Young Wine and Van Gogh

The 3rd Thursday of November marks the arrival of Beaujolais Nouveau, a wine made in the Beaujolais region of France and is made with the grapes harvested this year! Bars, cafes and restaurants all over Paris were ready to party to celebrate the release of this year's wine. With my mom in town for a visit, we knew we had to try it. It's light and a little fruity and goes down easy.

 Another highlight of our visit was the incredible food we had! From oeufs coccotte (eggs and cream sauce with leeks in a ceramic pot)...

 ...to the most incredible burrata (a liquidy, creamy version of mozzerella served in olive oil), and our first experience with fromage de tete (headcheese) which is the parts of a boiled pig's head formed into a little pate with gelatin...it's actually pretty good.

...and even this "melon de poulet", which is a deboned chicken stuffed with ham and cheese and wrapped in bacon. Yeah, I know...

...and our Wednesday night dinner at Les Papilles with this version of beef bourguignon

There is starting to be a stigma attached to taking photos of your food at the dinner table, so we've had to be stealthy about our photos, and if we had more pictures, we would have shown you the leek and potato soup ladled over a bed of leeks, croutons and fresh herbs, and the beef braised in white wine. But we did do things other than eat...

On Saturday morning we all hopped in the car and drove 45 minutes out to Auvers-sur-Oise. This tiny town was home to Vincent Van Gogh. He found lots of inspiration for his art in this town.

It's a tiny town but worth an afternoon visit. But in the off-season, be sure to visit during the week since everything is closed on the weekends!