After all the excitement of the Grand Prix it was time to pack ourselves into our own luxury cruiser and head away from France and (for us at least) back to the warm familiarity of Italy. Of course it was just our luck that at our toilet stop we were joined by these guys:

Yes, that’s a truck full of Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Maseratis and Aston Martins, each valued at millions of Euros. They wouldn’t let us look inside the other truck which was carrying a single one-of-a-kind Alfa Romeo worth 8million euros. So we had to make do with drooling over these:

Once we got over the cars, there was a certain lake (Como) calling out to us. Keen followers will remember that we were here before, but that was Autumn and this is Spring and it’s a whole different world!

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You probably already know this, but the Monte Carlo Grand Prix took place over the weekend. I’m sure that all our dear readers are avid followers of all things motorsport but for those who (like me) are completely clueless: Grand Prix = really expensive, really fast cars going round and round and round. First to finish wins apparently. Also, lots of rich people go. As evidence, I present exhibit (a):

I cannot say for certain that this couple are “rich people”, but they certainly fall into the category of Grand-Prix-Goers-Who-Like-To-Dress-To-Theme.

These are the less rich people who could only afford a patch of grass. It probably cost about $300 per patch. I could be lying, but I kind of envied the shade that some were enjoying. They were probably envying my actual seat and view of the pits.

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Yesterday we came to Nice. We arrived to a jam-packed train station (3 hours after our scheduled arrival time), the back end of a thunderstorm and not a taxi in sight. Even after we called one we still waited an hour for it to arrive. But I guess that’s what happens when you come to Nice on the busiest weekend of the year; when both the Cannes Film Festival and the Monte Carlo Grand Prix take place.

However, we woke up this morning and it looked like this at the bottom of our street, so all was forgiven from the previous day. We came here to meet up with Adam’s parents, his sister and her husband so we can all go to the Grand Prix together (yup, I’m going to a Formula One race. You wouldn’t believe the eye-rolls I was on the receiving end of at the dinner party when my complete ignorance about everything Formula One-related was revealed) before heading to Italy for another three weeks. I know, so tough. I might as well just jump off a cliff and end it now.

But if I did that then I wouldn’t be able to enjoy that salt I bought at the markets this morning. There were so many hundreds of kinds of salt to choose from! For me (someone who is known to eat rock salt straight up) this is quite fabulous. I restricted myself to one small jar of fleur de sel as a souvenir. Some people buy patches, I buy salt.

I also bought eggs, from this lovely lady. Because I miss eggs for breakfast. I don’t know what Mum’s doing with all our eggs at home without us two there to eat them for her!

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For our final day in Burgundy the sun came out. I think it was begging us not to leave. That, or it was telling us it was finally time to wash some clothes. So Adam made like a good country house-spouse:

After our chores were done (by Adam) we set out for the day to Bibracte, home to a fantastic museum about the ancient Gaulish oppida (i.e. walled villagey thing) that was on the site 2000 years ago. In case the helmets don’t give it away, Gauls = Asterix the comic-book character.

The museum itself blew us away. It was possibly the most modern structure we’d laid eyes on all week (built in 2005) and the audio-visual features were outstanding. We were each given little headsets playing an audio-guide that would sense where we were in the museum and inform us appropriately.

There were also incredible reproductions of the site that gave us a very clear idea of what used to be there (a town, lots of people, metal and pots. You know, ancient stuff) and how the town’s fortunes rose and fell. Caesar was fascinated when he visited the site, so what’s good enough for Caesar was brilliant for the likes of us.

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We have been doing a lot of wandering around tiny villages in the middle of nowhere. They are full of adorable houses with wonky roofs and faded shutters. It is hard to tell whether some are even occupied at all - maybe they are holiday houses? - but when we saw smoke emerging from the chimney of this seemingly abandoned house that seemed to be crumbling before our eyes, the evidence was irrefutable. Also, note the television aerial. Their roof was sliding off in slow motion but at least they could still watch tv.

We are in the middle of the country but there is no shortage of water (and I’m not just talking about the rain that kept visiting during our first couple of days). There are ancient elaborate water systems in many of the towns we have visited. Some, like the one below, have locks and gates for whatever reason. They don’t seem to be in use now but we are grateful for the picture they provide us of how people would have once lived here.

As for us, we’ve been living just great. Case in point: our almost daily picnic lunch picked up from the local fromagerie (where they made the little triple cream brie) and eaten at the Abbey where the larger cheese had been made.

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Burgundy is beautiful and its foods are rich. We discovered this from the get-go and are trying to adjust as best we can. You know, taking one for the team by eating out only once a day and dining on fresh breads, cheeses, and salted butter the rest of the time.

You would think that we would also eventually tire of the tumble-down houses, with their faded shutters, rusting wrought-iron balconies and weather-beaten doors. But we don’t. Each little village we pass through (and there have quite literally been hundreds now) makes us gasp and point and gaze longingly at ‘for sale’ signs.

Views like this just don’t get old.

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There’s a bit of catching up to do (on my behalf), so let’s keep things snappy. We last spoke in Champagne, where I may have failed to mention that our first night of last minute accommodation-searching took us straight to the home (and Champagne house) of Annik and Jean-Claude Le Brun, coincidentally, the brother of Daniel Le Brun in New Zealand. What are the chances, huh?

They were so excited to have New Zealanders there and began plying us with champagne and giving us personal tours of their vines (they have about 2.5 hectares in total scattered around the village outskirts - and each hectare in Champagne is worth €1 million!) and cellars…

…and describing the process of making and bottling the champagne every year. Jean-Claude’s english was about as good as our French, which made it a little tricky to follow his thread, but we got the gist, especially when we took us to the machines and demonstrated how it worked - and how he chopped off the tip of his thumb in one as a teenager.

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We went to France and all we got was this lousy picture of Monet* studying his lilypads.

*Not Monet.

We’re actually still in France. As proof, this is what I look like in France (Champagne to be precise - see all those vines behind me?):

And this is what the males look like while planning a route in France:

And this is what Amanda looks like while we wait for the boys to plan a route in France:

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We’ve been pretty lucky lately. Well looked after, you might say. There’s been my mother’s lovely house that we lived in for six months where I had free reign of the kitchen and three or four fresh eggs to use up on a daily basis. There were our jobs, at a couple of Auckland’s best restaurants (in Adam’s case, The Best Restaurant). There were friends, with whom we got to share a city for the first time in over a year. There were birthday and Christmas gifts, and most recently, a fancy new camera from Adam’s parents so we can take these photos to a whole new level.

Then there were meals out. The problem with dating a chef who spends at least 50 hours a week in a busy restaurant kitchen is that he becomes almost allergic to cooking at home in his time off. Most of the time this is fine, as I am quite happy to have my turn, but it does also mean that many meals are eaten outside of the house. The majority of these meals took place at one of our favourite Chinese joints on Dominion Rd, but every so often we went fancy. For our last weekend in Auckland we went to the fanciest of the fancy: Merediths. And because it’s always more fun with more people we brought along our friends Robin (for her single night’s hiatus from being vegetarian) and Tim (sous chef at Coco’s Cantina).

In case you haven’t heard, Merediths is one of the best restaurants in the country. Head chef Michael Meredith recently won the title of Best Chef in the Metro Restaurant of the Year awards, and the restaurant was last year’s Supreme winner of Cuisine Restaurant of the year. So it’s pretty bloody good. As if all that hadn’t been enough incentive to go, I had worked a night there a few months ago and could barely contain my hungerlust as I delivered dish after spectacular dish to lucky waiting customers. This time it was our turn to be those customers and we’d like to share some with you, if you’d like to join.

Michael Meredith’s nine-course degustation is a testament to his creativity and sensitivity and an ode to New Zealand/Pacific cuisine. The journey begins immediately upon being seated, when we are presented with a kick-starter for the taste-buds: puffed pork crackling with apple mayonnaise. As we nibble on these airy morsels the menu we are reading begins to come to life. And it’s a fight for the last piece of crackling.

The first course, “Green lipped mussel, chia seeds dashi & chlorophyll” was delivered with dual presentation: each of us was given a bowl of chia seed dashi broth atop which sat a mussel shell cradling a delicate mussel tartare. We were instructed to dip the tartare in the broth and use the shell as a spoon to scoop it all out again. In addition to this clever bowl is plate of tempura-battered whole mussels topped with chlorophyll paste (made of seaweed and spinach) and a single basil leaf.

Next is Merediths signature dish: the “Beetroot & duck meringue”. I had been looking forward to this one. The beetroot meringues sandwich layers of chicken liver parfait, smoked duck, rocket and pecorino. Everything but the toothsome pecorino melts away as we bite into them and they disappear before we realise what has hit us.

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April and May are busy birthday months in our family. First up, my brother Jack turned 22.

Not everyone counts 22 as a momentous birthday, but for Jack every birthday is momentous. Gift lists are made months in advance, the texting and facebooking becomes more and more frequent as the day approaches, and chocolate is not a request but a requirement.

Lucky his sister is such an awesome baker. I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not sure if my decorating skills are quite up to New Zealand’s Hottest Home Baker just yet. Maybe next year?

In case you’re interested, the recipe for the cake was this Devils Food cake from David Lebovitz, and came out beautifully moist. I jazzed up the icing (flavourwise. The aesthetics speak for themselves) by adding a reduced berry coulis to the chocolate ganache, and using the same berry juice to tint the piping that delightful shade of pink.

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