La Cuisine

Bonjour mes amis et ma famille!

I am writing the next two post as by request from ma mère. She asked that I write about the food I am eating, my meals are quite spectacular, as well as what I do during the day, actually at Acquigny, my days are pretty full. I try not to spend much time online, maybe a half an hour each night before I go to bed, since I am only at Acquigny for less than two weeks, and I try to put in a full days work with Adrian during the weekdays.

Me and Jennifer in the Kitchen

Elizabeth and Mike prepping the strawberries

La cuisine

Every morning when I wake up, before I go off to work or start my day I have a petit déjeuner (a little lunch, aka breakfast). This basically consists of the same things that I normally eat in the states, yogurt with muesli, or granola. (or when I was working at College Town Bagels, this was throw a bagel in the toaster, turn on the coffee pot and run out the door with my breakfast because it was always too soon for my digestive tract to be ready, and classes always seemed so much easier when I was eating and drinking) Here I switch between making espresso or tea and then filling up my thermos and walk out to the garden and sip my tea throughout the morning.

our dining table

In France, instead of dinner being the largest, most important meal of the day, it is déjeuner (lunch) that receives the most attention. At Chateau d'Acquigny, we normally have lunch at 1 o'clock. The meal starts with a little salad (or large salad as Monsieur D'Esneval and I eat like rabbits). The salad will vary in combination of cabbage, roquette, endive, fennel, tomatoes, lettuce leaves that resemble iceberg, and various herbs (parsley, tarragon, or coriander) The salad is served with a little vinaigrette and sometimes Jennifer and I have bread alongside it. Today's salad was chopped fennel and tomatoes with parsley and vinaigrette. It was quite agreeable (although you do have to get used to the licorice taste when eating fennel).

only part of the lunch menu

Next on the menu is the main part of the course with normally consists of a type of meat, or fish; vegetable and/or starch. We've had a wide variety of meat over the past week and a half such as veal, pork cutlets, beef, chicken, ham, and duck. As for fish we've had herring, mackerel, haddock, manta-ray, and salmon. I really could get used to eating like this, it's quite magnificent. Yesterday, Jennifer and I went to the open market with Madame d'Esneval and we felt like we bought out the entire fresh produce market!!

behind the scenes at the open air market

apricots and strawberries

Jennifer and I carried huge shopping bags full of fresh produce (as well as boxes of pineapple, peaches, nectarines, strawberries, dried figs, dates), I want to be able to shop like that. Then, just as we thought we were done we bought 6lbs of flounder and a whole chicken, and then went to the supermarket to pick up the rest. Which resulted in buying about 12 boxes of cheese! (Cheese is so much cheaper here, and more delicious, I could move here just for the cheese alone).

jealous mommy? our cheese platter twice a day ;)

Today for lunch we had an entire roast chicken and stewed zucchinis with bay leaves.

Madame d'Esneval preparing the roasted chicken

After we eat the main course we proceed on to slicing bread (normally sourdough) and having it with a wide variety of cheese that is placed on the platter. Camembert, Roquefort, Brie, Fromage du Chevre, Pont L'eveque, and Bleu d'Armeunt to name a few. And then, aprés the cheese, we have dessert. Yes, the cheese and bread was NOT the dessert, there's more! There is sometimes fresh fruit (like today with had strawberries in a mint, lemon, and sugar mixture), and cherries, as well as dried fruit, such as the dried figs and dates.

beaucoup cherries!

dried figs = very dangerous

One special occasions we have wonderful tarts and pies that Madame d'Esneval creates (such as rhubarb pie). After we're finished eating we either have coffee or espresso. One of the family's friends sent a really nice Krups Espresso machine that uses individual cups of espresso in miniature capsules – it's quite fabulous, and very expensive, but I may look online later to see if there's a cheaper version because as old school as I am, I know how much of a pain it is to clean out a real espresso machine and tamper down the ground beans correctly at a certain pressure. Oh, and one more thing, we often have wine with our lunch – could meals here become any better??

For dinner, we normally have a much lighter meal somewhere between eight and ten o'clock. The meal consists of a larger salad, a light entrée, such as thinly sliced ham or salmon, and bread. Dinner is normally cold or really delicious leftovers.