Each evening co-author Steve Smith and I visit the restaurants we recommend and check out other possibilities. Our treat after a long day of research is sitting down to a meal at our favorite place. In this restaurant in Amboise, I was particularly charmed by both Aurore (who runs the restaurant) and her cheese course. She introduced it so lovingly to each diner, that I had to share the experience with this video clip.
If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.
For the past few nights in the Loire Valley, I’ve been reminded that an evening meal here can be much more than a meal. When you spend $60 for dinner here (instead of just “filling the tank” for $20) don’t count on getting any extra nutrition. You’re buying a three-hour joy ride for the senses — as rich as visiting an art gallery and as stimulating as a good massage.
In Amboise, after a full day of researching the next edition of our France book, Steve Smith and I go to Restaurant L’Epicerie. Steve orders a basic menu and I go top end. As usual, we share. I bring along my little black notebook in an attempt to capture how — when you choose a good restaurant, relax about the prices, and let yourself really tune into the experience — splurging on dinner is a travel thrill in itself. And that can make it a great value.
Getting a full dozen escargot rather than the typical six snails doubles the joy. Eating six you’re aware that supply is very limited. Eating twelve, it seems for the first eight like there’s no end to your snail fun. The taste is so striking that I find myself requesting silence at the table. It’s just my mouth and the garlic-drenched snails, all alone on the dance floor of my palette. Add good Chinon wine and you’ve got a full orchestra accompaniment. Like a slow motion love scene, I pry another snail gently out of its shell and pop it into my mouth. The swirly spiral on the empty shells visually syncs with each swish of wine.
Like a mermaid’s tail in a tide pool, my crust of bread laps up the homemade garlic-and-herb sauce. I ask Aurore, our waitress, how it can be so good. With a sassy chuckle and smile she says, “Other restaurateurs come here to figure that out, too.” Then she adds, “It’s done with love.” While I’ve heard that line many times, here it seems believable.
The restaurant itself adds to the experience. Under rough timber beams hang frameless portraits of long forgotten city fathers. Opposite hangs an aging painting of a traditional boat full sail blowing up the Loire. Glasses fill the room like crystal flowers. Gazing at the quiet lane outside my window, with the floodlit Amboise château sparkling high above, I think French kings and Leonardo strolled along this very spot.
Then my main course arrives: tender beef with beans wrapped in bacon. Slicing through a pack of beans in their quiver of bacon, I let the fat do its dirty deed. A sip of wine, after a bite of beef, seems like an incoming tide washing the flavor farther ashore.
My crust of bread, a veteran from the escargot course, is called into action for a swipe of sauce. Italians brag about all the ingredients they use. But France is proudly the land of sauces. Thanks to the bread, I enjoy one last encore of the meat and vegetables I’d just savored.
If it’s not this afternoon’s bread, it’s not a good restaurant. I hold up my petite wicker basket and, with a quick and crusty chop, chop, chop, it comes back in moments filled. If the sauce is the medicine, the bread is the syringe. I take some more.
Lighting in a restaurant is a mystery to me. When it works, the food, the glasses, your dining partner all twinkle. The red in the beef, the diamonds in the wine, the smile in the tomato, everything seems more appetizing. And then, Aurore asks in French, “What would give you pleasure?”
Shifting my chair to stretch out my legs, I prepare for the next course. Aurore brings on her cheese platter. It’s a festival of mold on a rustic board with its vibrant yet mellow colors promising a vibrant array of tastes. She explains the line-up with patience and care as I film her presentation with my iPhone. With the cheese there’s a special extra: raisins soaked in Armagnac brandy. Her sweet French voice makes me want to respond, “Oui!” The lovingly sliced collection of cheeses arriving on my plate makes me want to sing (out of consideration for Steve, I don’t).
As cheese needs wine, I check my wine bottle like I would my gas tank before driving home. Noticing the restaurant crowd thinning, I remind myself there is no rush. I appreciate hearing the quiet murmurs of other diners, as eating among others enjoying their experience as much as I am enjoying mine is part of the sensual experience. It makes me wish restaurants back home were also hushed.
As I lean back to stifle a burp, Steve says, “And here comes dessert.”
Mine is a tender crêpe papoose of baked cinnamon apple with butterscotch ice cream garnished with a tender slice of kiwi. That doesn’t keep me from reaching over for a snip of Steves’ lemon tart with raspberry sauce and shaved almonds.
The meal ends with an offer of coffee, but I decline, preferring to remain in my dazed state.
The bill arrives: €34 for my four courses, €22 for Steve’s simpler menu, and €30 for the wine. The entire meal costs us €86, or about $60 each. You could call it $20 for nourishment and $40 for three hours of bliss. I can’t imagine a richer Loire experience, one that brought together an unforgettable ensemble of local ingredients, culture, pride and people.
Aurore bids us good night with the same twinkle of joy that accompanied each course. Stepping out into that lane, looking up to the floodlit château, I know it won’t be the last time.
I’m just finishing a busy week visiting the best châteaux of the Loire. Touring these insanely extravagant palaces — and considering the division of economic classes of that time — it occurred to me that most of them were built by bankers and financiers from the courts of the great kings. The parallels between these “hedge-fund managers of the 17th century” and their counterparts today, given the recent political discourse in our country, was fun to ponder.
I had a particularly thrilling experience climbing through the attic of one of these guys and popping out on his rooftop, where I could survey his garden. This was about a century before a “big correction” occurred. Because, back then, there was no political way to reign in these fat cats, the correction was done quite violently. Here’s Vaux-le-Vicomte, the home of Louis XIV’s finance minister, Nicolas Fouquet.
If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.
Driving from château to château to research and improve our France guidebook, co-author Steve Smith and I have shifted into our updating groove. I find the lanes of trees leading up to the Château of Vaux-le-Vicomte attractive, not only in how they look but why they are there. The countryside of France is filled with charms like this.
If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.
I’m just getting into my new trip. This time I’m in France — working on TV shows and updating our France and Paris guidebooks with my co-author Steve Smith.
I’ve spent this past week in Paris working on the guidebook. With the luxury of an entire week to settle into one place, I’ve been able to connect with this city like never before: sipping a kir before dinner (a genteel-feeling way to begin a meal)…spending enough time to really “be” in the Orangerie so I could take a virtual stroll around the edge of Monet’s lily pond with the artist himself…developing a taste for pistachio macaroons…looking forward to hearing the folk troupe of Russian musicians that plays in the Métro station nearest my hotel…and getting used to setting my nighttime clock by the Eiffel Tower doing its top-of-the-hour, crazy-twinkle routine.
Last night, outside of Paris, in Chartres, I had some quality time all alone with the Gothic statues of Chartres Cathedral. The setting sun brought life to the expressions on their delicately carved faces. As I stood there, quiet and unrushed, it almost felt as though they were struggling to share with me the stories they’ve told eight centuries of pilgrims. I took some of the best photos I can remember — then celebrated with a salade de gésiers of bouncy lettuce and chicken innards, washed down with a life-is-good carafe of red house wine.
Back at my hotel, as I sorted through my intimate moments with those statues through the viewing screen of my camera, I accidentally erased everything on my memory card. Lesson learned: Never cull-out photos with a wine buzz.
Considering the images I’d lost, at first I was depressed. Then, I decided to let my memory of those images be a reminder of the richness of the travel experiences I’ve enjoyed in just a few days so far on this trip: Biking through the vast and fanciful garden of Versailles…tasting duck and mango at the same time…thrilling at mountain climbers rappelling down the side of the Eiffel Tower…learning to open a crayfish properly with the chef at a great new fish restaurant on the Left Bank…visiting the army museum and empathizing with Napoleon’s gloom after Waterloo and France’s enthusiasm for de Gaulle after WWII…checking out the new, lovable little electric car Renault has on display on the Champs-Elysées…taking a virtual stroll with Monet along the banks of his water-lily pond, painted lovingly onto a vast canvas at the Orangerie…and thinking how impressive it is that little tiny children here already speak French…
Yes, my photos are gone, and from now on I’ll back things up more carefully. But, photos or not, memories like these will stick with me forever, and vividly.
Tomorrow it’s on to Amboise. My trip is just starting and it’s so clear, the memory stick that really matters is the one atop my shoulders.
Happy travels!