French Food & Formula

Although I could only arrange a flying overnight visit, I'm having a great time staying with my cousin Alan, his lovely wife Jeanette and their 9 month old twins Heidi  and Hamish.

Hamish is a smiling little bundle of cute and apparently likes blonds, so I'm in.
Heidi looked at me thoughtfully and took more time to warm up, but this morning we had a great time playing with her monkey and her fish and she was giggling like crazy.

I had almost forgotten the all-encompassing routine of caring for a Very Small Person who needs you for every single aspect of their lives, feeding, sleeping, playing, moving around and of course, the pooping.

How could I forget the pooping.

Alan & Jeanette do such an amazing job with both of them, and are such wonderful parents.
I can only imagine the strength & energy required to give two Small People all the love & attention they deserve.

So with babies fed and asleep, we headed out for dinner at a beautiful french restaurant in Carmel called Andre's Bouchee, where I ate and drank more delicious food & good red.

It's been a while.

At least three days since my last amazing meal at The Fat Radish
(Thank you once again to Ben and your amazing kitchen staff)

I ordered the Beef Carpaccio entree from the Specials menu and Jeanette kindly shared her favourite entree with me, Millefeuille de Foie Gras aux Pommes. She is a sainted woman.

Alan chose a couple of local Pinot's to go with the meal, a Miura 2007, and a Pizoni 2008, which were served to us by the Russian sommelier, Demitri, who is incredibly knowledgable and passionate about his wines, grapes & vines, may or may not have stolen root stock from a fancy-schmancy winery in France to replant in California, and is as mad as a hatter.

I enjoyed both the wines and Demitri, very much.

The Magret de Canard a la Framboise was just divine and the Profiteroles Au Chocolat were completely unnecessary.

I had them 'to go'.

I love that restaurants will package up anything you can't eat for you to take home, this doesn't happen so much in Australia and I'm not sure why.

After last night's indulgence, Alan and I will definitely be hitting this gym this morning.