PariTells: Excursion Culinary Day 5

En route to Grasse before overnight in Monaco
25-06-2014

I was glad finally we didn’t have to wake up early to run after our sacred itinerary.What a relaxing morning!,frankly speaking.

Whilst I was taking it easy and spending a longer time on breakfast table, most of us left to enjoy taking pictures in the garden, under the trees,with the flowers, at the pool...briefly,everywhere. You gotta believe me, each of us deserves to be honored a pretty tittle “Miss Photogenic”, circumstancially!, I recommend highly.

Anyway...our friends, I mean Pranee,Peter,their daugther--Jasmine and their dog--Theo, have such a beautiful creamy stone house,one of those remains of Roman occupation,like many other beautiful buildings here in this medieval village.Peter told me much about their house during our conversation at dinner table last night which was very intersting and impressive.But all about the detail of the house itself, I would let Peter or Pranee show you themself some other time. This would be continued in the next episode. Keep your eyes and ears open,you’ll be soon updated .Now let’s get back to our current theme.

The house was gated, and covered the very extensive area. But from where my eyes could reach during my morning meal when I was sitting at the terrace turning my back on the frontdoor of the house...the swimming pool in front of me, behind the rows of the average tall trees.And further next to and around the pool was perennial as well as flower plants.And "must not miss to mention" about was certainly vegetables...espeacially those that we had tasted already since the first evening of our arrival; fresh tomatoes,lettuce and some other tropical herbs picked at peak ripeness from their own vegetable garden.

Uunmm... I was sighing smiling with pleasure ! The soft morning sunlight was shining through the climbered roof and those surrounded arbors. With my eyes chut,I was chewing and enjoying the relish of my repast, in the midst of nature,hearing friends’laughter every now and then from behind the bush nearby. Life’s so far so good ! Let's just forget about all troubles for a while!and enjoy every moments we having together here.

Well, a little tip of what I collected from yesterday morning came into my mind, while helping Pranee in the kitchen preparing some ingredients for later in the evening, I learnt and got to know 4 different kinds of tomatoes she planted herself in her garden,namely

1.Tomato Pineapple 2.Black Tomato 3.Yellow Tomato and last but not least 4.Pumpkin tomato.

Tomatoes salad

Sounds common,but not everyone knows that ! And if you would go deeper in the varieties of tomatoes, you would be astonished to find out a long-tailed sorts of it. But for today,let me summerize just 4 of these amazing.

Sure enough,all of these were ultimate fresh and juicy salad appetizers of our yesterday dinner.You gotta see this !

varieties of tomatoes

Time to move on....

After breakfast and joviality of photographing,we left the house. Pranee was leaving her family and joined us the trip too.Again with excitement,we were looking forward to our next destination.

we made 8 today

Before making our way to overnight in Monaco that evening,we were planning to stop by at Mary’s home in Grasse,to greet her husband and to get to know where she lives too. Of course,some of us had been at Marry’s before but many just came here with this trip for the first time. So at least, these two points were the main idea of that afternoon, and what followed was,more or less, the outgrowth, which was...what Mary proposed...afternoon salad.. “Salad Niçoise”, a French origin and composed salad made with raw vegetables topping with some canned tuna and anchovies.Though what Marry made was a bit changed and dapted from the origin one, by adding some schrimps ,for example,was not bad at all. We all loved seafood, so shrimps added was absolutely only avail.
(Ps.recipe of salad Niçoise will be soon available-- please be back here again :-)

So ,to let Mary show off her cooking skill,we assisted her a bit in the kitchen, by collecting some fresh vegetables from her home ground, standing by at hand for her convenience to pick and to hand in whatever she needed,for instance. Not long after the cooking started, we were clearing the table for the big bowl of ready-to-eat-salad. Then spoons and forks were handed out to everyone...time to attack Niçoise salad in one big bowl. Yeah... we ate together in one same bowl ! That was the simpliest way for quick healthy snack when we didn't have much time and so after that we didn’t have to wash many dishes before we left again ;-)

After having read our story, you probably got mouth-watering.That’s okay,but why not make and enjoy this mediterenean green mix at your own home too or wherever you are. You may try Mary’s recipe,no right reserved !

After Niçoise, we picked some fresh abricos from the trees along the side path entrance of her house to bring with us en route heading Nice. And at last we were driving over the border to Monaco. We were today altogether 8.