Vive le Pomme de Terre (et le Fromage)!

We just recently returned from a few days in the Haute-Savoie, near France's borders with Switzerland and Italy.  The red spot below:

We stayed in Talloires, a perfect little town nestled in the Alps, on Lake Annecy.  We hiked up into the hills; visited tiny churches, grottos, and waterfalls; gazed up into the sky at multitudes of paragliders; took ferry rides around the lake; sat on our balcony overlooking the mountains and the water; and ate enormous quantities of cheese--washing it down with the white and rose wines of the region to help prevent the cheese from forming into a hard-to-digest rock in your stomach (at least that's what we were told by the locals). 

Last time, I was obsessed with the Tartiflette--layers of potatoes, sauce, cheese and lardons, baked until crisp on top and deliciously gooey in the middle.  This year, I discovered a new friend and somewhat obscure historical figure.  His name was Antoine-Augustin Parmentier and he, too, was a fan of the potato.  While I'm sure he loved a good tartiflette, another dish bears his name. 

I discovered the "parmentier" at a restaurant in Annecy.  I tried to order the menu du jour--a complete mystery due to my limited French restaurant vocabulary--but, apparently they had run out of whatever it was.  So, I ordered a parmentier from a list of several--each containing words I knew:  pommes de terre, reblochon, canard, lardon, champignon, etc.  A parmentier is similar to a tartiflette--in both raw ingredients and cooking methods.  It is made with potatoes and the ubiquitous cheese of the region: reblochon.  Parmentier consists of mashed potatoes, topped with a layer of something (shredded duck, minced pork, or other things I didn't understand), smothered in thick slices of cheese, then baked like a tartiflette.

Mine had minced mushrooms and shredded, smokey pork inside...I think.  It was delicious.  It goes on my short (but growing) list of French comfort food obsessions:  cassoulet, tartiflette, and, now, parmentier. 

Merci, Monsieur Parmentier.  Merci.   

A Joyful Amalgamation

a perfect union

french fries, cheese curds, and gravy

oh poutine, what joy!

The Holy Grail is made of styrofoam

I feel it is somehow important to elaborate on my haiku and say a few words about the wonderous Quebecois creation known as poutine: a mouthwatering medley of french fries, gravy, and cheese curds.

I've always been an avid supporter of the humble potato and a bonafide cheese enthusiast. And gravy? Gosh, who doesn't like their food bathed in thick savory sauce!? Ever since I was first introduced to this dish by LSB, who grew up a few miles/kilometers from Quebec, I have been mildly obsessed with it (we even made poutine T-shirts...). Recent visits to Canada have turned into personal poutine crusades that produced mediocre results: edible, but uninspiring pub-poutine or, worse, no poutine at all. LSB had taken to giving me words of encouragement: "don't worry, we'll get it next time we're in Canada."

My luck changed a week ago, when a friendly Canadian handed us a take-out menu while we sat by the Avon River in Stratford, Ontario. It was lunchtime and Boomer's Gourmet Fries was just up the street. Small and unassuming, both inside and out, Boomer's welcomed us with a giant, chalkboard menu and a friendly greeting from the spiky-haired, heavily tatooed woman at the counter.

The key to the magic within

While the others ordered the more traditional "2 Cheese Poutine," LSB and I couldn't resist the "Goat Cheese Poutine" (with gravy, basil oil, and cracked pepper). Pure potato-based deliciousness. It was like eating happiness with a plastic fork. My only complaint is that there wasn't any bacon on the menu, though I can only imagine that the "Poutini Martini" is a little glass of heaven.

Are you ogling my poutine, punk?

Je t'aime, le fromage de montagne!

There, I said it. Okay, so I know that "I love you, the mountain cheese!" may not make complete sense gramatically. It does to me, though, and to my friend Bucky who first uttered the phrase over 10 years ago in adoration of a different type of cheese from a different French mountain range.

This time, it was the Alps and the Reblochon. I ate alot of it, with almost every meal in the course of our long weekend in the Haute-Savoie. To summarize, I ate it:

- with a baguette in front of a mountain chapel

- with a baguette, some terrine, and some rosé by the lake

- baked in a tartiflette (potatoes, onions, cream and bacon)...twice

- as part of an after dinner cheese course (the cheese course being one of my favorite things about France)

Me and a French dinghy

I learned that "reblochon" basically means "milked again." Further research discovered that it actually comes from the word "reblocher" which literally means: "to pinch a cow's udder again." In the olden days the Man used to tax the farmers on how much milk they produced, so they would only partially milk their cows, measure the milk, pay the taxes, then go back and milk the cow again after the taxman left. Apparently, the remaining milk was richer and used to make this delicious cheese.

Between episodes of mountain cheese consumption, I did other things. LSB has all of the pretty pictures here (including a montage of me looking contemplative on a dock). I'll try to cover the rest below.

We stopped at the store and picked up a baguette and...er...reblochon and hiked up into the mountains. Near the top is La Grotte de St. Germain and a chapel built directly above it. As I understand it, St. Germain was a monk at the priory in Talloires who, in an effort to live a more simple and rustic life, started spending his nights in a small cave (the aforementioned "grotte"). After a while, I think he went a little batty and just stayed up there, living the life of a recluse. A hermit with a view.

la grotte de St. Germain

While LSB was in meetings, I took a boat tour around the lake to Annecy. I met a couple of caravaning Scots on board with their two friendly spaniels: Paddy (a cocker) and Fudge (a springer). I never did get the names of the people, but I learned that they were traveling through France and then onto Italy. It was in Annecy that I ate my first tartiflette of the trip. I washed it down with a bottle of strong "Yeti" beer at a restaurant on a canal.

Yes, that is A Moveable Feast next to my tartiflette (I am the cliché)

Once Leah was free from work, we spent our last afternoon in Talloires, sitting in the grass on the lakeshore, drinking rosé and eating baguettes with a certain mountain cheese that I tend to enjoy.

LSB, Lake Annecy, and Reblochon

I had tartiflette again for dinner that evening and dreamed about a cave-dwelling life, double-milking cows for my livelihood. Strange. Maybe it was all the cheese. Or maybe it had something to do with this guy...

creepy saint at the chapel of St. Germain

Bon nuit!

Part III: The end of a crayfish obsession and hip hop fatigue

Rise and shine

Sunday morning found Hugh in the kitchen, doing whatever it is Hugh does. In this case, crafting a feast of leftover meat so wondrous that it brought tears to our eyes.

Hugh cooks / the Pope silently approves

Okay, perhaps our watery vision was caused by the greasy meat cloud that enveloped the cabin. At any rate, it is always good to start your day with a breakfast of "meat, 5 ways" (okay, maybe: "5 meats, 1 way")

Lawdy

Basically, Hugh filled the electric skillet with hot dogs (3 different kinds), kielbasa, Croghan Bologna, onions, tomatos, and potatoes; smothered it with cheddar cheese; and served it on top of biscuits.

Really nasty, amateur food porn.

After breakfast, we all found our own ways of saying our long goodbyes to the VanDerosa:

"I'll miss you most of all, Scarecrow"

Chris spent some alone time with his crayfish friends, while the rest of us tried to "shower" in the cold creek (essentially, carefully balancing on slick rocks why trying to splash as much frigid water on your head and torso).

Shower

After that, we burned stuff. Yeah, this is one of those strangely incongruous and slightly shameful parts about my normally eco-friendly, conservationist family. As there is no dump nearby, we always spend the last day at camp burning our garbage. While we do make an honest effort to separate the burnable (napkins, paper plates, etc.) from the un-burnable (glass, toxic plastic, etc.), which we bag and take home, I do have fond childhood memories of watching plastic cups melt into cool shapes--toxic black smoke be damned.

After the Burning, we packed up and headed out.

We made a few stops of course--actually, 3 in the first 20 miles of our trip. We had to get the most out of our cultural experience of the near-Adirondacks by picking up souvenirs. First, we took a slight detour to Indian River, where we stopped at a church-turned-general store, complete with neon beer signs in the formerly-stained glass windows. We marveled at the assortment of beer, guns, lawn ornaments, and knives before buying our obligatory cheese curds.

Church of Beer, Guns and Sundries

After Church, we headed toward Lowville and the erie sight of the hundreds of giant windmills dotting the Tug Hill Plateau.

War of the Worlds

We made another stop at the P&C in Lowville to buy maple syrup, more cheese curds, and several rings of Croghan Bologna, as well as discretely deposit our unburnables in the garbage can out front.

We climbed piled back in the car, made a quick stop at a local produce/cheese/maple syrup store on Route 12, and then resumed our long trip home, South (in an Easterly direction).

South (East happened later)

I don't know when it was exactly that Dan and Chris took control of the iPod--30 minutes into the trip? An hour?--but, somehow, we listened to about 9 hours worth of hip hop in 5 hours. I'm not sure what it was that paralized Hugh and I, but for some reason, we sat in the back seat in a silent stupor, unable to change our musical course, no matter how excrutiating it became. Don't get me wrong, I like hip hop and was a huge fan of Yo! MTV Raps (with both Fab 5 Freddy and Doctor Dre/Ed Lover) back in the early 90s, but I can only take so much and seem to have repressed the memory of much of the trip home. Though I do have a slightly blurred image in my mind of leaving Hugh in his brother's driveway, holding his two rings of Bologna.

Hugh and his souvenirs