This is one of my favourite recipes especially since I have been living in Brittany which is famous for its seafood like oysters – huitres, lobsters – homards and scallops – coquilles Saint-Jacques. During the scallop season in winter to early spring I try to cook this dish at least once a month because nothing beats fresh scallops. The recipe itself comes from Jamie Oliver but I adapted it a bit over the years . I use red lentils because[...]
Archive for March, 2009
La Livresse is a little Café or Salon de Thé located in the Rue Georges Clemenceau, the main street of Saint Servan. It is an old Boucherie and when you enter it the first time you feel like leaving this century behind you with the doorstep, arriving in an early 1900 french Café. I can not say something about the quality of the dishes the owner and chef is serving for lunch but if they are only half as good[...]
This is a new category on this blog. I will post some french music here because there are still some really good songwriters in France. And he is one of them. His name is Bénabar and the song À la Campagne is from his new album Infréquentable. Lyrics:
Ouch! The first day in the garden after the winter is really the hardest. Did not now that the human body has so many muscles. The weather here in Brittany is now stable for almost a week and everybody around me already started working in their gardens weeks ago. So we decided to get our lazy bones out in the sunshine and started with our kitchengarden v2.0 or little Holland, as we call it now . This means compared to[...]
Last weekend we visited the Mont Saint Michel. This is a trip we usually do once or twice a year outside the tourist season. The Mont is after Versailles the second most visited site in France so you can imagine how crowded it can get. The main “problem” is that there is basically only one small street leading up the hill to the cathedral which is about 4m wide. The second possibility is the old town wall. Now in march[...]
One of my basic German lessons contains an exercise about reading a german menu in a restaurant. Last week I did this lesson once again with a new client of mine and it made me think about names of german dishes. What is a Jägerschnitzel? First, a Jäger is a hunter. So now you might think “Ah, I got it. It’s a Schnitzel made out of wild boar or deer or something you hunt in the german forest!”. No, infact[...]
I think if you want to visit Brittany you really have to come in spring time. Although the past two summers were horrible, the spring time is simply amazing. Therefore we try to enjoy it as much as we can. Today we went up to Dol de Bretagne because there was a little market with plants and trees mixed with some garage sales. As it was not that great, the first “braderies” of the year never are, we decided to[...]
When I find some free time in the schedule I always enjoy driving up to the coast and spend a little while in Saint Malo. Brittany has a special light which is appreciated by many painters and also photographers. Some of the greatest Impressionists worked in the region. For picture taking early morning and late afternoon are the best times and I can say that I’m happy with the results of this day. First, we went down the mole where[...]
One of my favourite cities in the region is Dol de Bretagne. It is a very old town with a beautiful city center with houses that date back to the 16th century. Dol de Bretagne is reputated to be the hometown of the scottish royal house of Stuart. The family arrived in Britain with the army of William the Conqueror. There are many little cafés and restaurants on the main street and next to the cathedral. My favourite café is[...]
The ideal dish after a long working day, especially when you have to eat late again. For the salad I like a mixture of young leaves and herbs. The dressing is made of ginger, garlic, soy sauce, olive oil, sitchuan pepper, chili, fine chopped onions and cherry tomatoes. If wanted you can even make a warm salad out of it. Fry the duck filet slowly in a pan without adding any oil on the skin side which you cut in[...]
