Nearly fifteen years ago (ohmigoodness. fifteen whole years.) a lovely French girl, Julie, came to Kentucky to stay with me and my family for two weeks. A few months later, I found myself in France staying with her and her family. Fortunately we got along incredibly well. (The same cannot be said for all who participated in this exchange between our high-schools.) We got along so well in fact, that we’ve kept photo-albums and scrapbooks of our exchange. We sent each other Christmas presents for a few years after. I spent an Easter during my semester abroad in Italy with her and her family. Needless to say, when she heard about our trip around the world, she was insistent we stop by for another visit. Of course, I immediately said ‘yes’ and despite not seeing each other for eight years, I wasn’t exactly surprised when we were picked up (at 4:30 in the morning) Julie and I carried on like we just saw each other yesterday. Her and her wonderful husband, Antoine whisked us away to their beautiful home in the French countryside, let us crawl into bed for a few hours and then (little did we know) began to spoil us with a ridiculous amount of delicious French baguettes, cheeses, wines… and this was just the start of so much more goodness to come!
After a very leisurely lunch out back, in beautiful French fashion (olives and bread to nibble on with drinks, then the main course, then cheese, then fruit) all with wonderful wine, I hardly felt like a backpacker and instead, felt like a girl who just happened to be visiting her close friend in the French countryside for a few days. (I’m. so. lucky.) We went to a local rummage sale and then back to their abode to meet friends before being treated to a really wonderful dinner. Wonderful is an understatement. It was the nicest meal we’ve had during this entire trip. I was so excited, I had to take a picture of every course. I was thatgirl photographing her food. And her boyfriend’s food. I know I should have been more like ‘yea, I’m a world-traveler… I do this all. the. time.‘ with a flip of the hair of course… But obviously (if you’ve been following along) we don’t. Some nights bread and cheese is our dinner, not just the last course. (My standards have become increasingly low- especially after some of the less developed countries.)
Enjoy the beautiful food pictures below, and maybe you won’t blame me for going a bit bananas documenting our best meal! Julian (I hope I’m spelling that right!) enjoyed teasing me for being that girl taking pictures of her food. He asked if I wanted to take a picture of his desert as well. I said yes, as long as he was in it too!
