Relatively new trend in N. Amerca; Fooding

When we were in Montreal, we noticed that 'Fooding' is a trend in a lot of fusion and newer restaurants.

For those not in the know, "Fooding" is a term coined in 1999 by two French journalists, Emmanuel Rubin of FigaroScope and Alexandre Cammas of Nova Magazine. They wanted to stir things up in the world of gastronomy, and put the "feeling" (with a French accent, it's important) back into food. With the pleasure that many of the younger French generation take in English, the neologism combines “food” and “feeling”. And the motto on their website reads, “taste of the époque.” Indeed for these young French food lovers, great food is not just technical execution, but the spirit of the meal, the chef, and the place in which it is eaten. Amongst other things, they organize events in trendy locations all through the year, during which you can eat food prepared by up-and-coming chefs, taste excellent wine, listen to good music -- all of this for free or a nominal fee. This was not the case in Montreal, but in Paris. But we have that city on our list for July, so we will tell you later more about that! ;-)

Well, this is up our alley! We love food, but more the feeling the restaurant embodies, so the trend is rather to eat a few smaller dishes and taste as many cuisines as possible, drink some delicious wine with it and enjoy your company and surroundings!
That's exactly what we did on our trip to Montreal, Burlington and Boston!...and soon Paris where we will experience the real deal.

Bon Appetit!
Mireille

Back from vacation

We did a road trip to Mont Tremblant, Quebec. It was our first trip with the girls to Canada, and since we are moving soon, we thought we just do a quick vacation to Montreal, since it is such a beautiful area. Mont Tremblant is about 2 hours north of Montreal and it took us about 7 hours to drive. Beautiful drive up there, we saw so many trees! It was so green and lush, really georgous!We stayed 4 nights at Intrawest a club resort with tennis, pools, spa & jacuzzi, movie theater and all the other amenities you wish for. We had a 2 bedroom appartment with a hot tub with bubbles, which the girls of course adore. They spent every evening about an hour in that! We also rented the private movie theater at the resort and saw A bridge to Terabithia. It was fun to have the whole mini theater for ourselves!

We did a day trip to Montreal, had dinner there and strolled around the city. The girls discovered the carriage with horses across the street from the Notre Dame, so we had to do a trip with the horse with the pink hair, that was their favorite. So much fun!
Mont Tremblant itself was a beautiful ski resort and now in spring so lush and green really nice! We had some great food and strolled down into the city center, saw some guys smoking a hookah pipe and had some fun sitting in a huge adirondack chair on the market square.

On the way back home we stopped for a day in Burlington, Vermont. Which is a quaint student town. We had some wine and cheese on the terasses while the girls were cracking a dinosaur egg they bought at the aquariam that day. It took them a few hours to find the small dinosaur inside, which was an excellent way to spend $5... it kept them busy for hours! ;-)

What else did we do on this trip, we went to the Ben & Jerry's Ice cream factory, we saw the Aqaurium in Burlington and the Witch museum in Salem, after that we met some friends for lunch in Salem and on the way back home we went to Ikea and spent a fortune on new bedroom furniture for the girls for their new rooms in South Africa.
All in all, a very productive and fun week! Now back to school for the last 3 weeks before summer break, and our huge move across the world to another continent! We still have loads to do....
Enjoy your week, y'all!
Mireille