And the stomache rumbles!

Hope yall don’t mind, but I’m gonna back up to the Euro-vacation again! This is going to be the food post I promised!

When my mom and I were in Paris about 10 years ago, I distinctly remember being quite enamored with the food. I thought everything tasted wonderful and was masterfully presented. Perhaps because this was a different kind of traveling (hotels & sit-down restaurants back then versus hostels and bar food on this trip), but I wasn’t very impressed with the food this go round. Perhaps also because it wasn’t very long ago that I dined on Italian cuisine for two months. Don’t get me wrong, there were some standout items like chocolate, pastries, and ice cream, but the entrees were nothing to write home about. It goes without saying that breakfast is just not a big deal in Europe, in fact an afterthought at best. Poor Andy was so sick of cappuccino and croissant for breakfast I think he was craving waffle house! He made up for it by having ice cream twice a day, everyday!

The food in Bayeau was really good, especially the Croque-monsieurs (pretty much a grilled ham & cheese sandwich with more cheese melted on top). I think the cheese was Gruyere, but I had one with some kind of goat cheese that was out of this world. Another standout was the crepes in Blois. We stumbled upon a great little Creperie in the “old town” even though town as a whole has history all the way back to the 9th century! There we had dinner and dessert crepes. We were walking by and wasn’t sure about the menu we were reading in the window (it was all in French), so the owner recognized our confusion and summoned us inside. There he prepared a plain crepe and got the idea across that he put different ingredients inside. He was so accommodating, we decided to try it out for dinner. I wasn’t sure what oeuf was, so one of the patrons sitting next to us acted out a chicken laying an egg as a translation! The picture is of a Crepe Normandie which contained ham, crushed tomato, mushrooms, and an overeasy egg yolk for good measure!

Call me crazy, but I’ll choose my momma’s crawfish etouffee any day over anything we ate on this trip. OK, maybe I’d want some of those fruit tarts for dessert!!