Frog's Legs and Wine

Friday, August 13th

Enjoyed a good night's sleep in the quiet town of Chagny at my cousin's home. I left the shutters slightly open so that I could see the morning light come in. Downstairs for breakfast and of course Celeste and Umberto started spoiling us right away. Umberto just brought in the fresh croissants from their favourite bakery, one of the five in town. By the way five bakeries making bread and croissants and two pastry shops that make only cakes, tartes and pastries, all this for a population of 6,000. This is not to mention what you can get at the three large supermarkets.

After our cafe au lait and croissants we decided to take a walk around the town. There are lots of little streets and shops, people walking about doing their morning shopping. This is the town I was born in. It feels sort of strange being here as if I should know the town but I don't really and yet there is a comfortable feeling here as there are lots of people who live here to whom I am connected. We walked past the Hotel de Ville with its covered porticoes and flower pots filled with geraniums and other flowers. A little further down the road was the maternity hospital where I was born, it is now an old age home. Maybe I can spend my last days where I spent my first. It looks pretty good, and I know the food there will be very good.

Back to the house and lunch time. Of course Celeste has the table set and everything prepared. We ate outside on the lovely terrace. Orrechiette pasta, the little hand rolled circles of thicker than usual pasta dough. They are from the Puglia area. They were served with a delicious tomato sauce made fresh from the tomatoes in her garden, cubes of zucchini and basil and a touch of fresh pepperoncino. Of course there was pecorino cheese to grate on top of it but not for her husband - he prefers parmigiano. All this was washed down with a white Mercurey from the Domaine Pagnotta. And the usual cheese platter at the end, just to finish our wine.

Off to Beaune. This is the most lovely of towns. There are the houses with the trademark Burgundian tiled roofs of many colours, the flowers everywhere, cobbled streets and wine merchants galore. This is truly the heart of Burgundy wine where the famous wineries all have their headquarters and where since 1443 the Hospices de Beaune, first hospital in Europe, has been funded with the sales of the wine from the prestigious vineyards. You can tour the hospital which is now a museum. There are mannequins with nun habits on and huge starched white caps. When I was still in utero my mom had to have her appendix out and this is where it happened, it wasn't a museum as yet.

Beaune also has the best school for vintners in the world. This is where Celeste and Umberto's son, Rocco who now runs the business with his wife Isabelle, went to school and where he met Isabelle. She came from a wine family in the Macon region and he from Chagny. They met at the school and the rest is history. Now they love each other and their wine business and of course their 3 children.

We climbed the ramparts and had a look over the town then back to Chagny as we have a dinner reservation. Where are we going? We are going to a little restaurant called Le Beau Rivage, nearby but Ross doesn't remember how to get there and I certainly don't. Umberto drove the country roads and there we were on the banks of the Soane River under three huge plane trees. Of course we chose to sit outside and enjoy the view of the slow moving river. First up was a 'friture' which basically means a fried dish. It was small fish that had been swimming a short while earlier. A huge fish shaped blue platter arrived brimming over with the crispy, hot fish. Although it was fried there was no taste of the oil or soggy bits. The fish have their heads left on and you eat the entire thing. There were lemon wedges to sprinkle over the fish. Umberto chose a crisp white to go with our dinner. At the moment the name escapes me and I will fill it in later. Next was our second course, frog's legs. We were each given a clean plate and cutlery after the empty fish platter was taken away. Then the waitress brought out a hot sauté pan and serving spoon and the perfume of garlic and butter and parsley surrounded her. She quickly placed five frog's legs on each of our plates and wished us bon appétit. As we worked our way through the frog's legs, which were amazing, I thought that it was a good thing that the wine was cool and fresh tasting to counteract the richness of the dish and because I knew from last time that the waitress would be coming out soon with her hot pan again and the rest of our frog's legs. They only serve you half of your order at a time so that it won't get cold. Sure enough, out she came with four more for each of us. I really shouldn't have eaten them all but they were so good, melt in your mouth good, that I couldn't leave them. Unfortunately there was no more room for dessert. I couldn't be that piggish.

We made our way out to the car completely full and Umberto decided to take another route back, this time via Chalon. Celeste was being a back seat driver and saying that it was the longer way around while he said it was the same. The bounced their opinion back and forth at each other and Ross and I tried to keep out of the conversation. We got home and the discussion of which route was longer continued and there was a promise that the truth would come out.

Off to bed after chatting till the late hours. Gotta digest all this food.