Food in Our 2nd Moon

France:  While in France we really didn’t eat out much due to the astronomical cost of French bistros and restaurants; unless you count the hundreds and hundreds of pastries we had on the go.  Well that’s not really true, we also had a shwarma, which according to Lonely Planet and Lenny Kravitz (we know… pretty random), is the best in the world.  Our opinion is that it’s just ok and the one we had in NY was much better.  However we did have classic French fast food in a form of Gyros or merguez  sausage and fries stuffed in a wrap.  Now that is some yummy stuff! 

We also had a meal in a very posh French bistro which only served sandwiches,  cheese platters, wine and coffee.  Nothing special at all. We later discovered that this bistro was not for eating but for being seen in (if you are a writer or a wanna be writer). 

What we can comment on is the pounds and pounds of cheese, wine, bread and dried sausage that we did have.  So we had cheese in various shapes, sizes and forms,  all of which were very delicious and didn’t stand a chance with either one of us.  To give you guys an example,  you can get about 350g of double cream brie cheese for about 2 Euros.  We spent close to 20 Euro on this cheese alone during our 12 days there.  The scary thing is that this is not the only cheese we managed to inhale J.  Moving on to the amazing dry sausage that we had for breakfast, lunch and in most cases dinner.  You can get it plain, you can get it encrusted with cracked pepper; there are skinny ones, fat ones, short ones, long ones…. Perverts we know what you are thinking!!! 

Now we move on to the dessert portion of this post, or at least we will pretend that we only ate this for dessert.  Pastries are as French as waiving a white flag J  (totally kidding here but come on we couldn’t resist).   But seriously, the French have mastered the art of pastries and they are definitely not afraid to share it with anyone willing to try some.  There are pastry shops on every corner in Paris and our favourite, “Paul”, was right around the corner from us (how convenient, we know).  The apple flan cake, the brioche, the beignet avec chocolat, and of course the crepes.  After trying all these very tasty treats repeatedly we have come to a conclusion: that Nutella is the most used and sold France.  It might originate from Italy but the French are definitely its highest consumer (we mentioned in our previous post about the 25kg jar that is used in most creperies).  To continue the obsession that the French have with chocolate we have to mention the rows and rows of chocolate cereal found in their supermarkets.  You can have your Cornflakes, Cheerios, Bunches of Oats, Muesli and Quinoa and any other cereal with chocolate.  But not just chocolate, you can have it with double chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, milk chocolate, chocolate chunks, chocolate chips, chocolate swirls or all in one!  Crazy but amazing.  Add some strawberries and you are in heaven. 

A very special thanks goes to Kim and her family for making us a phenomenal meal at their home.  When you have great people and great food it’s amazing how much booze you can go through J.  Once again thank you guys for being amazing hosts and give lost of kisses to the beautiful princess.

Spain:  We had some great and inexpensive dinners out here.  But after France it’s hard not be inexpensive.  The Spanish are known for their tapas and paella.  They definitely delivered on both and then some.   What we would like to give a special mention to is their pastries.  Ok do you notice a pattern forming here? J  On our first night in Girona we tried a churro con crema and panellets de pinyo.  WOW.  As it was our duty to report on the best of the best we kept sampling these as we walked through Barcelona.  And it’s a good thing we did as we came across the God of all churros con crema.  Please see pictures NOW. 

 The best way to describe the churro con crema is to picture a hybrid between a donut and a croissant stuffed with cream.  Or just look at the pictures above.  Another thing that the Spanish taught us was that you can mix wine with lemonade (tinto de verano) and not puke.  It is very tasty and very refreshing.  Since our parents are reading this we didn’t only stuff ourselves with sweets and alcohol, we had a lot of fruit and greens along with them ;)



panellets de pinyo



tinto de verano y una cerveza

One of our spreads at home

Girona - A Hidden Gem

The main reason we went to this city was to cut our trip to Figueras to see Dali’s museum in half (and because Ryan Air flew to Gerona J ). We only spent an afternoon here but we are so thankful that we did. Gerona is small, quaint and full of history: with it’s old Jewish quarter, massive cathedral and many little bridges crossing the river that flows through it. It was a very youthful town, we guess due to the university located there - with many many many shops, café’s and bakeries (where we had our first penellets de pinyo and churros con crema but more about these in another post). If you are ever in or near Barcelona, this little town 40km north of Barcelona is well worth a visit, particularly with Spain’s clean and efficient train service (Go RENFE!).

The World of Salvador Dali (1904 - 1989)

We had the pleasure of getting to know Salvador Dali’s art quite a bit better on this trip - before this we really only knew him as the eccentric melting clock painter (sorry for our ignorance). We have to say, we now have a new found appreciation and respect for his eccentricity.

Our first Dali encounter was in Belgrade at an exhibition entitled “Divine Worlds” where we saw hundreds of his graphic illustrations for two of his largest works: Biblia Sacra and Dante’s Divine Comedy. These illustrations were really quite something and were composed of many layers of colour. Here is an example:


This is an example of the progression of a drawing.  Each slide shows an additional layer of colour

Our second encounter was in his home town of Figueras at the Dali Museum in his former home. This was something else. Some compositions and montages were really strange where as others were just a little strange. But really, we were more than impressed and have to say that so far, this was our favorite museum. His graphic art which lined one hallway was extremely odd and hilarious at the same time. His paintings had such a great range - from very detailed and one would say very normal for Dali to one’s more in tune with the Dali we knew before, unusual and unexpected. Here is a picture of the museum from the back side. 

Click on this link to see some examples of the art at the museum: http://photobucket.com/dali_2010 (password: gala). 

　

Paris, Je T'aime!

Here we are in the city of love or as it will be refered to from now on: the city of bread, wine and cheesarie (yes S, also crepes and pastries!).  Wow, where to start?  If you can remember that feeling you got as a kid when you wanted to tell someone a really good story and just didn't know how to get it out, this is how we feel right now about Paris.  Needless to say we both absolutely loved this city. 

Paris is a grand and classy city.  It has large boulevards, impressive buildings, fountains and statues and many well manicured parks (little corner parks and larger ones such as Jardin de Luxembourg).  To add to this, most of the buildings have a light facade with a dark rooftop and balcony - it was amazing to see such uniformity in colours and style.  It is a lot of what gave the city its visual class. 

So you walk around Paris' arrondissements and around every corner there is something new to amaze you, whether it is a little market, a street performer, a park, a statue or a beautiful bridge.  There are a million and one bistros in a city block and they must go through a gizzilion tons of Nutella judging by the way they slab it on their crepes (YUMMY!).  We had never before seen a 15kg jar of Nutella little less a nearly empty 15kg jar of Nutella until we got to Paris. 



Jardin du Luxemborg



The parks of Paris are built for peoples enjoyment.  Every park has benches and lots of chairs that you can move around.  Whether its sitting by the fountain or under a tree the choice is yours.  It apears that the Paris parks committees care more about peoples enjoyment than theft and vandalism.  Crazy WE KNOW!!!!  It's these kinds of civilized differences where people have respect towards their city that really let you enjoy a place. Makes you wonder why it is that in certain places people just don't get it. 


As as aside, we have noticed that there aren't that many homeless people around Europe.  In Toronto, there's homeless all over the downtown area.  Until we got to Paris and saw two, we hadn't yet seen any at all.  They may have been out there but we didn't see them and we did walk around a lot.  This, however, excludes the many street beggers we have seen and the street kids in Paris.

To discuss a few myths about Paris:

the wine IS cheap AND good

the cheese IS cheep AND delicious

the bread IS great

the waiters ARE NOT all *ssholes (though some are... but only in the artsy bistros)

the people ARE snobs (but they do live in Paris so it's justified)

the french DO strike 365 days a year (there was lots of striking and demonstrating/rioting going on while we were there ... thank you Paris for taking the heat off Serbia in the news)

and people DO NOT have style (quite amazing how many people are incapabe of dressing themselves and no, they can't all be tourists).

Before we sign off, a special thanks has to go out to Danielle and Pierre for the most comfortable and hospitable stay in the perfect studio apartment a stone's throw from the Notre-Dame.  This apartment is beautifully decorated and has everything one would need in Paris.  Also, not only did Danielle and Pierre welcome us with open arms, big smiles and provisions to hold us over on our first day, they also had a bottle of champagne chilling for us!! Absolutely fantastic.  Merci beaucoup Danielle et Pierre, vous etes tres tres gentil!!

Enjoy the pictures (http://photobucket.com/paris_OCT2010 and password is "6ieme").



Notre Dame




Centre Pompidou - building features colour-coded electrical tubes (yellow), water pipes (green) and ventilation ducts (blue) along the exterior of the building



in front of La Basilique du Sacre Coeur



Hotel des Invalides - only monument in Paris to glint in real gold (25kg of gold)




Eiffel Tower from the carrousel



fountain next to the Obelisk, Place de la Concorde

Beautiful Serbia: Part IV - Sports

In order to ensure that everyone doesn't think that ALL we did was eat while in Serbia, we decided to include a mini blog dedicated to all the sporting activities we participated in which limited our growth to only 10lbs each. 

First there was a bowling night in Zemun where we were introduced to the one they call "Jesus", aka S's cousin Ivan.  The best way to desribe this man's skills is to compare him to Fred Astaire with the only difference being that Fred dances and Ivan bowls.  This was a great night through and through.  No need to talk about the scores as when you are this good (not), scores don't matter.  The important thing is form and looking good when you bowl.  Keep that in mind kids.  Winning is not everything.  

Then we moved to the red clay courts of Jagodina and the surrounding villages.  Here we brushed up on our tennis skills which helped us help Nole beat Federer in the semi-final of the US Open.  A little known fact is that the only reason Nole lost to Nadal in the final is because S&M were half way across the Atlantic.  But this little known fact should stay between us ;)   The  doubles competition was stiff at the Jagodina City Open but the organizers fed us well and lent us pants and shoes to play in.  The rest will remain in the Open's history books for the local people to admire. 

Oh yeah, we also did some mountain trecking and some extreme street walking (caution: don't try this on the streets of your home town).

like we said earlier, it's all about form

this is known as the "crouhing tiger" techique...

this is the "dislocated shoulder" technique

Beautiful Serbia: Part III - Moja Sumadija

One week of our trip to Serbia was spent in an area in central Serbia called Sumadija were both S&M's families are from.   The countryside is absolutely gorgeous and a wonderful place to relax .  We split our time between a small vacation town called Kosjeric and the village of Misevic up in the hills.  We visited family, ate lots of food (just can't seem to, nor want to, get away from it), made wine, visited a monastery and went to the wax museum in Jagodina city (saw Divac, Milosevic and Tito ... WHAT!!), went for walks and played some tennis.  Life is tough :)  We'll let pictures do the talking now. Here are a few and follow the link for more (password: relax):  http://photobucket.com/moja_sumadija.

First on making wine:



First you buy the grapes

Then you go to two guys with an electric machine to crush them and separate the stems (while you eat some grapes and watch from the sidelines)



Then you put the grapes into a big barrel to transport them home



Then you transfer them from the big barrel into these smaller barrels, add the yeast and sugar and let it sit for at least 10 days.  We hope it's good!!

 And here are some scenery shots:

Kosjeric - one of the few pics we got due to the rain

 

Misevic



The house in Misevic



Sunset in Misevic

  

Vlade doing some heavy thinking

Beautiful Serbia: Part II - Just outside of Belgrade

 We did two short day trips while in Belgrade; one was to a town called Topola an the other was to the hill of Avala.  Topola is located about 85 km from Belgrade on the slopes of the Oplenac hill.   It is a well-known historical locaton assoicated with Karadjordje, a Serbian revolutionary chosen as the leader of the first Serbian uprising against the Ottoman Empire in 1804.  The beautiful white marbled five dome church that sits on top of the Oplenac hill is the burial place of the Karedjordjevac Dynasty.  The interior is quite something to see with its walls and ceilings decorated with a mosaic depicting Serbian Orthodox frescoes.  The mosaic consists of 60 million tiles!!  There is also this fantastic chandelier made from melted enemy weapons from WWI.  Unfortunately, cameras were not allowed inside so we don't have our own pictures. 

The hill of Avala is another great day-trip.  It is only 15 km's from downtown Belgrade and has a large recreational park, a monument to the unknown soldier (in honour of those who died in WWI) and the newly re-built Avala TV tower (the first one was destroyed in the NATO bombings in 1999).  The monument of the unknown soldier is an impressive marble structure housing eight female sculptures representing the mother of a soldier from each of the different nationalities forming Yugoslavia at that time. 

And suprise suprise, we ate an excellent rostilj at the Hotel Avala restaurant at the very top of the hill (several pictures of table spread were posted on our earlier food post J ).  Tip: If you do ever eat at this restaurant, don't have the muckalica, as the waiter put it, "they don't know how to make it well here".  Of course, a few words on the Avala TV Tower: its reconstruction was just recently refinished (April 2010) and it is currently the tallest structure in Serbia at 204m high (though its got nothing on our CN Tower). 



Inside the church on Oplenac (Courtesy of Flickr, Stanoslav Simic)



Avala Monument





A crater from the 1999 bombing on the Avala Monument