When I wrote about our holiday adventures earlier, I was too lazy to go through our photos and choose some for the blog, but I finally got around to it today. So here they are. As always, click to enlarge them.
To accompany Christmas Eve dinner, we made ourselves a massive cheese plate. Unfortunately, a month later, we can’t remember the names of all the cheeses we had. The orange one is a young Mimolette. The semi-circular cheese in the center is some kind of goat cheese. In the upper right is the Munster that Greg loved so much. Closest to the camera is the Fougerus that Greg mentioned in an earlier post; we cut the soft white washed rind off, though we probably didn’t need to. And in between that and the Mimolette is some kind of hard cheese. I think it was a Tomette, but honestly I can’t say for sure. In any case, it all tasted good.
We also indulged ourselves with a Bûche de Noël (Christmas Log) for Christmas Eve (and Christmas, and the day after Christmas) dinner. The smallest cake we could get was labelled as feeding 4-6 people. The first night,we cut ourselves pieces that were 1/4 the size of the cake, but they were so rich that we had trouble finishing them. The rest of the time, we cut pieces that were 1/8 of the size of the cake, and they were perfect. I think this cake should be labelled for 6-8 people. The cake is bookended by squares of dark chocolate. The outer layer was chocolate mousse. Inside there were several different layers of crunchy things. It was somehow simultaneously crunchy and creamy and nutty. It might be the best cake I’ve ever had in my life.
In Annecy, we took a lot of photos, but instead of boring you with an exhaustive visual catalog, here are a handful of interesting shots.
In the old center of Annecy, there are still many buildings standing from centuries gone by. Every tourist has their picture taken with the prison of Annecy, which has been extensively photographed. But since we don’t want to be just like everyone else, instead I’ll present quick a shot of Greg and me by the river in the old city center, wearing our coats that make us look like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
There’s a chateau on the top of the hill overlooking Annecy, and from there you can get nice views of the town. The rooftops of old Annecy are made with beautiful red tile. I am not sure what it’s made of– looks like terra-cotta, but I don’t remember for sure.
Annecy had some lights up for the holidays. I took this next photo (like the others) with our little point-and-shoot camera, without making much effort to adjust it for nighttime photos. There’s something about the graininess of the buildings, with the clouds and the mountains, that appeals to me, even though I think the blue lights are drawing too much attention to themselves. The photo isn’t going to win any photography prizes, but for some reason I like it.
