Chris' Birthday Party

Just celebrated Chris' birthday party this past week - basically we reserved out half of Matteo's and then ran over to our apartment for drinks and cake afterwards.

So how many people can you fit in a 20 square meter room? Apparently at least 16.

Mushrooms

You know Fall has arrived when the mushroom guy starts showing up at market. Right now they only have some cepes, but the other varieties should be coming out soon.

I did take a look on the Internet to see how difficult it is to raise mushrooms on your own...turns out it's not too bad. You have to be a little bit of a botanist and microbiologist, but you can raise some pretty whacky mushrooms in your basement.

Pumpkin Soup

Still not 100% sure what I'm going to do with a huge slice of pumpkin, but I thnk it has to be a soup. I'll keep you posted.

Time to think about a Christmas Goose

We're already starting to make plans for Thanksgiving and Xmas dinners - so we're thinking about doing the goose thing early in December. I'm sure Laurence has done something like this before, so it can be done - the key is finding the right farmer at the market.

Official Validation Complete

This is probably a bit boring, but 50% of the people at Lilly who run around signing documents finds this to be significant.

Turns out with the final completion of GBIP and the validation of the data loads, 20,000 people need to sign a document saying that everything has been validated. Now we just have to see if it all works.

Cuckoo Clock Hell

With Patrick's mother in town, and the Black Forest a mere 45 minutes away - we had to do the cuckoo clock hunt this past weekend.

It actually wasn't as bad as the trip that Patrick Green and I took a couple of months earlier (thanks to no road construction) - but I think we did end up going to at least cuckoo clock stores.

Also found out in this trip that the Hummel company went out of business shortly after 9/11 - apparently all the American tourist dollars dried up, and the company couldn't stay in business. I was kind of surprised.

Tea

While suffering from a rather bad cold/flu/virus thing (it lasted two weeks), Patrick went to a tea shop and found me some amazing tea from China. It wasn't cheap, and it was the last she had (it usually arrives in Spring one time a year); but it spanked my sore throat.

Doing a little more research, I've found that Chinese Tea is about as complicated as French Wine - including good years and bad years, controlled regions for specific varieties, and very seasonal.

Go Live Gets Closer

Well, the Go Live for our project is getting closer. We just had a five hour dinner with the Supply Chain leaders, and here is the after picture. It was a nice evening, even with the one hour project of everyone doing an introduction.

Official Go Live date is October 2nd. Cross your fingers.

Toilet Paper for Napolean

Now this is chic-chic - and would probably make a good item for 'What is this?'.

Apparently Napolean had to go to the bathroom too, but he at least did it in style. As he was running all around Europe conquering it, he needed a little toilet paper to go. Not sure if the TP was as soft as charmin back then, but the carrying case says, "I'm an Emperor".

Flowers of the Week

Dahlias are in - still don't know the french word for them. But they are a welcomed change from all the sunflowers and daffodils that seem to be in the markets now.

Nuts are in season

Picked up some nuts at the market, but I was afraid they would just be for show, since I didn't have a nutcracker. Apparently fresh nuts are pretty easy to open with a strong bang - must be other varieties or the dryness of old nuts that makes them hard to open. These taste better too.

Always something new at the Louvre

All told this was probably my fifth trip to the Louvre, so the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo just don't have the same excitement as they once did - plus the crowds are ridiculous.

But wandering around you find a whole bunch of exhibits that most people just blow through - like this example of Mesopitamia's artwork. We also saw the Hammurabi code this time, and Napolean III's (???) apartments, which as expected were a bit over the top.

Mama Ceil Arrives

Patrick's Mother, Ceil, came to visit us for two weeks. We picked her up in Paris and spent a few days there, and then we came back to Strasbourg.

She saw a Castle, the Mona Lisa, Versailles, Notre Dame, and the Paris Metro. She also went around to the Black Forest, Alsace, and Switzerland. She ate a lot of the different foods here, including: Alsatian wine, duck breast, tarte flambee, and goat cheese.

Apparently the airlines have lost her luggage both coming and going - which is a new record. And she also caught my really bad cold a few days after she was here - but Baden-Baden helped get her over it.

Hope she had a good time, we had fun with her here.

Train Travel - way more civilized

Even though train travel is twice as expensive in real dollars from the time I was in Luxembourg (I'm no longer a student), and I have a car - we still find train travel awesome. Especially if you are going to some major city like Paris and can take the Metro - not only do you save the 20 euros a day to park the car, you also avoid the 100 euros in tollroads. And not only from a financial perspective, you get twice the amount of reading done.

Sentier Gourmand

Several months ago, Andrea, Tim, Patrick, and I were running around the wine route, when we came across this one winery. So after a nice tour (and a very nice Riesling cremant), we were talking to the owner who said that we should come to the Sentier Gourmand. Basically, it was in the beginning of September, and they had several food stops as we walked through the vineyards around the small town. I remember being in college and having a golf course drinking party - where every house represented a different hole/drink - but this was in an entirely different league.

We thought it was a good idea and told everyone else in the office about it. When we were all done - Jim, Theresa, Mindy, Joe, Jill, Chris, Tim, Andrea, Patrick, and I were all going.

Sentier Gourmand: Aperitif

Of course you can't just jump into the Gourmand without a slow start - so after we parked, got our tickets, and followed everybody else down the street - we arrived at the first stop/course. It was a cremant (we've talked about this before...sparkling wine that wasn't made 200 miles to the west, so you can't call it champagne). Actually it was a lot of cremant, because each wine producer in the area donated their bottles.

And with the cremant we also had a bretzel (pretzel) - better than the kind you can get in your local Shopping Mall in Indy.

Keep in mind also that Mindy doesn't do well with sugars or any kind (including carbohydrates) - this will become important later. And despite what you might think from this picture - Chris was not drunk (yet) - but this will become important later as well.

Sentier Gourmand: Soup

Who would have thought that you could use Riesling to make a soup? Turns out you can, and it doesn't taste too bad. Unfortunately, it did have some sort of pig knuckle broth extract that I tasted after the first slurp - so I skipped the rest of it.

And it's a little foggy now, but I'm pretty sure we had local Riesling also with this stop - to make it a double punch.

As you can see, Mindy is perky - but not too crazy.

Sentier Gourmand: Appetizer

I know, it's hard to explain how you can be on stop number 3, and we are just starting to have the appetizer. This stop was important, because it was here we realized that this was a marathon and not a sprint.

Although the appetizers were nice - some sort of bread thingy with some little veggies and ham - the wine was the star of this stop.

Apparently, there is an entire network of Sentier Gourmands throughout Europe - so this station was sponsored by the other ones to advertize a little - hence, nice wine from Italian, Switzerland, France, and Germany. The next week there was one in Switzerland, where the pasta dish was a pear risotto. Bottom line: you could spend your entire summer doing these obstacle courses.

Sentier Gourmand: Assiette

We realize that the reason each station is placed at least a kilometer apart from each other is because you need something to burn off the alcohol. And in the case of Mindy, you need something to burn off all the excess sugar she has had (she ran up the hill three times after stop 2).

Nevertheless, station #3 was a simple assiette (or plate). I guess they couldn't call it an appetizer and they couldn't call it the main meal - but we were Alsace and it simply would not be proper not to have some kind of pig parts pressed into a terrine with gelatin (yes, I skipped this one, and just had the Auxerrois wine).

Mindy was not in this picture because she was doing jumping jacks in the corner.

Sentier Gourmand: Choucroute

Didn't really a picture of this one - and you know, if you've seen it once, you already know what it is.

Actually choucroute is french for sauerkraut, but everyone knows the important part of the dish is the 5, 7, 9, or 12 pieces of pig parts that are placed on top. Again, the theory is that even though Alsace raises their own meat - all of the good pieces are exported to Paris or Germany. But I was told as far as choucroute is concerned - it was pretty good.

Again, I stuck to the Riesling, and I am feeling good by now. Mindy is doing pullups on a grapewine, and everyone else is pretty much getting a glazed over look trying to remember which station we're on. Fortunately, we don't need a map or follow directions - we just stumble along like everyone else.

Sentier Gourmand: Intermission

While walking along the trail, we did come across a little marching band that was there to entertain - they actually weren't too bad.

Sentier Gourmand: Apple

Um, this is where I was cheated...

We had to actually walk pretty far up the hill to get to the next station, and I was really motivated, since it SHOULD have been the cheese station. We also saw people not climb up the hill with us, and we just thought that they had given up. Unfortunately, these were experienced Gourmanders, and they knew that the next station was crap - an apple.

I think they put it in to make sure that all the alcohol from the last stations had been burned off - and to get us all rested for the final home stretch.

Sentier Gourmand: Cheese

Finally the moment I had been waiting for - munster, fromage blanc, and some kind of cheese that I had no idea what it was. Meat-eaters by this point were already stuffed, so I got double portions. Mindy had started her decline into the inevitable sugar coma and was just stretching in the corner waiting to feel really really bad.

Sentier Gourmand: Dessert

Walk a little further, and you come to the dessert station. A nice nice nice piece of apple tarte with the little late harvest wine to wash it down. We were almost home.

Mindy saw the apple tarte and started to whimper, but a little coaching and she pulled through.

Sentier Gourmand: Cafe

Finishing a meal without coffee in France is like the Indianapolis 500 without gasoline. Granted it didn't come from an espresso make (with the thousands of people there, we would still be waiting) - but it was still good. Plus we were only a kilometer away from our cars.

That was important since by this time Mindy had to be carried to the car, since she was doing her best impression of an overdosed heroin addict.

Jura

This past weekend, we decided to go somewhere relatively close to Strasbourg; so Patty planned a surprise trip to somewhere unknown. The only limitations was that it had to have wine, cheese, and be within a 3 hour drive- in France that presents quite a few opportunities.

So after we left work and drove for awhile, he finally told me where we were going . . . Jura.

Jura: The Hotel

This was something new that we had done before. It appears that France has an entire network of bed and breakfasts - they're cheap, and they are usually in large older homes that have a lot of character.

The place where we stayed was in a small town in Jura (thank God we had the GPS), and it was run by a woman who had basically been restoring this old house next the the Church. The thinking is that at one time this huge house used to be where the monks lived around the 17th century, but it wasn't really an Abbey.

Jura: The Wine

This is probably one of the more interesting things about Jura. They make their own distinctive kind of wine called vin jaune (yellow wine), which comes from the Savagnin grape. After the wine has been fermented it's placed into the barrels, but the barrels are never topped off, so a thin film of yeasts forms. In February they even have a festival where they pierce the film (I called it sludge) after 5 years and three months since the wine was first placed in the barrels.

The wine is pretty distinctive, and it's one of those things that you have to try more than a couple of times before you can say you like it or not. Because of the different way that the wine is made, the wine also lasts practically forever. One guy we were talking to says that his family has wine that is 70 years old, and they are thinking about maybe drinking a bottle.

Jura: The Food

Any place you go in France the food is amazing, but it's always a little different. When we stopped for lunch on Saturday, I had this amazing meal of morels, cream, and toast. And Patrick had this fish sampler thing. All from a little restaurant out on some small side street.

And the start of the meal was typical for Jura - walnuts, comte cheese, and yellow wine.

Jura: Comte

The three most common foods in Jura... walnuts, comte cheese, and yellow wine.

I remember reading an article once on how hard it is to pair cheese with wine - you just never really know what you're going to get. In truth pairing cheese with wine has got to be one of the easiest things to do - just pick the cheese that was made by the same people who made the wine. You have to know a little bit about French and Italian wine and cheese regions, but that's easier than trying to pair up 500 wines with 500 cheeses.

Jura: Chateau Chalon

Also interesting about Jura is that it has one of the smallest regions for wine growing - less than 2000 hectacres for all of Jura, and there are six regions within Jura. One of the most important (and some say, the one that makes the best yellow wine) is Chateau-Chalon, which was originally an Abbey on top of a plateau.

The place is probably half the size of Broad Ripple proper, but it is literally surrounded by vineyards. And the views were absolutely amazing.

Weber's Birthday

One day older and another in debt, or so the story goes. Weber's unknown birthday happened a couple of days ago, so we had a surprise party for him at Gaby's place - complete with authentic Mexican.

Hell has officially frozen over

If you are a very observant person of the blog, you will have notices that ALL (and I mean ALL) pictures of our Design Lead, Jim Weber, would have consisted of a blue oxford shirt and khaki pants. The reason why? Because in the 7 years that I have known him, I have never seen him wear anything different to work - OK, there was that one time he wore a sweater over the blue oxford, but it was really cold in the office.

Maybe it's a throw back to the days that he worked in Lafayette and had to wear a uniform, but it has been the one constant in the universe. Needless to say, we felt he was ready for a change, and after the success we've had with Joe and bathing, we thought we were ready for the ultimate challenge. It also didn't hurt that Lora and Jen said I couldn't do it.

So Andrea and I went off to our friendly corner clothing store, and pick him up a stunning new shirt and sweater/pull thing. And he was even guilted into putting it on at the party (Thanks Mama Cita) and wearing it to work. Needless to say, we were all stunned - but we think he also looks great too.

And yes, it's blue - but if you're dealing with someone who's worn the same thing for at least 25 years - you don't go for pink right away.