The Prettiest Town in Alsace-Lorraine

A few weeks ago there was a school holiday and I had cabin fever, so my daughter and I took a little road trip to Colmar, France, which is about 2 1/2 hours away, over the border in Alsace-Lorraine. It's about an hour south of Strasbourg. I'd heard it was the prettiest town in the world and was the model for Belle's village in Disney's animated Beauty and the Beast. 

I was able to get a good rate on one night in a hotel so we left on Sunday and got there just in time for dinner. Our hotel was adorably cute.

As I was driving, I passed a lot of vineyards and shops that advertised foie gras, which is a regional specialty. There's some really amazing food in Alsace and our hotel had a really good restaurant. We treated ourselves to a nice dinner. (Yes, my teenaged daughter will eat foie gras which is goose liver.)

That's the half-sized appetizer portion which is served with brioche and lovely breads. It's incredibly rich and we were barely able to finish it and our entrees as well, which were not large by American standards. Also I forgot that French restaurants include the service charge in the bill so I needn't have rushed downstairs at 10 p.m. to give them a tip which I realized I'd forgotten. At least I wasn't wearing a baseball cap and fanny pack.

And I found out the next day the reason our hotel room was so cheap was because everything in Colmar is closed on Mondays during the off-season. Except restaurants and museums, which I didn't visit because I was with a teenager.

Nevertheless, we walked around for a couple of hours until it was time for lunch. Even in winter, it's really cute. Many of the buildings date from the 1600s and even earlier. 

It's called Little Venice because there's a canal that runs right through town. I think it's only about two feet deep and apparently you can take boat rides. Didn't see anyone boating that day but it must be stunning in the summer. 

Basically the only places open were food-related. We wanted to eat at this restaurant but it didn't open until noon and we were starving, so we found a little cafe and the ultimate comfort food for a cold morning. 

This is called tartiflette and it's very popular. Basically, it's a casserole with potatoes, cheese and cream, with various add-ins. Ours had mushrooms and it was the perfect thing for a dreary, chilly day. The two of us could not finish it. 

Thus sustained, we shopped at the only stores open: the foie gras store (yes, there is such a thing) and the grocery store. As you'd expect, even the grocery stores are better in France. Even the canned goods are classy. I've never had salsify but apparently it's a root vegetable. 

There are lots of charming architectural details everywhere. This is a fountain outside the covered market, which dates from 1865. Closed on Monday, of course. 

Basically, this adorably cute town is a tourist magnet and has tons of restaurants, so there's great food and scenery. Even if you don't want French food, you can find something else to eat. 

Yes, that is a sushi restaurant. I think I saw Indian and Mexican food as well. 

I really want to go back and spend more time here -- on a day when there are more shops open, and I have time to visit all the historical things I missed. 

Happy Bastille Day!

Happy Bastille Day!!!  I haven't been reading nearly as much French literature this month as I wanted, but the other day I was lucky enough to have a wonderful meal at a French bistro in town.  Here are some of the highlights of the meal:

This was my first course, a warm goat cheese tart in puff pastry, topped with a caramelized fig.  It was my favorite part of the entire meal.

This was my husband's appetizer, gnocchi with sauteed foie gras.  It was amazing, but I was polite and didn't steal all of it from his plate.  I think I showed great restraint.

This was my dessert, a poached apple filled with creme brulee.  It was excellent.  

Has anyone else been cooking or eating French food today?  Bon appetite!!

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Not the actual cover of the edition I read.
That one is just too disturbing.

Warning:  Do not read The Jungle, if you are like me and typically read books while while eating.  Period.  End of story.  It will put you off your lunch, seriously.  Possibly for a long time.

That is not to say that The Jungle is not worth reading.  It's one of those books that I've had on the TBR shelf for more than three years now, since I received the Big Box of Penguins from the nice people at Penguin Classics.   It is one of those books, also, that I didn't want to read so much as I wanted to have read it, if that makes any sense.

Anyway, this is the story of Jurgis Rudkis, a Lithiuanian immigrant who lives in Chicago in the early 1900s.  The book begins at his wedding to Ona.  It starts out with a big party, and basically, their lives go downhill from there.  Not only do they go into debt for this big wedding, they're barely eking out an existence working in the famous Chicago stockyards, in a neighborhood known as Packingtown, which is one of the nastiest, filthiest places in literature.  This book was written as an indictment of the terrible conditions in which poor people lived and worked at the time, especially immigrants, who came to America thinking they'd have all these great opportunities.  In fact, conditions were probably worse for them than back in the old country.  I've read a lot of immigrant stories, but this is probably the first one I can remember in which the immigrants should have stayed home.

Jurgis came to America with his father, his future bride, her stepmother Elzbieta, and various extended family members and children, including Marija, Ona's cousin.  Thing start out badly when they arrive  in the slums of Chicago's Packingtown, and get worse when they're tricked into spending their savings a terrible house.  They're working hard under horrible working conditions, but illnesses, layoffs, and bad weather create a situation that goes from bad to worse.  And I do mean seriously worse.  Have you read Germinal or The Grapes of Wrath?  Those books are cheerful compared to The Jungle, which has my vote for Most Depressing Book of All Time.

And Sinclair does not shy away from the messy details.  He goes into great detail about the horrible sanitation of the stockyards, the disease and filth and disgusting working conditions.  It's amazing to believe that anyone survived eating food that came out of there -- and even scarier to think of how it must have been to work there.  There was so much corruption, and so few rights for the workers, it's just shocking.

But this book isn't just about how bad the sanitation and working conditions of the stockyards; it's also about how few rights workers had, how companies took advantage of immigrants, and about the shocking corruption, both with the big corporations and in Chicago politics.  Having lived in Chicago for ten years, this sheds new light for me.  (I will never think of the name for the Chicago Bulls basketball team in quite the same way again). 

The edition that I actually read.  It's a really nice edition, except for the cover artwork.

It was an interesting book, yet horrifying.  I can't say I'd recommend it for the writing or character development; even the plot is not that great.  I'm quite sure this book is considered important for its impact than for its literary merit.  In a way, the terrible lives of these people in Packingtown are so over-the-top, it's unbelievable.  They were less human to me, more caricatures --  it's like Sinclair thought to himself while writing, how can get this get worse?  It really lacked the great writing of Steinbeck and the riveting characters of Zola; if you haven't read anything by Zola, he is the absolute master of creating people whose lives are on incredible downward spirals.  Also, the ending of the book is really unresolved -- it just ends with this big rant about Socialism, and we never find out what happens to Jurgis and the rest of the family.

So.  I'm very proud to have finally finished it -- that's five books off my TBR Pile Challenge for this year.  My goal was one book every month, so I'm a little behind, but not terribly.  I've already started reading The Sisters, a biography of the Mitfords, which I already know will be a really fun read.  I know I'm supposed to be starting Moby-Dick, but I really need a break to before starting another book I've been dreading.  How's everyone else doing on their TBR Pile Challenge?  Are they books you love, or just books you really wanted to have crossed off your list?  And are there any books even more depressing than The Jungle? 

A Few Vacation Photos

Other than books, my other big obsession is food.  I did go to cooking school years ago, and worked for several years as a professional pastry cook.  When I'm on vacation, if I'm not reading, I'm usually looking for something wonderful to eat.  If you have not been to Disney World, there are many, many wonderful places to eat.  And our hotel was pretty cool too.

First, the view from my balcony at the Animal Kingdom Lodge:

Could this be a zebra book discussion group?  Or are they planning a hostile takeover?

Of course the animals weren't there all day every day, but still, it's pretty awesome to sit there and have a giraffe walk by!  And much cheaper than flying to Africa with a family of four.

We lived in Tampa for three years, so I've actually spent a lot of time at Disney and don't take that many photos any more.  This time I was mostly inspired to record some of the amazing meals we ate:

Roast duck from the Yak & Yeti restaurant at Animal Kingdom

And here's some seared tuna which we ate before riding Kali River Rapids three times in a row at Animal Kingdom  -- it was right before closing and they didn't even make us get off the ride in between, we just kept on going.  And getting wetter.  I did not think to bring a change of clothes, so it was a pretty uncomfortable bus ride back to the hotel.  Oh, well, it was worth it.

Our last day at Disney we went to Hollywood Studios (aka MGM) and had lunch at The Brown Derby:

By far, the best crab cake I have ever eaten in my life.  And those three wineglass stems are from a Champagne flight.  Delicious!

My dessert, a delicious layered confection of toffee, caramelized bananas, and banana mousse.  Afterwards it was time for a nap.

More on vacation and my vacation reads later!

The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen by Jacques Pepin

I have a weakness for food memoirs and food fiction -- the result, I am sure, of my onetime aspirations to be a chef, which included a culinary certificate and about five years of working in professional kitchens, mostly making desserts.  Though I realized I'd never be a contender for Top Chef or America's Next Food Network Star, I still enjoy reading about good food.

This was a really fun read, great for a vacation.  The Apprentice is an enjoyable memoir of a chef who grows up in France during and after WWII, works his way up through French kitchens, and has a fascinating career as a chef, writer, and television personality here in the U.S.  He was the head chef for General Charles de Gaulle, for heaven's sake!

If you are not a fan of food fiction or memoirs, this may not be the book for you.  There's tons of mouthwatering food descriptions, funny stories, and really interesting facts: for example, even though Pepin dropped out of school in France when he was thirteen and came to America barely speaking English, he went back to school in the U.S. (Columbia) and nearly completed a Ph.D in French literature! Who knew?

And the funny bits are really funny.  I was seriously laughing out loud in parts, which I did not expect at all.  I've never watched any of Pepin's TV shows but I'll have to see if the library has any -- I need to see if he's as funny on camera as he is in the book.  I must also point out that sections of this book are not for hardcore vegans/vegetarians, or for the faint of heart.  The French are well known for charcuterie, and for using up every possible bit of an animal.  Some of the descriptions about butchering animals might be offensive.

However, I loved this book.  My only complaint is that I really wish it was longer -- it seemed like there was so much of his life story that was barely skimmed.  I'd have loved to learn more about his friendship with other chefs, like Julia Child.  And there are recipes and an index, so this book is really much shorter than 336 pages.

And what's sort of sad is that while I was reading portions of this book, full of recipes and descriptions of fantastic-sounding food, I was trapped on an airplane eating a dry, overpriced sandwich.  If you are going to read this, please make sure that you have already made plans to go out for a fabulous meal, or have all kinds of snacks at the ready.  I'm not talking about chips and salsa or any kind of salty snack ending in "ito."  You need pate and cornichons and crusty bread and cheeses and probably a nice glass of wine or something similar -- preferably something you can eat without too much fuss, since you'll need extra hands to turn the pages.  Trust me, this is one delicious memoir.