- This topic has 22 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated 3 months, 1 week ago by
.
-
Posts
-
-
Tell us about your favourite food moment in The Grey Wolf! Has the food in this book inspired you to try a new dish or bake/cook something new?
-
Definitely not the meeting at Chez Mama with the pancakes, that jug of maple syrup with the special added flavouring, and that croissant! I can still picture that place with the sticky floors and that croissant!
-
It has to be when Reine-Marie describes the food at LeMeac, the restaurant she and Gamache go to with their friends – truffle oil salmon tartar, moules frites, mushroom risotto! My goodness. (PS I was curious and looked it up and there is a real LeMeac restaurant in Montreal!!)
-
Cannoli are among my favorite guilty food pleasures!
-
I had to google bombolini and now I want to try one!
-
I did the same thing! And yep, I want them!!
-
-
There didn’t seem to me as many enticing food moments in this book as in previous ones probably because everyone was racing around like crazy trying to stop catastrophe. But one stands out.
When Gamache and Beauvoir are at Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups they have a dinner of squash and wild garlic soup, with a casserole of baked ratatouille and goat’s cheese and finished with an apple crisp and thick cream. Sounds delicious.
-
I agree with you, Tara, about there being fewer food moments. That meal at St. Gilbert was the one that I also picked out.
-
The dinners at the monastery and at le Meac also stood out for me. I haven’t had moule frites in a long time but that dish plus the salmon tartar sound delicious. As for one of the dishes I’d like to try, I think I would like to try squash and wild garlic soup. It sounds interesting and healthy.
-
-
-
Another one only because of the chocolate: “To steady himself now, Armand took a bite of the the soft, still-warm pastry oozing dark chocolate. As a further balm, he looked across the patio to the Riviere Bella Bella, its fresh mountain water rushing by, catching the sun and gleaming golden. It was calming. Meditative.” Isn’t that always the way of chocolate?
-
Marshmallows are food, so this moment between Armand and Daniel stands out, “Now go rescue your mother. She has marshmallow in her hair, children under her skin, and Ruth up her nose.” I can’t say that this scene inspired any replication of events for me personally though.
-
I have two favorite moments, food homemade and delicious, nourishing physically and emotionally.
At Chez Mere Grand, “Isabelle was already there when he arrived. Armand ordered grilled cheese sandwiches for the table, bulging with melted Gruyere and blue cheese, with chutney oozing out. He aded an eclair for Isabelle, a mille-feuille for Jean-Guy, and a slice of tall, wobbly lemon meringue pie for himself.” This is the scene and restaurant where Armand yields with grace to Jean-Guy’s gift of shoes and an ice pack.
The second is at the home of Miriam and Raymond Rousseau. They are telling Armand and Valerie Michaud about Yves/Dom Philippe’s visit and his warning to them. “The home was soon filled with the scent of bacon and eggs. And fresh-perked coffee.” “The toast popped up, and before Armand could butter it, Miriam waved the spatula at him. ‘Sit.'”
-
I’m with you, Jane, especially about the food at Chez Mere Grand — that really appealed to me (including each and every one of the desserts! Though I would have wanted some tomato soup with the grilled cheeses, to complete the meal), tied with the meal at St. Gilbert that Tara mentioned. Both meals would have been entirely delightful to me, I think. I also salivated over the mushroom risotto that Cassie T described from LeMeac — I’ll bet it’s SO good there! And there’s never a dessert described yet that I haven’t wanted to try. Am I inspired to cook anything mentioned in the book? Well, no— I have the culinary skills of the head chef at Chez Mama. But I have been actively seeking out lemon meringue pie lately, and found some at a local coffee shop– yay!
-
Susan, I agree about being unlikely to change my cooking but I am thinking of upping my grilled cheese game. I will always have to find a bakery for any dessert that looks like these. ABQ’s main growers market has a stall from a wonderful French bakery here but by the time I get organized to get myself there, they are almost always sold out of the pastries.
-
Oh, bummer about the pastries! But they must be good if they sell out so fast!
-
-
-
I’m also with you Jane and Susan, the sandwich at Chez Mere Grand sounds unusual but as I’m not a fan of blue cheese maybe I’d ask for a cheese substitute. As for the desserts mentioned – eclair, wobbly lemon meringue pie, and mille-feuille – all three please. And nothing beats a good breakfast of bacon and eggs on a cold winter morning.
-
Jane, I love your pairing of emotional and dietary nourishment. Sharing meals is often a universal form of celebration, support or comfort, so your point resonates with me. I wonder if this, in addition to the food descriptions being tantalizing, is why we all seem to enjoy the foodie aspect of Three Pines so much. Another form of emotional safety and comfort, coupled with mouth-watering descriptions, often with all our favourite friends gathered around being kind and accepting of one another and sharing drinks and laughs together.
-
I think you’re right, Katherine. I do believe in the power of comfort food, and in these books, a meal or snack is often interlaced with moments of sharing, of bonding, of exchanging ideas, overcoming differences, or offering comfort. It always gives me an extra sense of atmosphere, pulls me into the scene, from the sumptuous meals to the mundane Tim Horton coffee moments, right down to Armand always remembering to bring Jean-Guy or Isabelle some sort of pastry, even when they’re so hard at work, knowing how that little gesture might lighten their loads and bring a little joy. So much has been revealed over food and drink in these books; so much about the characters has been revealed, and that environment of sharing, caring, and understanding that comes with it is one of things that appeals to me most.
-
-
-
I think I’d like to try the chartreuse liqueur. I’m not sure I’d like it necessarily, based on what the Three Pines friends thought of it, but it would be something unique and interesting.
-
I’ve actually met somebody recently who says they don’t totally hate it, so maybe it has some hidden appeal for some! I would give it a try, too, just for curiosity’s sake.
-
-
Another food moment to mention is that at one point, Reine-Marie eats Bleu Benedictin cheese made by monks at the Abbey of Saint-Benoit-du-Lac. It was posted about in detail earlier but is probably buried in the feed now. But after seeing that post, I followed the link and all the cheeses produced at the Abbey sound interesting. I’d love to give them all a try with a fresh, warm baguette.
-
A delightful moment for me last fall was when I went on the Three Pines Tour around Knowlton, and at the end of the day, we got to sample some of the very delicious local cheeses, one of which was the bleu cheese made at that Abbey. We had stopped at the Abbey during the tour (and heard the Gregorian chants — so lovely!) and I wanted to get hold of some of that cheese, but there was a large busload of tourists who happened to show up there at the same time and the gift shop was packed, so I didn’t have time to get any, lest I miss the chants. I was bummed out, but then delighted to get to sample it after all! (And we had some local wine and baguette with it; ahh….). I’ve since looked into whether or not I could order some of those cheeses and have them sent to the U.S., but they don’t have that availability, darn it.
-
That sounds like a wonderful tour, Susan! I love cheeses and have always found interesting new ones to try on my travels but sadly few of them are exported. So I’m so glad you didn’t miss out on the blue cheese you wanted to try.
-
-
-
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.