Girls' Weekend in London

With Peter heading to Amsterdam for a business trek with HEC, I had a weekend free to visit Rebecca and Kyra in London! Since their future hubbies were away for the weekend, too, this was the perfect opportunity for a girls' weekend. We kicked it off with a visit to the farmer's market so we could make a tasty meal that night.


This Farmer's Market is located in the parking lot behind a farm store in Kyra and Rebecca's posh neighborhood of Notting Hill. The produce is beautiful, and we were able to scrounge up the ingredients for a delicious vegetarian meal, with fresh pasta with tomato and pesto sauces, kale with raisins and almonds, and endive and blood orange salad.

The next night, brussels sprouts and roasted winter vegetable helped us keep this weekend healthy (until we hit up a favorite Thai restaurant for lunch on Saturday!)Saturday afternoon, the two brides discovered that a huge wedding dress sale would be taking place at a hotel in the city. I can't show the dresses they actually liked, but I can tell you we had a lot of fun. I ran back and forth searching through the racks and racks of dresses, the girls throwing them on one at a time, getting advice from the other brides and mothers and sisters in the dressing room.

A Ski Weekend in Chamrousse

Last weekend we travelled to Chamrousse, France, a small town in south-eastern France, near Grenoble with 78 other HEC business school students. After arriving in Grenoble, an hour-long bus ride brought us to our resort, and upon arriving in our 6-person room, we discovered that this was our view: It was incredible to see the low-hanging clouds and the mountain peaks all at once. We spent the weekend skiing and admiring the incredible views.

Neither of us are extremely experienced skiiers, but we challenged ourselves to ski down the mountain, from top to bottom, and this is proof that we did in fact make it to the top!
Our next challenge was to dominate a red trail (which is the equivalent of a black diamond in the USA), and once we made it down the steepest part, I had to stop to take a photo for proof. You may think it strange to stop in the middle of a trail for picture-taking. But don't worry, apparently in France, stopping in the middle of a ski trail is very common. On every trip down the slope, we'd almost run into whole families sitting in the middle of the hill, or people stopping to smoke or have a sandwich. We're not experienced enough to know whether this is also popular in other ski destinations, but we are smart enough to know it's not a good idea! But even so, you know the rule: When in France....

...so I stopped in the middle of the trail to take a photo.

One of the best parts of the weekend was spending time with our HEC friends. Staying in rooms of 6 meant early morning breakfasts together, and late night ramen and kimchee parties. In this picture, you may notice that the door to our porch is wide open. That's because it was near 60 degrees all weekend! This made for lots of sunshine, naps out on the porch, and a few swims in the outdoor pool, but also slushy slopes!

Cheese of the Week: Ossau Iraty

Ossau-Iraty is a Basque sheep's milk cheese made in the French Pyrenees, and according to the AOC rules, it must be aged for a minimum of 90 days. Ossau-Iraty is one of our favorite cheeses so far. It is categorized as a semi-hard cheese which firms as it ages, and it has a creamy, nutty flavor. It is not your classic "stinky French cheese", and probably suits most palettes. It was great with some bread and sliced saucisson, but even better just on its own. This cheese can be served before or after dinner, and it's Basque nickname is "farmer's dessert". It's perfect for cutting up and snacking on, and according to those who know, it is best paired with a white Graves wine. Graves is a small wine-producing region of France, which gets its name from the gravel-rich soil.

A Tonkatsu Christmas

Christmastime in America is usually filled with holiday tables set with baked hams and roasted turkeys. Being at the Gale residence for Christmas this year, Christmas Eve became a Japanese cooking lesson and a feast of delicious Japanese treats.

Handmade gyoza, stuffed with pork, before and after deep-frying.

Tonkatsu, a Gale family favorite.
Tonkatsu is pork cutlet dipped in panko breadcrumbs and deep fried. I know you are probably thinking, "this sounds like a very unhealthy meal!" But don't worry, it's usually served on a bed of cabbage. Just to make it look pretty. We also threw some sweet potatoes in there, to make sure we had some extra vegetables at the table! All in all, it was a great cooking lesson, and a nice break from baguettes and fois gras. And on Christmas night, Peter's brother and mom did serve up a beautiful, traditional Christmas dinner.

The Yorkshire pudding was golden and puffy, and the rib roast was juicy and delicious. Besides eating, we had a lot of fun spending time with family, walking in the woods, and visiting DC.
All in all, it was a wonderful Christmas!

With a winter storm approaching, we were on northbound on a train to Connecticut at 3:30 the next morning, and sadly said an early goodbye to the DC side of the family. We arrived in CT just in time for a batch of Karen's famous sticky buns and mimosas with the family, the Robbins family Christmas morning tradition (although a day late!). I tried to capture the essence of the sticky buns, but they disappeared too fast. All I got was a shot of one last bite! Spending time in Greenwich with friends and family was a wonderful way to end 2010, and by New Year's Eve, we were ready to celebrate the year we were married and the year we moved to France, with some of our closest friends. I guess we didn't manage to get a whole group shot, but yes, there were more people at our party than the four pictured below. The extra soup bowls are not just for show.
Dinner was a pot-luck party on Palmer Island, and after yet another filling meal of oysters, soup, salad, potatoes-aux-gratin, chicken with shallots, cheese plates and Brooks' gorgeous year-end cake, we said hello to 2011. We are looking forward to the travel, adventure, new friends we'll make and old friends we'll visit this year.