Three Years Ago Today - Paris with CoCo and Beth

     Facebook reminded me this morning of where I was and what I was doing exactly three years ago today.  I was in Paris with CoCo and my good friend, Beth, who had come to spend time with me in my little cottage where I was living.  I had lots of things planned for us to do while she was with me, including a road trip to Paris!  CoCo came along, of course, and had a lovely time seeing The City of Light from her "designer" black bag.

In front of the Louvre with CoCo in her black bag

     I enjoyed many guests while I was living in the Gers.  Andy came for a week in January, the week after he went home my friends, Jay and Barb, came for a few days.  And then Beth came for close to 3 weeks.  I loved playing tour guide and never tired of seeing the same places multiple times!  In the course of 4 weeks CoCo and I went to Carcassonne three times - and ate cassoulet three times!

The walls of medieval Carcassonne

     While Beth was there we did a road trip north to Paris, stopping along the way in the Loire Valley to visit the chateau de Chenonceau.  We had a wonderful time in Paris - but then I always have a wonderful time in Paris!  I love that the French are so dog-friendly and CoCo was welcome in our hotels and all the restaurants where we ate.  She is such a good little traveler.

Even in the winter Chenonceau is beautiful

     I am looking forward to being in Paris again, this time by myself, and will be able to do a few things that I have not ever done previously.  I plan to do a full day excursion to the Chateau de Fontainbleau and to Vaux le Vicomte.  I have wanted to visit these chateaux for years!  The histories of both of these places are so fascinating.  I also plan to visit the arcaded (covered) shopping areas in the neighborhoods near the Louvre and the Palais Royale. They became popular in the late 1800s and still have that authentic Art Deco style.
     Of course, I will be visiting some favorite spots.  I have to go see for myself what Notre Dame looks like.  I am sure I will be in tears.  Near the cathedral is a cafe that has really good crèpes!  I also will go to Fragonard as I need some more perfume.  And since Fragonard is very near the Galeries Lafayettes department store I'm sure I will find myself there as well!  Both places are an easy walk from the Opera.
     Yes, I have been dreaming of and planning my upcoming trip and have not been doing as much cooking as I had planned to do.  However, I did try out the recipe for the puffed baked pancake.  Let's just say there is a very good reason as to why I did not take a photo of it to share!  Baking in high altitude is always a challenge and even though I did use high altitude flour it still did not rise.  Well, actually the sides rose quite nicely, but the middle was flat as a . . . well, a pancake!  It tasted fine though and I ate it with butter and berries.  But it was not photo worthy - except for a good laugh!
     I had bought the gruyère cheese to make the puffed gougère pancake, but having had very little luck with the sweet version I decided not to spoil the awesome cheese by experimenting with a recipe I did not think would turn out.  So I found the authentic gougère recipe in my French cookbook and made a recipe of those today.  I think I could have taken them out of the oven a little sooner, but they still have that buttery, cheesy puffy goodness!  And taste like "France!"

The buttery cheesy little puffs of yummy!

The insides should be puffy like this

     I do have a French gougère story and may have shared this in one of the blogs I wrote while living in France:  I had great plans for making lots of French dishes while I lived there.  And one of those was to make gougères.  The oven had other plans!  I have never before or since seen an oven with numbers 1 - 6 rather than degrees of temperature.  I googled what each number meant and thought I had found the correct equivalent of 375 degrees f which is what my recipe called for.
     I was so excited to have these lovely little puffs of goodness with my homemade potato leek soup (one of my most favorites!) on that cool fall evening.  They looked great coming out of the oven - but - they were completely raw inside.  How is that possible???  I tried to finish them in the little toaster oven that I had but then they were way too done on the outside.  I tried other recipes in the oven over the course of the next couple of weeks and it didn't seem to matter which number I set the oven to, everything turned out raw on the inside!  So I gave up using the oven, ordered a slow cooker from Amazon.fr and used the toaster oven more often.  I never did figure out how to use that darn oven!
     I will leave you for this week (sorry I missed last week!) and haven't a clue what I will write about next week, but I'm sure that something will show up "around the next bend."  Thank you for taking the time to read my blog.  It really does mean so much to me.  Merci!