Salon De L'Agriculture, Paris

Just came back from Paris with a God awful cold and it does not seem to be going away...

At the moment I am relaxing at home and reflecting on the two days I just spent in Paris, but more so about the amazing time I had at the Salon de L'Agriculture....

I had never been to an agricultural fair, let alone the mother of them all, the one happening yearly in Paris. I had heard many things about it, about how huge it is, how crowded, how much food there is.... Everything turned out to be true.... and no matter how much I imagined how big of an event it would be, it simply turned out to be 10 times that....

I went there with ladies from my crew: Marcie, Julie and Kerrie. Since I was under the impression that no tickets were sold on premises, I went ahead and bought tickets in advance on the internet. I must confess I am proud of myself, for, when we arrived, there were oodles of people lining up outside the entrance, waiting for a chance to buy a ticket. We could easily have waited 1.5 hour had we not thought ahead!!!!


Once inside the park, we quickly realized that there was too much to see and do in one day, so we decided to concentrate on 3 pavillions:
• The food and delights of France and its regions. I zeroed in on the Foie Gras and the Wine producers!!!
• The food and delights of the rest of the world (Switzerland, Russia, Brasil, Senegal, Japan and so many others)
• The cattle raising pavillion where we saw some impressively big horses, cows, pigs, dogs and even pigeons!

Since we ate a lot and sampled quite a bit of different things (wine, Cognac, beer and Chouchen among others), we were quite tired once we came back to the hotel. Marcie and Julie found the energy to go out for dinner.

My cold caught up with me and forced me to stay in all night... Oh well!!! It was outrageous fun! I will go back next year, but will make sure that I go at leat three days in a row....

In Paris with a dreadful cold....

Spending a two-day layover in Paris, unfortunately with a dreadful cold.... Still managed to go and spend the day at the Salon de L'Agriculture.... I was drugged up, and it was an experience to be had... Saw cows, donkeys, cows, pigs, new tractors and sampled food all day.... will write more details when I feel better.... until then, au revoir!

A rocking Bud Lite commercial

God know I do not care for football, let alone superbowl... One thing I like about superbowl however.... The commercials!!! check this one out, for Bud Lite....

Spectacular winter in Uah!!!

Canyonland National Park

God knows I am sick and tired of the snow but let's face it.... Without it, Utah would just not be the same.... what a pretty state I live in!!! Check out these fantastic pictures.... Now visualize Flushing, New York....You'll have to agree with me that God put more energy in creating some places and totally cursed others..... I am blessed to live in such a beautiful place, no doubt.... Sorry New Yorkers!!! None of the pictures are mine, but they are just stunning and I had to share them (I love to take pictures, but I have my limits... Snow and polar temperatures are two MAJOR obstacles)

Blue Moon over Park City 12/31/10

Rural Utah

Arches National Park

Arches again

A REALLY nifty program!

Today, I am using a dictation program for the first time ever! In fact, I am entering the text of this post without even touching my keyboard to type anything!

Amazing!
Unbelievable!
Mind blowing!

Over the past couple of years, I have been talking to my brother who works on the Internet and is always in need of composing lengthy chunks of text, both in English and in French... a couple of years ago, he started to use some dictation program that also controlled his computer with performing some basic functions. The program was really nice, however it required plenty of interaction from his part, especially when it came to correcting the text he was speaking into his microphone... a lot of it came from the fact that he, just like me, has a strong French accent when he speaks English. It is also important to consider the fact that my brother uses and has used Macintosh computers since the 80s... The choice for serious programs has always been less than what was offered for Microsoft Windows...


Then MacSpeech came along...

The beauty of this program is that it was built as a native Mac application from the ground up. it was inspired by the Dragon speech technology, however built as a brand-new application. It is sold with a choice of hard core noise reduction headsets, understands my accent, and even can switch and write in French and German at the flick of a button. It also controls the computer via voice commands! I am utterly baffled by what this program can accomplish and yet, it only took me about five minutes per language to train it! I would recommend it to anyone who handles a lot of text files, or who, like me types in three different languages. Check it out if you own a mac, and see why I am so excited...

A California flash trip

I am much embarrassed to admit that I have not been writing too much lately... No particular excuse, besides the fact I have been very busy in SLC.... Eric has finally sunk in a bottomless ocean of to dos and phone calls and appointments all related to the imminent opening of Sea Salt.... we have virtually zero time to spare....

We both flew to Sacramento last weekend. Eric was buying an oz winebar (a very fancy device that preserves opened bottle of red and white wine and dispenses wine by the glass) for one of his new projects....

Weather was gloomy, cold and foggy... After Eric sealed the deal and pre-conditioned the unit for shipping, he suggested we drive to Napa since we were not that far, and off we drove.....

We arrived in Yountville an hour and a half later and decided to have an apéritif at Bistro Jeanty, then dinner at Thomas Keller's Bouchon....

I honestly do not see what the hype is all about.... I swear.... And it has nothing to do with my being French and chauvinistic....

This place is a joke.... an utter farce!

The nerves these people have!!!! Salmon rillette... awesome.... everything else, grossly overpriced crap, delivered with a pompous, condescending attitude. Thank goodness the staff knows the menu and the sommelier knows his turf inside out.... It was so bad that we sent half of our plates back..... the onion soup was a total abortion... it tasted like half way reduced beef demi glace.... the escargots were hiding underneath what looked like puff pastry sponges, soaked with lukewarm butter... I could go on and on , but truly, I would waste my time....

The whole thing set us back $300 and change. The only nice thing about it is that it once again enabled me to see how far we are with the Paris Bistro....

On our way back out of Sacramento, we were bumped out of our flight and had to wait almost 4 hours until the next one... Most fortunately, the Sacramento airport has a small treasure right in its terminal: a wine bar called Vino Volo, which serves small plates and wines by the glass as well as wine tasting flights... This place was an oasis of quietness,and civilization... No crybabies, no trashy folks (they congregate at the fast food joints on the other side of the terminal) what a way to get bumped!!! what an amazing way to wait for a flight...

A new decade....

Not just a new year!... A brand new decade!

I have been flying a lot lately and busy with restaurant work in between trips.... I unfortunately have not had much time to write anything, but I promise I will very soon...

Happy new year to all.... May this new decade be better and less painful than the last one.... may we see the end to suffering, disease and hunger throughout the world and finally enter an era of harmony between people.....

Falalalala etc....

By God, By Golly, it's time for.......

a meaningful Christmas!!!

Happy holidays to all....

--Emmanuel

Paris sous la neige...

Snow covered Paris!!!

Arrived in Paris yesterday morning in the middle of a snow storm.... The weather is gray, gloomy, humid and the wind goes right through the bones.... People are bundled up and it seems Paris has been invaded by Eskimos...

The whole country has been placed under a winter storm alert and it snowed so much that some people got stuck in their cars overnight on the highways while trying to commute back home....

Unbelievable....

Le jardin des Tuileries


In front of the Église Saint Eustache

Good news!!!

Tonight the Salt Lake City police called me to inform me that my vehicle had been recovered and was "drivable"....

I called my neighbor immediately and had him drive me over to Murray, about 15 miles south from my house, where my car had been found... It had been abandoned on the remote corner of an empty commuter parking lot, right between the train tracks and the highway. I was really relieved to find that it had not been stripped and that the wheels were still on.

The person who stole my truck turned out to be a complete moron and left his bag inside the cabin, complete with some of his personals, his driver's license and some of his sister's things.... Also left in the truck were a few stolen power tools... The truck has been slightly damaged on the front end and the cabin has been trashed.... There were cigarette butts everywhere and cigarette burns here and there...The cops took a bunch of pictures of the truck inside and out and then turned it back over to me...

All things considered I am a lucky bastard and am very thankful for it all.... my truck was found, is structurally intact in essence and will be drivable after a few repairs....

Everything turns out to be good!

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels?

Or evil, worthless sons of bitches... that's more like it....

Just came back from France the other day... while I was gone, my neighbor Kevin was working on a few of my truck's problems...

Someone had the nerves to come steal my truck that night from his driveway, right by his bedroom window, just a few yards from my house....

I was so very pissed off the entire week end that I could barely speak or act rationally..... Stayed locked inside my house....

Now that came back down to earth and the urge to shoot someone is gone, I have to go back to my everyday life and try to get a new vehicle as soon as possible....

I am still beyond pissed.... and feel utterly violated and dispossessed....

My friend Eric is so right, so spot-on.... so many people out there looking for a handout.... so many losers and second-handers.... Salt Lake City is unfortunately no exception with all its crystal meth crazed white trash and cholos....

It's appalling, plain and simply.........

Great things to to with turkey livers....

Turkey livers are great.... especially when they come from birds that grew up on a local, all natural farms.... I like them pan seared, deglazed with sherry vinegar and thrown on bitter greens such as frisée and Arugula...

Or pan seared with sea salt, pepper and fresh sage, then served hot on fresh arugula with just a little bit of olive oil.... nothing else

The problem is, not everyone around me seems to agree with me when it comes to liver... Seems like people in this country have been traumatized with a bad serving of chopped liver and onions at some point of their youth..... can't blame them, really...

One cool thing to do with livers however is to make a quick liver pâté... I made one the other night, instead of wasting the livers in a classical turkey gravy (our thanksgiving gravy was made with turkey roast drippings to start with.... no livers needed), using only fresh shallots, garlic, thyme and sage, Apple Jack and of course, the infamous livers..... It was a quick 30 minute ordeal and the result is quite impressive to be honest.... Eric tried it on mini grilled tartines with caramelized quince and.... a 16year old scotch, of all things!!!!

A peaty scotch and a liver pâté tartine.... Who would have thought???

And how cool is that???

Photo By Eric... Made at home!!!!

Update on the grande dame with a facelift

My dear friend Gian Carlo just sent me an email with the following quiz:

"From 1925 to 1936,an automobile manufacturer use the Tour Eiffel as a giant billboard,
putting his name in giant, luminous letters on the four sides of the monument.
Who was it? ...Citroen.....Renault....Peugeot...????"

A very good question indeed.... It was Monsieur André Citroën who, in 1925 had the "luminous" idea to advertize his automobiles by using the Eiffel tower as a humongous billboard....

The Citroën factories were located barely one kilometer from there, on the same side of the river seine... The place is now called the Parc André Citroën...

Nevermind the kick ass light show..... the light display in 1925 must have been downright stunning!

Thank you GC!!!!

Thanksgiving Madness

Once again it is insanely late at night (or very early morning) and here I am facing my computer again in order to create a post that actually makes sense.... We have been very busy with my flight attendant schedule and the restaurant lately, and Eric has been literally submerged trying to face the daunting amount of work caused by our new projects....

I have been blogging lately, however but for the benefit of the Paris Bistro.... Yep, Eric and I turned our elusive Paris Bistro newsletter into a much more exciting, fun-to-create, communication tool.... Check out the Paris Bistro Blog here.... We have been cooking, shooting pictures, harvesting the very last of our garden herbs, taking more pictures, blogging...... Feedback is always much appreciated! Always feel free to comment or become a blog's follower....

Flying to Paris tomorrow and will have a bit of down time... I will be posting from there...

Time for a hot date with my bed... It is going to be a short night again!

A 120 Year Old Grande Dame with a facelift

The Eiffel Tower just celebrated its 120 years old this year....

To celebrate the event, the "Grande Dame" is being given a new "facelift", a massive paint job as well as an updated lighting system...

In addition, every night between between now until Christmas, the most visited monument in the world is putting on a light show at the top of every hour, from 8PM to 11PM.
Check it out!



Quite a show indeed....