beaujolais neaveau

So as I said in earlier posts i was very much looking forward to being a part of the experience of beaujolias neaveau. Now although Iw as warned that the wine would be crap (french standards) and Iw ould be sick in the morning, I didnt believe it, oh how very right my friends were.

Lets start again from the begining. I spent a big part of my day with my friend anne. We went to the market and bought stuff for the dinner we were cooking together. We paired our food with a vin blanc from chatteau neauf de pappe. An amazing wine from the 1980's. So anyways we were cooking for her parents who were in town from spain. So we cooked for about 3 hours, as I was giving her lessons on knife handling and cooking techniques. For apperatif we had a carrot terrine, (not carrot cake) with a nice subtle but tasty Muscadet wine. For the main course we had Scallops with a puree of celeriac, potatoe and raison sec, and artichoke and swiss chard. For dessert we took one of her mothers old recipes for similar to poached pear,. but ten million times better, and I gave it a bit of a twist so it would look nice on the plate. When we presented it to her she thought it was amazing what we had done, adn of course loved the dinner. But before we started cooking Anne showed me a few cookbooks of her which her greatgrandmother wrote and used in the late 1800's. of course all the pages were brown adn faded and written in french but i was so happy to see it, turned out to be difficult to convince anne to elt me write down the recipes, she said those recipes mean the world to her and she doesnt want anyone just taking them. So I pretty much spent the next 7 hours trying to convince her and her mother to let me have some recipes at least. After the meal anees mom said she would email her recipes from when she had a restuarant in the hills just north of lyon, and anne agreed that next time I came over she woudl spend time with me translating the recipes but i have to promise not to bastedize them and keep true to the auther of the recipes, (her great grandmother). Dinner was really amazing, most of the conversation was in french and when i got stuck they translated but we held conversation pretty well through out the night. At around 1130 I left to drop my knives back at work, and head over to Place Antonin Placet for the party. The square was already packed with people but I was able to sneak my way through the crowd to the front.

And that is where the fun started!!!!

Suddenly there is a tap on my shoulder I turn around adn this girl says to me, "You're Canadian arent you?" I wa sshocked because first of all I didnt know her, second how can I be picked out of a crowd with more than 100 crazy screaming frenchies that Im Canadian? And it wasnt because I was the only one not wearing a jacket, just a short sleeve shirt!! SO I asked her, and she said she recognized me from my profile on couch surfing.com!! kinda wierd but she was lost and didnt have a phone and was also looking for the couchsurfers group. She is Canadian as well but from montreal. So we stayed together. And just like it was described at midnight the barrels of fresh beaujolais wine were roled into the middle of the square with a band and cheerleaders in front of it dancing. When the barrels where brought to their place, music started to blare and everyone broke out into song and dance as fireworks started going off in front of us to welcome in the new wine....VERY TACKY BUT FUNNY!! Finally the music start and they started a countdown and with a big pop the first bottle of Beaujolais neaveau was broken open and miss rhone got a drink first and thats when the cases of wine started getting open adn glasses were passed around. Everyone was pushing and singing the beaujolais song and dancing it was so cool. Finally we found all the couchsurfers and we all joined up on another side and the wine started to flow It tasted like a watered down wine, not bad but definteoly not good! I must have drank about a bottle and a half with the group, (that being we each drank about a bottle adn a half each and it was free!!!) around 1ish I said I thought I shoudl go home since I had work in the mornign but the group wouldnt hear it. There was a tradition to drink a certain wine after beaujolais with these people...First let me say it was a baaaaaaaaaaad idea that wine tasted discusting. But anyways we crossed the bridge to the side that I live on and walked along the river about 7 of us toa bar ona boat on the river rhone.
But on the bridge were the riot police because the algeria soccer team won a game and the algerians here are really crazy. There was teargas beign thrown to dispurse the crowds, it was funny. So while on the bridge I went over to the police and asked if I can take a picture with them. They asked me for money adn a bribe. I said i had no money on me, but they wanted canadian money. I laughed and told them the canadian dollar is terrible against the euro, so they let me take a picture for free.
We all piled into this little bar boat and these guys started buying bottles of this wine and little shot glasses its call chachonne, IT is probably the worst drink I have ever had but I was having fun and I thought what the hey, so we drank for an hour or so laughing joking singing beaujolais songs and just talking and taking movies and pictures of everyone. Eventually I had to turn myself in because i knew I wouldnt be able to function at work today if i didnt.
So I came home made sure I had my alarm set, and yes I WOKE UP THIS MORNIGN WITH SUCH A STOMACH ACHE IT WAS FUNNY. But at least I experienced beaujolas neaveau in lyon with friends and had a blast. Even though I got plastered and had way too much to drink, I wasnt hungover!!! yey me!!! but it was fun.

anyways that is the long of it and i will try to upload the videos of beaujolais neaveau onto my facebook page and I will post pictures as well from last nights dinner and party, although I will probably ask some friends for their piuctures as well so you can see different views.

enjoy