adventures of an american housewife in the south of france

Hump Day: Getting Out Of Our Comfort Zone

My goodness, apologies for being so quiet over here on the blog.  It's been a whirlwind of packing, traveling, unpacking, and cleaning over here during the last two weeks.  After spending the week in Cannes, I left The Hub behind and jetted off to Paris to spend the weekend with my friends Abby, Stéphanie, and Jimmy.  We had a marvelous time and I am so excited to tell you about a particular meal that we ate at Chez Paul, but first things first.  It's Wednesday.  Hump Day.  It's time to talk booze.

a toast in the Jardin du Luxembourg

Here's something I've noticed since spending the last week and a half outside of Montpellier:  The Hub and I have gotten really good at picking wines from our region, Languedoc-Roussillon, but as soon as we step outside our comfort zone, we have no idea what to order.  We didn't recognize any wines on the menus of the restaurants in Cannes or Paris, which made us realize that we need to start expanding our horizons.  We mostly guessed on what looked good and, when possible, asked for suggestions.  Everything we ordered was pretty good, but there was one bottle of wine in particular during my travels that I think you all should know about:  a 2009 Bordeaux from Château Le Cluzet. On Saturday night we went to Cafe Charbon in the 11th arrondissement of Paris to celebrate Jimmy's 30th birthday.  We had a lovely meal filled with chipirons frits, cuisses de grenouille, keftes de bœuf grillées, and gravelax de saumon and the Château Le Cluzet was the juicy cherry on the sundae.  Almost literally.  It had delicious notes of cherry, currants and raspberries with a very elegant finish.  Soft and round it was the perfect complement to our meal.  So we ordered a few bottles.  I wish I would have ordered one to go because Stéphanie and I have been searching for this wine ever since and we can't seem to find it anywhere.  I didn't even snap a picture of it because I'm dumb and was too busy pouring it down my throat to bother with photos.  The owner of our local wine shop suggested that we contact the winery to see where it's sold so that will be the next step and then Château Le Cluzet and I can be reunited for all eternity. À bientôt!

3 Responses to “Hump Day: Getting Out Of Our Comfort Zone”

  1. nate says:

    Aww man, where’s the gushing over Chez Paul? I have to wait until your NEXT post?? :-(

    Congrats on being brave enough to order and eat the frog legs BTW. I’m sure they’re great, but I never really got into the idea. How did you like them?

    • Natalie says:

      ok, you need to know that i have LOVED frogs my whole life and was horrified to be eating them. but my friends really wanted to order them and i felt like if i didn’t eat them, it would be hypocritical since i eat all other meat. i actually said “i’m sorry kermit!” before i tried them.

      that being said, they were SO delicious!!! ahhh!!!

    • Natalie says:

      PS – i also ate rabbit for the first time and some delicious escargot…which you’ll read about tomorrow ;)

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