During the week, M attended a cooking class with one of the colleagues with whom she had gone to Amsterdam, Lindsay. The subject of the class was macarons, the little brightly colored sandwich cookies you see throughout Europe. (This year, macarons are also supposed to be an upcoming trend in the US as well.) The class was taught all in French by a patissier. This guy was surrounded by nine chatty women that had signed up for the class; I'm sure it was trying for him, but he seemed to keep his cool. Macarons are made from a base of sugar, egg whites, and powdered almonds to which colorant and flavorings may be added. We made 4 flavors in the 3 hour class: chocolate, pistachio, passion fruit, and "fraise tagada", which is apparently a strawberry-shaped candy available in France; my favorites were the chocolate and the pistachio. We made the base for the cookies, which was a meringue to which the almonds and powdered sugar were added. The base was piped onto cookie sheets, allowed to dry, and then baked. Then we made the fillings, which were all butter creams except for the passion fruit, which was more of a jelly. At the end of the class we got to take a small box home with the macarons we had made during the class.This weekend we knew rain was forecast on Sunday so decided we better get out on Saturday. We decided to go to the town of Montreux on the eastern shore of Lake Geneva. This is the same Montreux known throughout the world for its jazz festival which takes place in the summer.
We started the day with a stop at the Château de Chillon, made famous by Lord Byron's poem "The Prisoner of Chillon". Some form of the castle has existed for almost 1000 years, and the castle has changed over time from being a residence of the counts of Savoy, to a fortress and arsenal of the Bernese bailiff to a Vaudois government building and prison. Today, the castle is a historical monument and museum. The castle is quite large, full of stair cases and "secret" passages. It took us over 2 hours to walk through the whole thing. It was impressive. The only complaint is that unlike in the "old days", there were no fires going in any of the fireplaces, so it was really cold. A visit to the castle is probably better suited to a warmer spring or fall day. Or if we come again in the winter, we know thick socks and gloves are a necessity.After the castle, we ate lunch at a bistro in Montreux. Then we walked through the town, primarily down by the lake. The surroundings of Montreux are gorgeous, similar to Neuchatel, but a little more dramatic. The mountains on the other side of the lake are much closer, and there are also snow-kissed mountains to the east of the city. The lake was beautiful, and there were flowers planted along the wall next to the lake. The presence of palm trees along the lake was kind of funny, given how cold it was, but they're what lend credence to the area being known as the Swiss Riviera.
To end the day in the Swiss Riviera, we headed to the wine-growing region of Lavaux. We went to the Lavaux Vinorama where we tried some local wines.Lessons learned:
1) 1,000 year old castles are drafty and don't have central heating. It seems that the castle-residents of yore felt the same way; one room was called "the old stove room" and another was "the new room next to the large stove".
2) The dough for macarons is called maccarone. All macarons, regardless of flavor, are made with almond powder. Macaroons, by the way, are completely different; they are the cookies made with coconut.
3) Besides palm trees, the Montreux Riviera has numerous topiaries. The communal gardeners have formed camels, ostriches, bears, monkeys, a vulture, an owl, etc along the lakeshore.
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