melon pork fillet - Cristina, from Buenos Aires to Paris

The Alsace, or where they know how to celebrate Christmas !

My husband and I wanted to take some days off, between Christmas and New Year, so the decided to go to the Alsace, the place for a Christmas feeling in France…Now, where is Alsace? It is in the border with Germany, and historically speaking, this area has belonged to France and Germany intermitingly…this is why, it is both French/German in spirit…you have the impression you are in Germany, but people speak French….

The most important city in this area is Strasbourg, but there are little villages like Colmar (here in the “night” photos) that seem to have come out of a story-book for children! Did you know that there is a special relationship between Colmar and New York?! Yes, Frédéric Bartholdi, the French sculptor and architect was born there…and he is the one to have created, and designed the Statue of Liberty!!

Culinary speaking, the German influence is felt in savoury dishes made with pork, in different forms…going from the simple but tasty Flammenküchen, a sort of very thin pizza, with crème fraîche, and “lardons“, to “choucroute garnie“, where there is a “festival” of sausages of different kinds, plus some salty pork cuts! (When are we starting our diet??!!)

Little pigs as lucky charms!

From the point of view of decoration, I loved the different restaurant signs…..

and special arrangement for windows!

In all the region, in all cities, no matter how small, you will find a “marché de Noël” (Christmas market) selling you from handmade products, to hot spicy wine to beat the cold!!

The symbol of Strasbourg is the stork, since they make their nests on the roofs of Alsacian houses…due to the winter and its unusually low temperatures, no storks in sight, only in the stalls!!!

On the sweet side, the most typical pastry of the region is the kougelhopt or kouglof, a kind of Alsatian Panettone, sprinkled in icing sugar (see the special decorated molds for it), and the Alsatian macarons, made with coconut! (which reminded me of American macaroons!), plus a zillion other things, nougats (turron) of all flavors, and the ubiquitous bretzels! (or “pretzels”), in sweet and salty versions!

This is only a glimpse of a very rich (culinary and historically speaking) visit I wanted to share with you!! I hope you have enjoyed it!

And I say goodbye for this year, wishing to find you again in 2011, with all your comments that fill my world, and that encourage me to think..”what can I do for my blog?”, to taste, to succeed, to fail, to change, to feel depressed when a recipe goes wrong…to start singing “I’m a genius” (we all need self-approval!!!) when something I make looks spectacular and tasty..

Thank you for being there for me…I will also be there for you!!!

The best for you all !!! from the bottom of my heart, from my tiny (almost non-existant) Parisian kitchen…!

A Foodblogger’s Mania: The Before and After of a Summer Salad

Does this happen to you too? Ever since I started blogging, I can’t help doing this….every time I see a dish, the photo of a dish….I begin to think, to dream….how would I do it? It is not always a question of doing it better, sometimes it is your personality that goes with the new arrangement, “make-up” of a dish…..

If you follow my blog regularly….(thank you for that!!!!), or if you just bumped into it by this sort of “roulette” that it is a Google search…..and you saw me in the Isle sur la Sorgue and the world of antiques….you must remember I ate a huge summer salad (Ok, if you don’t remember, which is normal, click here!)

Nothing wrong with that salad, which was a splash of colour and a burst of flavour! What is more, the salad was more than any tourist would expect: tasty, healthy, generous helping, good price….what else? As a client myself, I was very satisfied!!!!

But I felt some changes were needed: the melon slices, sweet as honey as they might be, were too thick in my opinion…the pork fillet had been cut in symmetrical slices, too geometrical…a bit of imperfection was needed there, curves to counterbalance so many straight lines…!

This is why I decided to arrange slices in a sort of tower, providing some vertical dimension to a flat scene, the playful ribbons of melons add visual movement…even if, we have to admit, in this new salad, the melon will be what the French call a “soupçon” (something in very little quantity) a hint of a flavour…a delicate touch! The vinaigrette has some honey in it, the pork fillet some mustard “à l’Ancienne” (the old-fashioned way), that means not creamy, but with the grains of mustard…Parma ham, radishes and cherry tomatoes, just like in the original version.

If you are very hungry, you will probably choose the other salad…Mind you! If I have to be honest, I have to confess that after I finished with the photos, I still thought I should have put less (obsessed by the “less is more”?) My daughter C, only person in my family that listens to me in my kitchen musings said: “Oh, mummy…less? what do we eat then?”

What do you think? What would you have done? I would like to know your opinion….