Family Reunion 2010, or the Most Alan Ever Ate in a Single Weekend

Here, in pictures, is what Alan and I did the last weekend in May:


ate and slept chez our gracious host, aunt Geneviève


took a walk through the shops of downtown Mulhouse…here Alan is pictured with a modern interpretation of the Schweistissi (Alsatian for “the sweaty worker”), one of the symbols of the region


picked up Jacqueline and smelled the roses in her gorgeous garden before heading to the mountains


met up with the rest of the family (17 in total—minus sister Christine and cousin Emilie, who were sorely missed)


toasted to the rare event (it’s not easy to get everyone together for a single weekend)



ate (pictured: poached eggs with bacon, warm Munster cheese on little toasts…I took the second option as we were just a few villages down from its namesake)

A word about Munster. If you think you are well acquainted with this deliciously smelly cheese, think again. A good à point (ripe) Munster has nothing on Chuck Norris. Just a small whiff will literally knock your socks off—in a good way, of course. Even in cheeses that have the same name, I have never encountered anything close to the real thing back in conventional American grocery stores.

Along the same lines: even with all the specialty grocery stores available to us, achieving perfection in ethnic foods can be quite difficult if you are not actually on-site. Example: My mother has tried for years to replicate certain baked goods (Black Forest Cake, Bûche de Noël, Epiphany Kings’ Cake…) that, were she still living in France, she could simply purchase at the local bakery. (For many dishes she must make substitutions, as you don’t always find the same ingredients everywhere. Thankfully, she says, worldly shops like Dean & Deluca—and even local supermarkets—are offering more and more international selections nowadays.) Mom has spent such a large chunk of time executing these delicate recipes (e.g. using floss to slice a cake into several layers…) that she has become quite the baker, and—go figure—I actually prefer many of her creations to “the real thing.”

Crossing the ocean into Europe, you run into the same phenomenon. Were it not for the grocery store on base, I would not have access to many American staples. You have to jump on canned pumpkin and fresh cranberries, because when the season’s up you won’t find them out in town. I could make a laundry list of hard-to-find ingredients here, as Italians are gastronomically pretty conservative. The stereotype rings true at our local grocer: the shelves are stocked with myriad types of pasta and tomato sauces. Fresh mozzarella di Bufala and Parma ham do not cost an arm and a leg. But, go out for dinner and your primo piatto will taste nothing like what you get at The Olive Garden.

Which brings me to my next point: the first time I bit into Italian-cooked pasta, I realized I had been doing al dente wrong all along. I warn all my visitors of this when they come, and most give me a look like, “You poor girl…you didn’t know? Everyone knows to cook their pasta al dente!” Then I take them to a restaurant, they dig in, and after chewing harder than expected, they admit they’ve never had pasta cooked this little. So forget what the package says and start shaving minutes off your pasta-cooking time. It is much tastier…for most of us, anyway. I know of a few Americans here who ask for their pasta “ben cotto” (well done—American-style).

Sorry for that lengthy aside. I can’t seem to separate travel writing from food writing. To continue with the reunion...


We ate some more

And some more

When the weekend came to a close, Alan reported that he had never been at table for so many hours in a row. (I believe Sunday lunch came close to 4 hours—it also happened to be Mothers’ Day in France, so the place was packed). We did break up the weekend with a short trip to Munster for church. We were delighted to see so many cigognes (storks) nesting atop the buildings: another symbol of Alsace.




It was a wonderfully convivial weekend, and I was so glad the newest member of our family could join us (even if I had to translate a whole bunch). :)



After we said our goodbyes, we finally made it over to the Mulhouse Automobile Collection. I had been telling Alan about this place for years, and as one of the largest antique car collections in the world, it did not disappoint. For an engine-obsessed 20-something male, what is there not to like?

The automobile through the ages (the first dates from 1892):









Merci à tous et a toutes who made our trip fabulous. Until the next meeting, we will miss you!