Visit from the Quists-October 20-21

After a couple of weeks of travel in Europe, Kristy and Brian Quist, friends from Grand Rapids, made a stop in Grenoble to visit us.

We moved the kitchen table into the living room so that we could all have dinner in the same room. Andrew, Natalie, and Allison are having a good time with Luc.

Between the 10 of us, we plowed through all 40 crêpes.

The pan in the back left corner is the only "real" crêpe pan-a heavy steel pan. All the crêpes were made in this pan. Once the crêpes were assembled (emmental cheese, ham, goat cheese), then the other pans were good for re-heating, sort of assembly-line fashion. For those who like shallots, a shallot sauce was served with the crêpes.



Friday morning, after breakfast at our apartment (chocolate meusli and croissants), we went up the Bastille--a fort situated 400 meters above the city--via a cable car, locally referred to as "the eggs".


At the top, the higher mountains were still covered in clouds, but the view of Grenoble was clear.

We stopped at a café when we were back at the bottom. Here Allison is posing with her hot chocolate. With the promise of clear sunny weather for the afternoon, the Quists drove up to the Chartreuse mountains to do a short hike/picnic to Charmant Som, the same hike we did with the Calvin students in September.

Kristy and Brian took us out for dinner in the evening while the kids stayed home to have pizza while watching Kung Fu Panda II.

We went to La ferme de Dédé (Dédé's farm). The cuisine was traditional mountain cuisine--imagine working in the fields all day or skiing all day and then coming back very hungry.

Cold cuts (ham, cured ham, salami and cured beef) are served with a salad with walnuts.

Along with this, Kristy and I ordered ravioles--postage-size pasta filled with a herbed cheese and then baked in cream (good thing we worked in the fields today!), whereas Otto ordered a potato-based dish (tartiflette) and Brian chicken in a mushroom cream sauce along with a potato gratin (gratin dauphinois). The food was good and hearty, as promised.

We shared dessert. Otto and I had a chocolate mousse--served in a jar. This is just the restaurant's way of presenting the dessert and not how all restaurants in France do this!

Kristy and Brian shared a chocolate cake (chocolat fondant). The pickles in the background were not an accompaniment to the cake, but to eat with the cold cuts during the main course.

We walked back to our apartment and there Brian and Kristy settled some last details for the trip to Paris tomorrow before going back to their hotel with the kids.

It was very enjoyable sharing our bit of life here with friends from home.