A bunch of us (eight adults and five children) took a road trip to Burgundy this weekend. It's about a three-hour, fairly easy (when you can just follow somebody who knows where they're going) drive from Basel to Burgundy. We left on Saturday morning at about 8:30, drove through bad weather via Geneva, and arrived in Fuisse (of Pouilly-Fuisse fame) for a late lunch.
Now I know I've said this many times before, but the French know how to eat! As far as I can tell, they pay absolutely no heed to calories, cholesterol, temperance, etc. - which is all well and good as far as I'm concerned.
Among the things I ate this past weekend: snails, pigs' feet, frogs' legs, goose liver, tete de veau (translation: face of the calf/veal...which is basically the calf's cheek-meat wrapped around various sweetbreads), cheeses with various mold forms that have yet to be identified by man, and wine...Wine....WINE!!!!
When you go to a cave in Burgundy, the wine just keeps flowing. We sniffed, swirled, swished, sucked, gargled, slurped, tasted, bought...and then just hopped into our cars and drove off to the next place to do it all over again. Then, we'd stop for our three-hour lunch, waddle out of the restaurant, and slog along through endless miles of vineyards to the next cave where we'd start the process all over again.
We'd arrive at our hotel during the late afternoon or early evening where I'd proceed to take about a 60 to 90-minute nap. I'd wake up still feeling pretty full, and then it'd be time to go eat our four-hour dinner. I'm not joking. The dinners are multiple courses, and the food and wine just keeps on coming. The highlight for me was always the plateau de fromage. On Saturday night, the cheese board was basically one of those things that the eunuchs would carry Cleopatra on. But, instead of being made of gold and supporting Cleopatra, it was made of wood and had about twenty different cheeses on it. Oh...and the waiters... weren't eunuchs.
Kudos and thanks go to our friend Rammy for pretty much arranging the entire trip for all of us. Also, thanks to John (maybe his real name...maybe not) "the international wine and art smuggler" who led certain unmentioned people back into Switzerland via an unmanned border crossing (imagine that U.S. Department of Homeland Security) so that "they" wouldn't have to pay any duty on said purchases.
The weekend is all pretty much a blur of tastes, smells, and scenery. And, I'm looking forward to doing it again....SOON! But, for now I'm going to really have to hit the gym hard this week. I'm feeling a bit bloated and sluggish (maybe due to my lingering cold), and I think I need exercise, a sauna....and maybe a good dose of vegetables!
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