L'Auberge Provencale

What a great 4th weekend - and hooey - what a hit to the ole paycheck! But, hey - that's my role in life, right? - to live it up so you can live vicariously through me? And I take that role very seriously! So, here we go, here's where a month's pay went this time:

We spent the weekend at L'Auberge Provencale in the Shenandoah region of VA, where we stayed in this room.

 At this Villa.

And ate dinner at their restaurant. We had the Chef's Tasting Menu with wine pairings. This was our Amuse Bouche.

From left to right, it's a carrot stuck in a pot of goat cheese and sprinkled with pumpernickel dust; smoked salmon between two croissant like pastries, and a poached egg with lemon dill froth.

Our first course was Gargouillou, which is like a veggie and fruit salad all in one, all ingredients of which was grown in their garden. It was served alongside a weensy little taste of gazpacho.

Next was mussels - but check these out:

Tres, tres nummy! Not like any mussel I've ever had.

Next came "Breaking Tradition" or "Two broths in one" which was comprised of Parmesan, vegetable, burnt onion, royal trumpets, and fried kale. First, they brewed the broth at the table using what others would use to make coffee (hence, the "breaking with tradition")

then they poured the broth over the onion, trumpets (which had a lovely bitter taste) and kale.

Next came "A Walk Through Hudson Valley" which was Foie Gras served with a pickling of old and new Shirtless grapes, hazelnuts, and a maceration of apricots. The Foie Gras was done in French fashion, which is my preference, as opposed to American. For the non-Foie Gras lovers - Americans like to cook it like a piece of liver, whereas the French like to make a pate out of it - which is smooth and rich and creamy.

As you can see, I was so excited, I dug in before I remembered to take a picture.

Next came the Barramundi - which I totally forgot to take a picture of. It was nice, but my least favorite - perhaps my subconscious knew that would be the case, leading me to not take a pic.

The fifth course was duck: "Foie and truffle sausage, honey and cracked pepper fig, caramel seared 

apricot, spring onion fondue, sour cherry and Madeira sauce." Need I say more?

And dessert was maybe the most unusual thing I've ever had for dessert, but still amazing: Cucumber and Pea Shoot Souffle with Greek Yogurt Sorbet.

In my defense, the waiter poured the sorbet into the souffle before I was able to take a picture, so it wasn't my fault this time. 

And, of course, they served us some extra sweets - that we can never eat, cuz we're always about to explode, but they looked really cute - served on the "zen sandbox" where the "sand" was made of chocolate shavings.

When we weren't lounging around in the pool at the villa, we were roaming Old Town Winchester, where we went to the Civil War museum.

Or drinking wine at our favorite wineries, where the view made it very difficult to leave.

So, we'll be eating Ramen for a few weeks to recover from the weekend, but you only live once, right? And on a really good note - there's no such thing as a debtors prison anymore.

is there?