Wednesday, November 30, 2011

November

Gevrey-Vines and the Côte (the vines of Clos de St Jacques)
Short Blog this month. I had started this note on hosting a dinner a few weeks ago, and that is going to be it for this month. There are other photos at the bottom too.


Having guests to dinner
Although there are informal dinners, most dinners here follow a more formal path.
Sharing food with friends is more than a 30 minute sit down.

To prepare a meal, first I make up my menu. What to serve for hors d'oeuvres, entree, principle plate, cheese course and dessert. Either plan the food and then the wine, or plan the wine and then the food. It must be a good marriage of the wine and food.

Now the shopping. I shop differently too. We do not have a butcher here in Gevrey, so I do buy my meat from the grocer. We do have a once a week market, so I could buy it there if having dinner on a Friday night. That said, I prefer to buy my vegetables in the market or at a store that specializes in fresh vegetables. Always local and always in season.
Cheese from the cheese store, wine from a good winery ( although it is probably been purchased at another time and is in our cave), and fresh bread from the bakery ( and which bakery is also important). So I make the rounds.
This is so different from my shopping in the US. One stop shop, and I bought everything. I had started to use Whole Foods when we lived in Minneapolis, they had a good cheese selection, and of course a good selection of other fresh food. And of course coming from Minnesota, wine always had to be bought at the Liquor Store.
Here one shop-stop is also possible, the big grocer has everything, including wine. But the quality is better at the bakery for instance than at the Super Marché ( here it is the Super U). Although it is a little more time spent making the rounds, I am satisfied with the quality and enjoy doing it.
The cultural importance of food is so different here. Not large quantities, but it is the quality that is so highly rated. Of course there are bad restaurants and bad cooks, no different than anywhere else. But food is so much part of the social experience. Lunches or dinners with friends can last anywhere from " hours to 12 hours( it is the large lunch that can last 12 hours).
I have taken photos this month, of fog (we had two weeks of nothing but  FOG) and of sun and of villages. I am leaving it here with the photos to follow.

Château of Gevrey in the fog with the vines

Church in Gevrey...in the fog

Building in Nuits St.Georges. Taken from the car
 while I waited for the red light. Kind of fun...

Near Villars Fountaine ..in the FOG

Messanges

Beaune, taken again from the car(blurred foreground)..workers in the vines

Sunny day at last, and mushrooms all over

house in gevrey...original was sharp? why isn't this one?

Sunny fall day, vines of Gevrey

Same day, more vines


Gevrey in the late afternoon