[Jen & Nate]

chefelf: @goncuriel You're so lucky! I'll have to see if I can find a copy somewhere.The Tour de France is not easy. It requires discipline, planning, thought, strategy, and careful attention to calorie intake. I am, of course, talking about watching the Tour de France. Stages can be up to six hours long so watching them whilst maintaining our full time jobs is usually our biggest challenge of the summer each year. A challenge we train for and execute with the professionalism of a professional athlete. Or a pair of professional athletes.

Sitting on a couch.



Saturday night, as the riders of the Tour rode into Revel I found myself on the grill making the quintessential french dish: kebabs.

And what better to accompany this French delight than some salad made with kale and quinoa with balsamic (French balsamic) dressing?



I got my hands on some great top loin steak and cubed it up along with zucchini, tomato, pepper, mushrooms and haloumi. Generally I dislike the very idea of a kabob. Something about food on a stick always makes me uneasy. Perhaps it is from years of having to tediously skewer meats for various catered parties. Perhaps it is from years of accidentally skewering my hands accidentally. There's something in it, whether it be the poor memories from the past or the overall tediousness of having to remove the items from the skewer to be able to eat them.



To accompany these grilled treats I poured myself a Peak Organic Amber Ale from Maine. This particular bottle was not purchased on our recent trip to Maine but rather on a much older trip to Connecticut.



"Woah, deja vu."

"What did you just say?"

"Nothing, uh, just had a little . . . deja vu."

"What did you see?"

"What happened?"

"A kale salad just got served for dinner. Then another that looked just like it."

"How much like it, was it the same salad?"

"Might have been, I'm not sure. This one was made with Caesar dressing instead of balsamic and croutons instead of tomatoes, but otherwise like the same salad."

"Deja vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix . . . it happens when they change something. Typically when they change a dressing and/or method of preparation for a kale salad."



To keep with the theme of the Tour de France we had this nice Cheverny white wine from the Loire Valley which is not really anywhere near the Pyrenees where the riders are currently cycling. However it was quite tasty. It is so rare that we ever have wine from France. It's just that most of their wines are generally more than ten dollars per bottle. Who has that kind of money to throw around?



For a main course I sauteed up all the remaining onion, pepper, zucchini, garlic, mushrooms, corn from New Jersey, and green beans from Kent, Connecticut. I threw in some herbs de Provence (see? French!) and cooked up some Gnocchi (made in a French style) with some Parmiginiere Reggianeaux cheese.

Ah, you haven't enjoyed the Tour de France until you've enjoyed it with authentic French food.

Allez Cuisine!

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