Castles and Boozles

Guest Blogospherer: mike

we just got back from our week in Germany and i think we all agree that it is France's older, cooler, drunker brother. our days consisted of eating street food and hiking to castles, while by night we were more concerned with the best drink specials Heidelberg, Kaiserslautern, Bad Duerkheim, and Trier had to offer.

i won't really attempt to post any pictures of the castles or the towns since they obviously look terrible compared to professional pictures, but check out Heidelberg here.. it's pretty rad for sure. one thing i can tell you for sure is that, according to the carvings of these castles, you can only know the worth of a man by the size of his pantaloons:



after castling, we (i) decided to take a little shortcut down the hill on this incredibly steep and fast and wet waterslide, douching myself in so much water and mud i had to change into my only remaining clothes.





in trier, our dreams of a good drinking special came true when we found an amazing bar with 10 shots of jager for 8 euro. unfortunately for them, they didn't have any kind of one-tray limit.



more castle:


more drink:


in other news, we got most everything we still needed to set up my brewery in Germany and we are very close to having a fully functioning full barrel brewery going. will save many euros and make us very popular among the parisian elite in one swoop.

well, until next time:

Haute Couture à Notre Dame

Mac n Cheese Mondays: Manchego

Last night was our usual Monday trip to the Monoprix, which is the Paris version of a Super Walmart, but on a smaller scale. They have general stuff like mittens, bath needs and lipstick on the street level. Food is one floor down. They had been remodeling the place and they must have torn out the meat freezers because there was this big open hole in the floor, full of nasty pipes and nastier water. The entire place stank like a wrecked bathroom, and they were still open for business, shoppers everywhere. Pretty nasty ya'll.

Anyways, after that little story, let me tell you about our Mac and Cheese experiment from last night. We had it with brussels sprouts on the side and those were about the best brussels I've had ever. I think they were even better than the Mac, which was also damn good. We used probably 1.5 - 2 cups of grated Manchego, 1 sauteed shallot with mixed herbs, greek olives with some other kind of cheese in them (they were labeled fromolives or something like that, for frommage). Lots of salt and pepper, and then bread crumbs on top. Baked for 20 minutes I think. I don't know why we never thought to do this in the states. Manchego did make someone's Cheese of the Month page.

Let the Great Experiment Begin!

Germany is a really cool place. Even if you don't speak one bisschen of German. I am definitely going back. I saw my very first castle in Heidelberg, but before I get to posting those pictures, I have to post this pic of what we're calling the Prince's keg (which was in said castle). We thought this was a pretty big keg. About five minutes later, we got to see what a big keg really looks like when you get to be a king and live in a castle.
The Prince's Keg


The King's Keg

Soph

Thanks duder!

I want your skulls

Today's special guest blogger: mike

the other day we went to the Catacombs, which are something like 20 meters below street level of Paris, where they put about 6 million skeletons that they had to dig up in the 1700s. i have to say, one of the coolest places i've ever visited.



i was kind of expecting the place to be really touristy and never allow you to actually get close up to any of the bones, but hell no. the path just runs right through the middle of the whole thing for probably a mile of bone walls so that you can get right next to them, touch them, and disturb their eternal rest.



probably my favorite part is when you get to the end, a guy checks your bags to make sure you didn't steal any bones.. when we got to that guys, he had a table with several small bones, a femur, and a skull. probably from some rebellious Parisian scamps.



i wish i could say this view of death gave me some kind of new lease on life, but really, it's just amazing seeing the craftsmanship of whatever necromancer they got to build huge solid bone walls that last 250 years. also, it was fun to imagine what kind of hilarious music we could have made if we had brought xylophone mallets with us.

"Gotta have you on my wall
Gotta have you on my wall, cause
I want your skulls." -G. Danzig

Mac n Cheese Mondays

So while we were in New York, Mike took me to this awesome place that only serves Mac n Cheese: SMACNYC. And now we've decided to do Mac N Cheese Mondays, either recreating the recipes from the shop, or doing our own. Last night we did goat cheese, sun dried tomatoes and spinach. Added salt and pepper, bread crumbs on the top, and baked in the oven at 375F for about 20 minutes. I think it might beat Sophie's mac an cheese with white pepper, it was cheesealishush.

No Hat

We've done a lot of walking around the past couple of weeks. Two days ago we walked through the Louvre courtyard, which for anyone not up to par on their French history, was a palace built by Louie the sun king, later taken over by Napoleon and turned into a museum. I've heard recently the art in the Louvre is the spoils of the cities ransacked by Napoleon back in the day. We haven't been inside yet, but just the outside was pretty impressive. Not including that glass pyramid. Mike took this picture as we were leaving the courtyard. You can't see any of the palace, but this Arc is at the courtyard entrance. And of course, the Tower in the dusky distance there. Last night we went to a Canadian bar called the Moose. There are quite a few 'English' speaking bars in the city. It was the first time I've been able to walk around outside without a hat. Hooray!

Dix-Nuef means 19 in Franch

Paris Fashion

This is how I go outside most of the time. Incognito.

Champs-Élysées

So not yesterday, but the day before, it snowed all day. Apparently Paris is having once-in-a-decade- implement weather. I don't think you can really see any snow in this picture, but there was quite a bit of it. This photo is of the Champs-Elysées Avenue, that runs away from the Arc de Triomphe just like Congress runs away from the Capital. There's a better picture of it on Wiki. Champs is more like New York 5th Avenue than Congress though. This is where all the big stores are, like Louis Vitton, Peaugot, and Versace, although I didn't see it while we were out. It's only a 10 minute walk from where we are living, so maybe next time. Our next trip will be to the Latin Quarter.

New Year at Eiffel Tower

Here it is the first photo of us in Paris. It was pretty much freezing outside, but Andy and Lindsey had made up a thermos of mulled wine to keep our faces warm. Our fireworks display is way better, but I guess when you have the Eiffel Tower all lit up and sparkling, you can get away with chintzing on some things.
After checking the tower, we went to a party at a friend of Andy's and had some awesome eats, including about 8 different kinds of cheese and roasted chestnuts, which at first we weren't sure whether they might be liver or kidneys or some other fancy French something. Roasted chestnuts are surprisingly meaty and pretty good once you realize you aren't eating what used to be swollen duck liver.
Speaking of which, we did try the next day at another party, this time in a small private basement completely covered in Prohibition Era posters and comics. (Fois gras is also tastier than I would have thought, but I can't really get past the force feeding part enough to enjoy). Our host was and older French gentleman, extremely nice and with an accent so thick I could barely understand him. Again, more cheese than you could shake at, and anything you could want to drink, all gratis. The jazz music was live and amazing... three pianos, at one point being played by 5 people all at once. Include a tap dancer, trumpet player, clarinet and sax. Super cool, and usually I am not even a fan of live music.