First (real) snow of the year...

Well, winter is here alright!!!! It snowed like the Dickens last night... So much indeed that it was almost covering my little dog when I took him out this morning!!!! And to think that it is not even December yet... uuuughhhhhh!!!!

Thank Goodness I have a trip today and get to escape the frozen, white hell!

Anyway, here is a very "apropos"video about the snow and not forgetting to put on your hoodie (fous ta cagoule).

Fatal Bazooka is a spoofed rap star, played by the ever funny and CRAZY Michael Youn, a controversial French comedian.....

My Thai/Dutch brother strikes back

In Amsterdam, my brother strikes back with excellent Thai cooking and really cool pics of a recipe progression.... So cool, that I had to post the pictures here.....  As for myself,  while it is true that I am indeed French, it is also true I have an undeniable faible for Thai cooking....

Enjoy!!!

Life is tough!!!!

It's freezing cold outside!!!!!..... So much nicer and warmer inside!!!! Besides, I get aaaaall the lamb shank bones from the restaurant!!!! does not get better than that!!!!

On se les gèle les choses dehors.... C'est carrément mieux à l'intérieur!!!! Il fait bon, c'est douillet et en plus, mon papa me donne des os de jarret d'agneau du restau!!! Trop cool!!!!

And now for a musical interlude......

Courtesy of my friend Didier..... I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.....



Jimi Hendrix Band of Gypsys Who Knows

Thai Fish Red Curry, a pictorial recipe

My brother now lives in Amsterdam.... The other day, he made a Thai Fish Red Curry and sent me the pictures.... I liked them a lot because they show the recipe's progression. Although they were shot with a small camera, the images are excellent...

By the way, today is his birthday..... Happy birthday little Brother!!!! Here is to a most excellent year to come.

Happy birthday to meeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!

My birthday present from Eric and Family......

Thanks you ever so much guys!!!

I Love you!!!!!

A serious case of writer's block???

Not really writer's block....

It has been over six weeks since my last entry and I have not felt inspired no have I have had the time to write anything, thanks to my busy schedule both at home and with the restaurant.... Sea Salt is in the process of opening and it is taking a titanic amount of work.....

Will update again soon.....

Drunken morons....

 St Patrick's Day in America....
An excuse for (mostly) white morons of all kinds to get wasted and puke everywhere.... not to mention they show up hungover at work the following day.... if they show up to work that is... I say mostly white because the Hispanics don't give a rat's ass about St Patrick's day.... They have Cinco de Mayo and God knows.... it's the white trash again who wind up passing out in the gutters!!!!

Schedule of a typical moron on St. Patrick's Day:
9 am: Mom leaves the house to go to her job. Moron goes back to sleep because he has no job.
11 am: Time to start the day! It's St. Patrick's Day! Gel hair into same douche-bag style that all his friends have. Find "I'm not Irish, but kiss me anyway" t-shirt.
1 pm: Moron bar hops
2 pm: Moron is totally wasted
2:01 pm: Moron is puking in a mailbox
2:02 pm: Moron is hitting on every woman in sight
4:00 pm: Realizing that no woman wants a pathetic guy with puke-breath, Moron gets violent and starts picking fights by calling out to every short guy, "Hey look! It's a leprechaun!"
6:03 pm: Moron is slumped on the curb with his nose bashed in. His friends rush to him, cell phones in hand, to snap pictures. They laugh. They leave.

Coming soon to a terrine near you....

Got a big half pig (80 pounds, organic) whole, freshly slaughtered, cut in 2 lengthwise) the other day from my egg and arugula farmer.... we had to let it age a little bit, and we butchered it yesterday morning.... Check out the entry on the Paris Journal by clicking here.

Displayed above is the reconstituted head of the pig after having cooked for 5 hours and being stripped of all meat and cartilage.... French "fromage de tête" (head cheese) coming next week!!! any takers????

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...