It is my last day at the Chateau, and fittingly, it is grey and rainy; a perfect day for packing and cleaning “Venice.” But I am sad to leave, and the gloom does nothing to elevate my mood, nor the knowledge that the rain will cancel our outdoor wifi café. I am glad I did my laundry yesterday, as there would be no way to hang it out to dry on a day like today.
I left you with a teaser about a shared meal with all the current residents of the Chateau, both permanent and stagiers. The “wifi café” crew offered up their services to Jay, and set to work setting up tables in the public room of the chateau, cleaning tables, setting places, filling salt and pepper shakers, and acting as sous chefs to Jay. I was in charge of preparing pans of endive for braising. Jay was once a chef and is quite capable of cooking meals for many, in this case, 36. The menu: broiled chicken, rice, braised endive, and pecan ice cream. At 8PM the participants began arriving and tasting Jay’s cocktail of the evening: rum punch made with Cuban rum. Soon it was time to sit—thirty six gathered at the tables and commenced pouring water and wine. Jay announced the menu of the evening, and we began. It was a lovely night, and some of us stayed up talking until midnight or so. But our last day of class was the next day, so sleep must be had.
On the last day of class, Jean François had to catch the train back to Paris at 9:15PM from nearby Alés, so Jay, Marie Paule, David, Kaya, Jennifer, Simon, Ivan, and I took the opportunity to go with him to Alés and share a meal at La Riche, a Michelin guide two-star restaurant across the street from the train station. We piled into two little cars at 7PM and were on our way through the mountains.
La Riche is just what you’d expect to see in a French restaurant. High ceilings painted a rich mahogany red, carved plaster, chandeliers, white tablecloths, and loads of etched glassware and the kind of table silver that makes you glad for the Emily Post lessons you took as a teenager.
We sat at a long table and ordered Kir as our apéritif. Then a look at the “prix fixe” menu, where you could order a four course meal for as little as 21 Euros (around $30.) I chose the 28€ meal, as the dessert had a choice of fresh cherry sorbet.
For my first course, I chose a terrine made from local chevre and smoked salmon. A terrine is a lovely concoction of (usually) pureed vegetables and/or meat layered into a pâté. The combination of the tart goat cheese and the smoked salmon was delectable.
For the second course, I chose a faux-filet (sirloin) with Roquefort cheese sauce. It was served with tiny spots of vegetables, including a terrine tower with asparagus, some ratatouille, and harcourt verts. It was all very good, but I couldn’t finish my steak.
Jay had ordered a crisp, slightly sweet white wine for our fish dishes, and a wonderfully peppery/blackberry tasting local cabernet for our steaks. The cheese course was next. Our server brought out a serving trolley with various chesses upon it. One could pick three, which she would serve with a slice of chestnut bread. I chose a peppered chevre, a yellow soft cheese (Marie Paule told me its name, but I forget) and Roquefort. Marie Paule advised me to eat the cheeses from the “lightest to the strongest,” in the French fashion. [She also has taught me two other French eating rules: it is considered very rude to cut the ‘nose” (the short end) off a wedge of cheese, and when drinking wine with a meal, you only drink in the order of white wine to red. The French think it’s unhealthy to switch from red wine to white, unless it is dessert champagne.]
The fresh cherry sorbet was served in three little scoops with whipped cream on a reduced cherry syrup with a large almond cookie. O la la. I had already eaten fresh cherries here, and they were the “cherriest” cherries I had ever eaten. Take that one step further into sorbet--- to die for.
A photo of Jean François’ dessert plate:
We said our goodbyes to Jean François (some of us kissing two cheeks in the Parisian fashion, some three, as in the fashion of the South) and continued with our meal until 10:30 or so. Exhausted from the long days of the workshop and the heavy meal, we all went straight to our rooms for bed.
Tomorrow I go to Nimes and take the train to Paris. I spend two and a half days there before I board the flight for home. I am sad to be leaving here, and can only mitigate the sadness with hopes of adventures in Paris and beyond.
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