.  But always she kept a journal and she learned by observing and experimenting not only to speak French, but to appreciate wine and good food.

After a year in a boarding house, she and her husband moved into their own apartment. There she began to learn to cook and shop for food. “butter here, sausage there, bananas someplace again, and rice and sugar and coffee in still other places.”

“We ate well, too.  It was the first real day-to-day meal-after-meal cooking I had ever done, and it was only a little less complicated than performing an appendectomy on a life raft…it was fun.”

She decided writing was effortless and fun compared to painting, and published her first book on food Serve It Forth in 1937. Besides the book on Dijon, she wrote about living in Province– Arles, Avignon, and Marseille both before and after  World War II. And if you are traveling on the coast of California, Fisher can paint pictures of that land for you as well.

Click on the photograph to go to the Flickr source and get the bonus of a recipe for Pain d’Epice of Dijon. And remember that you can always get more articles on France by looking at the page tab above ↑ that says “By Country” or by typing “France” in the search box over there →.

And it will be France on Friday at A Traveler’s Library. Last week it was Hemingway in Paris.

Is there a food writer that makes you want to go somewhere? Please share in our comment section.

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

The River Walk. Stroll through lush landscaping, keep an eye out for architecture representing many periods of San Antonio history. Eat. Drink. Shop.

The Food. Book a boat and eat on board. Several River Walk restaurants feature dinner cruises. Mexican-influenced menus dominate, but this is a big city, and you can find all kinds of food. Still–those table-side, fresh-made, custom ingredient guacalmoles can’t be beat. Food shown here from Zuni Grill, Boudrou’s, and Hyatt Hill Country Resort. And how about learning to make a marguerita? We’re talking really BIG margueritas at Aldaco’s at Sunset Station!

Here’s a book of essays by Larry McMurtry about Texas Hill Country, and his road trip book which praises San Antonio (even though I did not think much of the book overall).

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Destination: Croatia

Book: Croatia: Travels in Undiscovered Country by Tony Fabijansic

(Continued)

3. Batana Boats

A tall, thin man wearing a red and white striped stocking cap and matching long-sleeved shirt rows the flat-bottomed batana boat around a rocky promontory. It’s just four Croatians and me on this dinner “cruise” celebrating this traditional handmade boat that Rovinj’s fisherman have used for centuries. There are no waves or wind on this moonless night as we head to a basement wine cellar at the water’s edge. The only thing guiding our way in the inky night is a small halogen light that one of the men holds and points at the rocky shore. Finally, I glimpse a set of steps that end on the waterfront. We dock beside them and climb up to a stone dwelling where I can hear a woman with a melodious voice singing sweet folk music. She’s joined by string instruments. In the basement that’s pocked with huge wine barrels and a handful of long communal tables, bowls and plates sail out of the small kitchen: a thick fish stew in tomato sauce, sardines in olive oil, anchovies atop arugula, several kinds of whole fish, giant grilled shrimp. It’s me and now 12 Croatians. No one speaks English. But wine jugs are passed around. Glasses are raised and glasses clink for a toast. More fish dishes arrive on the table. I don’t need a translator.

4. Peacocks

Once the ferry drops me on Lokrum Island off of Dubrovnik, I’m alone. The other tourists remain at the sandy beach beside the ferry dock but, with picnic lunch in hand, I wander the narrow tree-lined lanes. The signs are in Croatian so I simply pick a trail and follow it where it may lead. One heads through a wild botanical garden loaded with bamboo, palms, carnivorous plants and roses. All live peacefully together. Each plant is labeled with its origin: New Zealand, Holland, China, and Australia. It’s like a round-the-world trip all within half an acre. Then I take a stony trail that rises to the island’s one hill, the setting for the ruins of a fort. I climb to the top even though neither the stairs nor the floor looks stable. From this vantage point, I gaze across the water at Dubrovnik where yet another immense cruise ship is docking. My picnic lunch of bread, cheese, tomatoes, olives and apples hasn’t been touched. I’m looking for a place that speaks to me as the perfect picnic spot. So I follow another trail that wanders to the other side of the island through a dark wood. It’s so dark, it looks like the noonday sun just switched off. I hear rustling in the brush and am seriously thinking of turning back when I peer through a break in the branches and see peacocks. They are congregating near what looks like a water-filled quarry that’s shaded by an immense umbrella of foliage. I walk to the rocky edge where there are a network of gnarled tree roots and gaze at the seamless turquoise water at the bottom. I take the steps that are cut into the rock leading down to the water where I find a small wood platform for sunning, and picnicking. My only company as I bite into a vine-ripened tomato and freshly baked bread: a lone peacock who left his clan at the top.

Thanks, Jeanine, for this evocative tour of Croatia.  So often we learn the most about a country around a dining table.  Readers, what experiences have you had with food in a foreign place.  What did you learn about a culture by eating and drinking with the residents of a place?  Have you read any books on Croatia that we should add to the traveler’s library?  Join the discussion. We look forward to hearing from you.

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.