Spring has sprung and lots going on...

Yes, I know it has been a while since my last posting...

Life has been extremely busy and crazy...

But hopefully, I am now back on track (I know - famous last words)

Since last I posted, Tom has been in Turkey on business, we have been to Paris for another cooking class, Neuchatel for a lovely inexpensive weekend and Aosta Italy. It all sounds very grand and has been lovely but it has prevented me from updating the blog sooner.

Let's move on to the fun stuff - Our second trip to Paris for another cooking class at Le Cordon Bleu. This class was all about stocks and sauces. I am starting with this one because we have the third & last of our classes this weekend. We head out to Paris tomorrow afternoon for 'Cooking with Friends'.

It was a lovely weekend unfortunately I got a bug and that put a slight damper on any roaming around.

The class itself was intense and very informative.Our chef for the day was Chef Patrick Caals (Chef de Cuisine et Chef de Patissier). We started by learning to properly make different type of 'fond' or stock (a base for any good sauce). We then moved on to making Chicken Breasts Supreme, a Pistou Sauce (french pesto without the cheese and pine nuts), Duck Breast a l'orange, a Bordelaise Sauce (red wine and veal stock sauce) and Jumbo Shrimp & Langoustines a l'American. Instead of boring everybody with the recipes and stories - I think it is best I show you the photos...

Chef Caals explaining our
long day ahead of making
some delicious sauces...

Chef Caals & me...

Tom mixing our Supreme Sauce...

Tom packaging up our goodies...

Tom cutting up the shrimp
& langoustines...

Ron making the seafood
stock w/the remains...

Our Langoustine tails...

Tom prepping the heads...

Chef showing us the
proper way to prepare
a duck breast...

Lastly, Chef showed us
how to make a French
Pistou Sauce...

Since all we did is work our tails off...everything we made got packed up in take-away bins and left with us...

Duck Breast a l'orange...

Chicken Supreme...

It was a lovely long day which ended with a marvelous dinner at Stella's and some relaxing at the St. James Hotel...

Our quirky yet lovely room...

...at the amazing St.James!

Because I was not feeling well we decided to leave, we caught an earlier train home, relaxed and enjoyed the memories of another great cooking class at Le Cordon Bleu! Looking forward to this coming weekend's adventure in Paris - I will make sure and post something more quickly this time.

As mentioned above we decided to take a drive the following Saturday to Aosta, Italy. We felt like having some authentic Italian food. The drive and day were absolutely lovely - the mountains were covered in snow but the in the town it was 70 degrees and lovely.

Just amazing countryside...

...through the mountains to Italy!

Our sleepy little Italian town...

....with amazing spring weather!

Moving on - I think I might have mentioned this a while ago but if not I am going to tell a short story now. Sometime back I decided to sign up and go to an 'Expat Fair' being held here in Lausanne. I also signed Tom up to join me. As part of the registration to this event was entry into a raffle for door prizes. The event itself wasn't spectacular but a few good/great things came out of it...
First - we luckily ran into the women who helped us find our apartment in Lausanne and got to catch up with her...
Second - next door to the event was a craft fair, so we had fun looking and buying things there...

Lastly - My ever lucky and wonderful husband won the Grand Door Prize, an amazing overnight stay in a beautiful hotel in Neuchatel with a tasting menu dinner included!

The reason I tell this story is because we decided to use our prize for our Civil Union Anniversary. We headed up to Neuchatel and spent a lovely overnight in what can only be described as one of the nicest most unusual hotels we have even been to. This is a new hotel placed directly on the shores of Lake Neuchatel. Each of the units/rooms looks like a self contained Cargo Container sitting directly on the lake. 

To get to our 'room' we were loaded into a golf cart and we were on our way (I want one for Richmond)...

The accommodations were amazing - take a look...

Our living room, bedroom and...

...bathroom with Jacuzzi tub!

Our terrace and view...

...and Tom relaxing on it!

The view of our front door...

...& the lakeside view of the back!

A friend that hung out on the lake...

...& our celebratory Martinis!

This was our view...

It was a short yet amazing little getaway with the man I Love!
We decided that going back in the fall would definitely be something we would like to do. The lake will be still warm enough to take a nice swim off our terrace.
Happy 7th Anniversary (of our Civil Union in NJ) to us!

On the home-front - spring is finally starting to show its face...
The Swiss are planting extremely colorful flowerbeds  - replacing the extremely colorful ones they planted last month for the winter...
I continue to putter around with my ceramics - playing with both design and glazes...

Attempting a dripping glaze...

...and a crackling glaze...

And my 'It's 5 o'clock somewhere'...

...a cheese platter for poolside!

  

To round this posting up - 

The next few months are a little crazy for the both of us. 

At the end of April Tom starts a three week business trip that will bring him to London, Indonesia, Korea, Japan and finally meeting me, Angi & Rob in Rome. After a nice weekend in Rome the four of us travel back to Switzerland. Tom goes back to work (sigh) and I get to play with Angi & Rob for the week. At the end of the week, I then travel back to the US with Rob & Angi for three weeks stateside working on the house in Richmond (just having some maintenance work done). I am hoping that I will be able to take the middle week and travel up to NY to visit with Mom, Dad, James, Greg and anybody else I am able to squeeze in.

I will try my best to be more regular with my postings (I will not swear about the time in the US).

For now - 

I would like to send our love and best to all our family and friends!

Before I end this, I want to add one more video - I am sitting here typing this and looking out at my view. I decided to show everybody the view from our terrace...enjoy!

Love always - 

Ron & Tom