we love holidays because they are like cheat season chez nous… we eat what we want, when we want it, in order to fully appreciate the experience. paris was no exception… i even had a list prepared! here are the highlights of our 4 days:

crêpes de sarrasin, from the street. these had cheese, ham, mushrooms and egg, and were a steamy and deliciously stringy mess.

we had to try the croissants! they were ok, but my heart is loyal to their much fluffier portuguese version. the boy loves palmiers, so we gave those a shot too :)

ah… the croissants aux amandes are much more my style – oh the crème! and we tried the macarons, of course. we picked up some from ladurée, in their mini-version, and ate them in park nearby. they were surprisingly nice, and the small size was just right.

more galletes de sarrasin! we were staying in montparnasse, so we indulged in these quite a bit. with bacon and eggs, and with honey and goat cheese… mmm…

random sweets: tarte au citron and éclair!

oh, the omnipresent baguette! the french might not use the beret anymore, but true to stereotype, the ratio of baguettes/person is still surprisingly high. and rightly so, since they are heavenly. we treated ourselves to one every morning, slathered on with divine salty butter.

more baguettes with jam and cheeeeese! we had this cheese platter at the café des 2 moulins, while watching asian tourists smiling for the photo and cracking their tiny bowl of super-expensive crème brûlée.

ah! les escargots! my dad had delighted me with tales of snails from his years in france. so we went ahead and tried them too. and they were delicious, and tasted nothing like i thought they would. :) and we also tried fondue (finally!) and it was good as well.

one of the dinners was at breakfast in america, because by then we were feeling like less gourmet, more comfort food. and what better than a egg-filled burrito to satiate our hunger? :)

i’ve saved berthillon’s ice-cream for last. i wasn’t prepared for discovering this ice-cream, fully convinced no ice-cream could top our beloved vanille marille… boy, was i wrong. this… this was… magnificent. i have no words, and while i was eating it, i was delighted and furious at the same time. how dare they make this… this impossibly good ice-cream so far away from where we live?! oh the injustice!

this post is about francesinhas, one of my favourite portuguese dishes. it’s a contraption of a dish, consisting of with layers of yummy things wrapped up in melted cheese. it’s typically portuguese gastronomy: meaty, heavy, no-frills and so caloric that it might induce heart-palpitations on unsuspecting foreigners… :)

wikipedia calls it a sandwich, and the definition is true insomuch as it consists of two slices of bread with lots of fillings in between them… but if one needs cutlery in order to eat it, can it really be considered a sandwich? it feels… like an over-simplification.

the layout, from bottom up, goes as follows: slice of thick toasted bread, linguiça sausage, a thin steak, a few slices of ham or mortadella, and another slice of bread. sometimes there’s a fried egg on top of all of that. then, you cover everything in slices of cheese, let it melt for a bit, and pour a beer-based sauce over it. if you’re like me, you’ll want the fries that come with it swimming in the sauce.

the people of porto are fierce about their francesinhas, and each have their favourite. the most famous ones would be in bufete fase or café santiago. mine is actually in ermesinde, my hometown, a few kilometers from porto itself. if you’re ever around, go to café torres and give it a try. i promise it will be worth the trip!

hungry? :)

we spent almost a whole month in portugal, and once more, i decided to keep track of the special things we ate, so that we could make another food list. we’re quite predictable, as it turns out, and return mostly to the same staples: lots of bakery items and sentimental food our moms make. here are the highlights:

butter toast

octopus rice

cookies cake

pork à la alentejana

pork steaks with ‘shrooms

chocolate salami

palmier

mom’s marmelade

mom’s tomato jam

sweet bean tartelet

pão d’ul

P.’s mom meatballs

pumpkin’s smoked sausage

galão

punched potatoes

limiano cheese

natas

broa de mel

berlin ball (the real ones!)

codfish burger with açorda

burger with potatoes

fancy french pastry

another french pastry

strawberry-profiterole pie

grelos (broccoli rabe)

butter croissant

cheese/ham toast

croissants

butter toast

jesuíta

chocolate croissant

salmon with chestnuts

another berlin ball

pastel de nata

alheiras

meia de leite

my stomach is grumbling already!

when i make these lists, i get the feeling people might think we only eat crap… well, it isn’t true. what you see here is a glimpse, a condensed version of the more interesting things me and P eat. the other stuff, the plain omelettes, soups and other very mundane dishes are not that interesting, and are therefore omitted. believe it or not, all in all, we eat quite decently. :)

flavoured marshmallow balls, covered in chocolate. sometimes, happiness is a really simple thing indeed! :)

roadtrips are practically an art form, but like all travel, they must be done with the right people. for us, this means easygoing friends who share our interest in food, nice landscapes and all kinds of kitschy or cute things. so when our hosts (lovers of all things kitsch and tasty like us) suggested we do a roadtrip around skåne, our answer was a very enthusiastic YES! :D

in the morning, we rented a wreck and drove around the countryside of central skåne, dodging the heavy rain in search of a famous moose park… which was unfortunately closed. all we saw were 3 sad mooses…

to make up for that small setback, we decided to stop on one of the biggest second hand stores of the region, where we checked out the dishes and christmas decorations…

the weather had cleared up by then, so we did a first quick stop by the baltic sea, to check out the beach and the war bunkers that still exist there:

we also stopped at a burial site that we saw on the way. the stones in this region are all very round, due to erosion.

by then it was time for fika, the traditional swedish coffee break, so we stopped at a little quaint town by the sea. after having crossed the dozens of fields of apple farms, we couldn’t resist a piece of apple pie!

then we turned south, driving along the coast. there are many signs of bronze age in this part of sweden, and we got to see a few marks of the early populations on the polished coastal stones. boats and axes are featured prominently.

a bit further southt, we made a detour to see ale’s stones, sweden’s own stonehenge: a set of massive stones set in an ellipse on a cliff by the sea. nobody seems to know very well why they’re there, but they’re quite impressive nonetheless – and the cows seemed to love them as scratching posts!

we couldn’t resist the calling of the sea, so naturally we descended the cliff and picked rocks at the beach.

with the sea air opening our appetite, we had to make a pit stop for refuel. we drove by a place in skurup that has awesome fast food: meatballs with lingon jam, red danish sausage, fish and chips, and an amazing wrap with sausage, cucumber and mashed potatoes. skurup is famous for being the starting place for the wonderful adventures of nils (the boy that traveled sweden on a goose), and they have a great slogan “when in europe, don’t miss skurup”. it’s a really small place, but i guess it’s worth it for the food and the sweets! :P

on the way home, we passed fields upon fields of sugar beets… i had never seen one up close, so we made a quick stop on a recently harvested field to snatch a leftover beet, which we cleaned and chopped when we got home. it didn’t taste like much except… sweet! :)

all in all, a very successful roadtrip!