Visiting Ile-aux-Moines (Brittany, France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Ile-aux-Moines (Brittany, France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

One of our friends in Paris had a family home on the Ile-aux-Moines (Monks’ Island) off the coast of Vannes in Brittany, France.

On a crisp, fall day, my husband Laurent, toddler Florence, and I set out for Vannes to pretend to be banished fishermen on the Ile-aux-Moines.

No cars are allowed on the island, so we trudged all of Florence’s toddler equipment (tricycle, helmet, multiple changes of clothing, sippy cups and so on) onto the island by making several ferryboat trips back and forth in the rain.  (It rains all the time in Brittany in the winter.)

Our friend’s family had a medieval era stone house on the island that was very chilly in the rain.  (Homes in Brittany all have very pointy roofs to let rain fly off roofs quickly and far away from homes.)

I told our friend that she needed tapestries from Aubusson to hold in heat.

“It’s never warm in here. Tapestries would hold in the cold,” she said.

Florence wore layers of little T-shirts and American sweatsuits that my University of Chicago roommate wisely bought for her when I came to show off “bébé Florence” to the good-looking Greeks in Chicago.

We forgot our chills when our friend came back with spiny lobsters for each of us.

She made a bowl of homemade mayonnaise to spread on baguette toast to go with the lobster meat.  We drank a Bourgogne Aligoté white wine with this ruddy meal.

We ignored the sheets of rain thudding on the roof and listened to rock music.  I taught Florence how to dance to the rhythm of the Rolling Stones, U2 and BB King, and Rai music from France.

We visited Ile-aux-Moines several times and even went to a wedding there.  Laurent filmed the wedding that had lots of strolling musicians playing bagpipes and harps and little girls twirling pixie baskets full of flowers.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting the Modern Art Museum in Brussels (Belgium) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the Modern Art Museum in Brussels (Belgium) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

On a quick trip to Brussels (Belgium), my friend Eileen and I planned to visit the Modern Art Museum in downtown Brussels to view their collection of the Belgian Surrealist painter René Magritte.

First, we ate lunch at a restaurant called the Moule Sacré that had good food at a good price.  Mussels are called the “poor man’s oysters,” but I noticed that the Belgians, who ate them had become rather wealthy.  Mussels also taste good especially when made with crème fraîche, shallots, and white wine.

Eileen and I tried a menu special that had the following items on it:

-avocado halves with chopped, boiled shrimp and creamy, estragon dressing

-Scottish smoked salmon with rye bread and salted butter

-Dames Blanches sundaes made with vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream

After lunch, we went to the Modern Art Museum well fed and eager to view the Surrealist paintings by René Magritte.

I loved Magritte’s painting of a train coming out of a fireplace as well as his painting of a baguette loaf of bread floating in the sky.

After visiting the Museum, Eileen walked me to the Gare du Midi, so I could go back to Paris.

I read a book about Hong Kong all the way home.  I liked being Miss – Information even when I was young.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup of Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting Bruges (Belgium) to View the Memling Museum by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Bruges (Belgium) to View the Memling Museum by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I went on a solo trip to Brussels (Belgium) to visit my Detroit buddy Eileen, who had recently graduated from the London School of Economics (LSE) and was working as a consultant for the European Union.

I knew Mick Jagger also attended the LSE and asked her if she was going to promote “European music for mega money in the EU and abroad.”

“More like cheese and wine,” she said probably wondering when Peter Pan Ruth was going to grow up.

As ever, the first order of business when doing business in a country that is French or has some sort of French heritage is to eat.  We walked from the train station to her apartment and picked up a few items at Delhaize Supermarket on the way home.

We ate a light dinner of prosciutto, smoke salmon, lettuce with blue cheese dressing, and fruit salad with slices of baguette and Kerrygold butter. 

We drank a Sauvignon de Touraine with our little meal and went to sleep to early, so we could get up bright and early for a trip to Brouges the next day.

I love taking the train to Bruges.  The fields around Bruges are green, the canals are clean and shimmer, and swans glide along the canals on the way into town.

We went to the Central Train Station to go to Bruges.  The train originated in Cologne, Germany, so we had to stand all the way to our destination, but we did not care.  We were having fun, laughing about the books we were reading and wondering where we could eat waterzooi, a Flemish fish stew in Belgium.

When we arrived, we went to the Memling Museum in Bruges.  The Museum holds two rooms of art that is very important to the Flemish people.

The most stunning piece was a casket for the relics of Saint Ursula.  According to the legend that Memling painted, the devout Ursula refused to marry the pagan English prince Etheric until he converted.

Ursula was a demanding woman and also insisted on having three years to make a pilgrimage to Rome with 11,000 virgins.

Ursula was martyred en route for refusing the advances of the King of the Huns.  The tale was quite popular in the Middle Ages.

It was noon, so we went to eat.  Eileen and I walked around and checked out menus before choosing a restaurant with good food at reasonable prices.

We ordered in English not French.  Even I knew that the Flemish regions around French-speaking Brussels were rather snooty about speaking Germanic languages, which include Flemish, Dutch, and English.

Eileen and I were twins and ordered the same thing.  We started our meal with puréed carrot soup.  Our next course was grilled salmon with a light, cream of tomato sauce with a side of sheet pan baked potatoes.

I can make puréed carrot soup, sheet pan baked potatoes, and grilled salmon with a light, cream of tomato sauce now and save a lot of money.

Dessert was a scoop of highly perfumed vanilla ice cream with a slice of musk melon.

After lunch, we spent a lot of time touring town on foot looking at homes, flowers, swans, and the canals with clean water that reflected everything in the sunlight.

We visited a cookware store and a bookstore.  Surprisingly, there were many English-language books in the store.  It reminded me of the FNAC International Bookstore in Paris with the exception that the FNAC had magazines, newspapers, and books in many languages, especially those of the European Union.

We made our way back to the train station and were happy to find seats after all the walking we had done.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Eating Winter Seafood Meals in the Sables d'Olonne (Vendee, France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Eating Winter Seafood Meals in the Sables d’Olonne (Vendée, France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

On another cold weekend in Paris (France), my husband Laurent and I bundled up toddler Florence and drove out to the Vendée region to visit Laurent’s grandmother, who lived in the Sables d’Olonne on the Atlantic oceanfront.

When we arrived, I walked to the indoor Arago Market  with Laurent’s grandmother to buy lunch which included:

-raw oysters

-pre-cleaned clams for steaming

-lamb fillets for grilling

Then, we took Florence for a walk down the Remblai.  It was pretty windy on the oceanfront.  Just a few streets inland, the temperature was warmer, because there was no wind.

We drank a Jurançon Doux as our cocktail.  This wine comes form Southwestern France and was pretty reasonably priced at the time.

Then, we ate raw oysters  - one dozen each.  I like to eat mine with fresh lemon juice.

Our main dish was grilled lamb fillets with green beans and small, French lima beans from Puy.  We drank a Bordeaux from the Médoc with the grilled lamb.  A selection of cheese followed this course and a nice dessert.

Laurent ate a chocolate éclair while ate a Polonaise, a fat cake soaked in rum that is supposed to resemble an old Polish lady.

We returned to Paris well fed.  Florence’s time by the Atlantic Ocean gave her pink cheeks and a happy smile.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting the Towns of St. Leonard de Noblat and St. Junien (Limousin, France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the Towns of St. Léonard de Noblat and St. Junien (Limousin, France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

After visiting the Adrien Dubouché Porcelain Museum in downtown Limoges (France), my husband Laurent, toddler Florence, and I drove to Aixe-sur-Vienne to buy porcelain at a store that specialized in white porcelain at the time on the Vienne River.

It was fun to visit the Maison de la Porcelan with Florence.  She liked all the dishes I showed her and described them as “C’est beau.”

We bought several pieces of white porcelain and went to the town of St. Léonard de Noblat.  The town is named after the hermit Léonard, who lived in the forest nearby.

The church in Saint Léonard de Noblat has many sculpted beasts on its sculpture outside meant to inspire awe and respect for God.

The Church was not empty.  I sat and let Florence practice pulling down the kneestand and pray a few times.

We went back to the great-aunt’s house for more vegetable appetizers and a charcuterie selection of Serrano ham from Spain, Italian prosciutto, and French rillettes with baguettes and bread.

I fell asleep as I went to bed that night.

The next morning, we went to the market in St. Junien.  The market sold cute bunnies.  Florence and I played with the soft bunnies while the vendor gave me rabbit recipes.

The town of St. Junien came to life when the hermit St. Junien began to heal the sick with water in the 6^th century.  Most people drank wine, because it was cleaner than well water due to it production methods.  He may have taught people to boil water to kill bacteria.

St. Junien like St. Léonard de Noblat searched for his soul in the woods much like Jesus and holy hermits did in the Middle East when they went to the desert.  There was a large monastery in St. Junien dedicated to the Saint.

I imagined how festive the town must look during its “ostentations,” which take place every seven years.  The “ostentations” are a series of processions of saints’ relics that are held in Limoges and its neighboring towns.

During the “ostentations” in St. Junien, people wear costumes and parade down the main street covered with leaves to look like the forest.  I read this information to Laurent as we walked through the market from the Michelin touring guide.

We bought strawberries and chocolate cake to bring to Laurent’s cousin’s house, who had invited us for lunch.

Our host told us that he spoke a “patois” or dialect during lunch.  This patois could be either the langue d’oc of the South of France or the langue d’oeil of the North of France.  The Limousin is the linguistic dividing line in France between those two dialects.

The name of both languages signifies “yes” in those languages and might make reference to swearing fealty to a medieval seigneur.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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