Southern France

It’s great when you get to travel to new parts of the world and explore the location, the food and the culture. It’s even better when you get to reconnect with old friends and explore it with them. That’s what we did last week, and we have several more adventures coming up. Believe or not, over the next 8 weeks, we will be lucky enough to meet with old friends in Nice France, Naples Italy, Vidauban France, Brittany France, Tel Aviv Israel and Transylvania Romania. But before we get too far out in the future, let’s talk about out most recent reunion.

We’ve been planning this surprise for several months, and working very hard to keep it secret, so it was kind of a relief when we strolled into the Metropolitan cafe in Nice to surprise our friend Tom for his birthday. He had no idea we were even in France, and we spent the next several days exploring Nice and the surrounding towns.

Listed below are just some random thoughts; in no particular order:

• • • We typically stay in AirBnB apartments; this gives us the advantage of having a kitchen and regular living space. As easy as it is to forget, we are not actually on summer vacation, this is our normal life. And just like most peoples regular lives, we eat a lot of meals at home, we watch TV some evenings, we do laundry, we take naps and we clean the house. Having said that:
      • every flat has a limited assortment of cooking stuff – it’s always interesting to see what kitchen tools are supplied in each place (this is why Bonnie travels with her knife set!)
      • just going to the grocery store is an experience in itself. It is different in every country and everything has a different name.
      • we try and plan at least one “adventure” every day, this might be visiting a museum, exploring a beach we haven’t to been to before, looking at boats in a marina or visiting a local fish and/or vegetable market.
      • Of course we eat out from time to time (like everyone does) and we revel in the experience.
    • We usually do not rent (or hire as they say in Europe) a car, but since the friends we met in Nice had one already, we got do do a couple of amazing day trips.
      • One day we left Nice and drove to Monaco, it was just few days before the Gran Prix, so we actually drove (kind of by accident) a section of the race course. Pretty darn cool.
      • That same day, we drove by Cannes, but the film festival was wrapping up so we figured we missed out on seeing most of the big stars. George really wanted to go see the premier of “Rocket Man” especially since Sir Elton John was on hand for the event.
      • Another day we drove up to the Verdun region, we had lunch in Sainte Croix du Verdun on the shore of the lake, the view was stunning.
    • If you are a fan of oysters, and other shellfish, then Southern France is the place to be (although our friends in Brittany tell us we will be in oyster heaven when we get there.) We had oysters with dinner at home twice and once again at an amazing shellfish lunch.
      • If you are still learning to love oysters, or even if you are a fan already: give George’s oyster preparation below a try.

 

“Oysters Orleans”

• • • • • Shuck 1 dozen very fresh medium sized oysters, putting the oysters and the juice into a medium glass bowl.
        • Clean the bottom half of the shells, put into a plastic bag and pop into the freezer to chill.
        • To the bowl of oysters and juice add: 1 tablespoon on white sugar, 1.5 ounces (25 mils) of white vinegar, 2 small spring onions (green tops of the whites) chopped fine, ½ of a green bell pepper chopped fine, 1 0z fresh lime juice (30 mils), and 4 or 5 dashes or Tabasco. Stir together ingredients a cover bowl with cling wrap and place in fridge for at least two hours (overnight is even better).
        • Just prior to serving, arrange shells on a large platter (using coarse salt to help balance shells). Place one oyster into each shell and then divide the rest of the mixture every between the dozen.
        • Serve with chilled white wine or prosecco and bask in the adoration of your guest.