Changing of the Guard in Tuscany

Everything looks beautiful when bathed in the rosy late afternoon light of Italy:

We are having such a wonderful time on our Tuscan retreat, and feeling so grateful to have such wonderful friends with whom to share our time. We've spent the past week with David and Jil Cohen who are departing tomorrow. Jil completely dominated our daily tennis matches

6-3, 6-4,

7-6 (3), 6-4

6-4, 5-7, 6-1

but we've agreed to be tennis friends for the next 30 years at least, so I'm hoping to get another set next time.

Here we are before tonight's dinner:

Brad is wearing his tuxedo t-shirt in honor of the occasion.

And though we are truly sorry that David and Jil are returning to the mountain time zone tomorrow, we have been joined today by Brad's parents, Stanley and Cecelia.

DSC_0034-1

Here we are practicing our VC hand sign:

The moonrise photos are from the nights that the nearly full and then full moon rose, in case you couldn't figure that out –

Tuscany is Still Beautiful

At the end of another work week here in Tuscany, I'm accomplishing less and less writing and doing more and more relaxing. Here are photos of the tomatoes in the gardens of Casetta, which we are enjoying every day:

Here is Brad after a long run, coming up the drive like Maximus in Gladiator. You'll have to play your own Rocky theme music to complete the image:

The most exciting thing this week was capturing a harmless grass snake in the house and transporting it to a safe place outside where it belongs.

From Casetta we can see the San Michele a Torri vineyards (pictured below) which produce the organic wine which we are enjoying nightly with our dinner. Or, to be accurate, all of the other lucky folks who aren't allergic to wine are enjoying while I drink frizzante water.

A panoramic view, using the magic of Occipital

http://occipital.com/360/embed.js?pano=h9Jq43&width=640&height=480

My big goal for the weekend is to win at least a set of tennis, although my record for the week is 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (3), 6-4.

Our Revels

Our first week in Tuscany has been glorious in every way; accomodations, weather, food, clay court tennis, and especially hilarity and laughter with friends Mark and Pam Solon from Boise, Idaho, and Howard and Ellen Lindzon from San Diego, California.

Mark has kindly offered some of his photos for me to share:

The happy group before dining out on Saturday evening, including our hostess, and Kelly Collins of Foundry Group, who joined us earlier that day.

Howard in a relaxed state of mind -

Howard and Ellen -

Brad and me -

Mark and Pam –

Italian Cooking

The bounty and beauty of the Tuscan countryside:

Our welcome dinner at Casetta, our home away from home for the month:

Here we see an important meeting of serious guys: Howard, Mark, and Brad, hard at work:

Last night, arranged through the kindess of the owner of Casseta, we all attended a cooking demonstration class and dinner by Jeff Thickman, which was truly amazing. I didn't take many photographs, but I will post again in the future with a full description of the experience.

Another Tuscan sunset:

Under the Tuscan Sun

Now we've moved from a spectacularly beautiful urban environment to a spectacularly beautiful pastoral environment in the Tuscan countryside outside of Florence. Here's a panoramic view that Brad took last night.

And some photos of the place:

We played tennis this morning on clay courts with visiting friends Mark and Pam Solon. The clay shouldn't have surprised us since most European courts are clay surface, but it did. We'll probably play every day, and have other tennis playing friends arriving next week. It is definitely hot, and we're shifting into the Italian pacing of getting up early while it's cool, then a nice long afternoon siesta, then later dinner.

And the wireless is obviously working quite well –

Final Fine Dining – Taillevent

We've eaten so much incredible French food that we almost decided not to have a final celebratory Parisian dinner with Jason, but then we got a last minute reservation at Taillevent and just had to go.

Jason, not looking a day over 40, and me sporting my La Vie du Grande Norde scarf as I zoom toward my 45th birthday in September:

And the beautiful French food -

Soup for Jason:

Risotto with mushrooms and white almonds, without the optional frog's legs:

Lamb for Jason:

Langoustine with apricot and parsley for Brad and me – the Before photo:

And After:

We had a lovely cheese course which wasn't photographed, but was surely enjoyed.

We were really quite full of food after a month of fine dining, so we kept dessert small.

One scoop of sorbet for Brad:

Two scoops of sorbet for Jason:

And a perfect strawberry tart for me, with flecks of gold foil as accents:

At some point we'll need to return for the full degustation experience when we haven't already been eating ourselves silly for an entire month.

Posting some random photos that weren't included in previous food posts:

The wines at Le Cinq:

Lobster at Le Cinq for both Brad and me:

Before our Le Cinq dinner in our fun French apartment:

And still my favorite Paris photo, courtesy of Brad:

Enough Fine Dining – L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon

Here in Paris the good eating continues.

Monday night we went to dinner at the original Joel Robuchon restaurant in the 7th arrondissement, literally across from where we rented an apartment on the rue du Bac in April 2005.

We went with visiting friend Ed Roberto and Parisian Marc Goldberg from Bryan Garnier.

We've been there at least once before in some year with some friends, but all these amazing restaurants are starting to blur a bit in my memory, perhaps because my brain is packed in butter after all of these July meals.

Joanne Wilson blogged here about their recent visit.

These photos are courtesy of Brad Feld and his magically working iPhone:

The open kitchen:

Our very friendly waiters displaying the wine, a Côte-Rôtie chosen by Marc:

Close up of the front of the wine bottle:

Close up of the back of the wine bottle (in case you couldn't guess):

My beautiful tomato appetizer – I love tomatoes, and the little violet flowers are such a nice contrasting color:

Brad's seafood appetizer:

Ed's appetizer of lobster ravioli with black truffles and green cabbage:

Brad's second appetizer of lobster ravioli with black truffles and green cabbage:

My second appetizer of an egg cooked slowly in a light morel mushroom sauce with a sprinkle of cumin on top:

And a series of terrifying photos, beginning with sweetbread appetizer for Marc:

Appetizer portion of Iberian ham for Ed:

Main course of an entire fish for Brad – look at those fishy eyes. Bleah:

And after eating all the good parts, look at the fishy eyes. Bleah:

A bunch of beef, with and without knife piercing:

And then a porringer of ambrosia – also known as mashed potatoes, but truly a butter transport mechanism. Yum!

The cheese course – the chevre on the left was melting and just perfect, and the Reblochon on the right was just right:

The cheese was served with toasted bread that contained hazelnuts and raisins, which was a wonderful complement:

Baba au rhum for Ed and Marc:

An outstanding coffee sabayon custard dessert for me, with a surprising layer of Greek yogurt with lemon zest, which made a crisp contrast to the richness of the coffee. Extra yum.

A truly beautiful chocolate dessert for Brad – named Le Chocolat Tendance and described on the menu as "onctueuse," which is translated as smooth, unctuous, suave, oily; which makes me laugh, since unctuous actually means excessively smooth in English – which isn't possible for chocolate. It also has Oreo crumbs on top and cocoa ice cream. And photographs beautifully:

Walking home after dinner:

That's a rear view of Ed and me, strolling along between the Louvre and the Tuileries Garden:

And perhaps my favorite Paris photo so far -

You Know You’re in Paris When…

There's a dog at the table next to you.

This incredible photo was taken by Jud Valeski and posted on Instagram here.

Thanks, Jud, for taking my favorite Paris photo and letting me share it on my blog.

And the Best Dining of All – Restaurant Guy Savoy

One celebratory birthday dinner is not enough to celebrate Jason Mendelson, so after our Le Cinq feast on Monday, we headed to Restaurant Guy Savoy on Tuesday.

We're still the happy group:

And photographs are still generously shared by Carl Rosendahl (seated far right):

I'll offer brief descriptions of the foods photographed –

After an amuse bouche of tart vegetable lollipops for the pescaterians and foie gras nibbles for the others, we started with soup served in an intriguing double container:

And beneath the second half of the dish, a surprise.

Fresh spring peas with an egg on top. The server / guide recommended dipping the toasted bread drizzled with herb oil directly into the egg, "as though we were at home."

An oyster, full of the taste of the ocean. I don't love oysters, but this one was just about perfect.

This course deserves some explanation – first the jewel-like lobster is brought to you in this perforated dish, which looks entirely interesting and satisfying on its own. They then pour a liquid over and it begins to steam like a cauldron in Macbeth. I actually said "double double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble."

The smoke completely covers the lobster and chills it further, and the liquid continues to bubble and boil as you eat the dish. Most innovative use of dry ice I've seen so far in my entire life:

A deliciously crispy sea bass, with pepper on the side so that you can adjust the taste to your own preference -

Caviar – I actually didn't love this dish – too oily somehow – but I loved the presentation and Brad loved getting my portion.

Foie gras

A Guy Savoy classic – artichoke soup with black truffle and parmesan, with a truffle filled buttered brioche on the side. By this time I was so full that Brad again received much of my portion:

The lovely red wine:

The lamb:

And a simple carrot, incredibly flavorful and tasty:

Cheese course:

And some strawberry based treats:

A beautifully presented alternating series of matcha tea and jasmine tea based sorbet cones, granita, chilled liquid soup drink thing, and savory tuiles. I don't like jasmine flavors (or rose flavors either) so Jud benefited from my surplus this course -

And the chocolate dessert, which starts as a beautiful shiny orb:

And they then pour a warm fruit liquid over it, the top melts to reveal the contents of tiny minced fruit bits, and the fruit and chocolate flavors blend together in a magical way:

The 700th dessert chosen from the abundant dessert cart. Here, a selection of ice creams, arranged by Carl in a subtle smiley-face design:

I've been fortunate enough to dine at Guy Savoy twice in the past. Here is my blog post comparing my previous experiences at both Le Cinq and Guy Savoy.

Brad and I went once with Ilana and Warren Katz, longtime friends from Boston. Here is a photo pre-dinner from May 2006 outside of our apartment on Rue du Cherche-Midi where Warren is showing me which way is up.

The lovely Ilana:

Don't I look like I was having fun?!?

I love food and fine dining and feel incredibly lucky and grateful to have had the chance to share some unbelievably fine meals with unbelievably fine friends.

I'm delighted to have had another opportunity to celebrate a Happy Birthday to Jason!

More Fine Dining – Le Cinq

For a celebration worthy of the 40th birthday of Jason Mendelson, we went to Le Cinq at the Four Seasons Hotel George V Paris.

Here's the happy party:

Left to right:

Jud Valeski, CEO of Gnip
David Cohen, CEO of Techstars
moi
Brad Feld
the birthday boy
and photographer extraordinaire, Carl Rosendahl, who kindly photographed the evening and is allowing me to use his images -