Swimming and Aqua Activities for adults, children and babies 379 rue Jean-Marie Arnion, 69380 Dommartin Tel: 06 11 88 26 50
What's On in Lyon?
Ahmad Jamal Jazz The jazz player Ahmad Jamal is playing the piano on 29 April, 8.30 p.m., at Théâtre de Vénissieux, 8 Boulevard Laurent Gerin. For all the lovers of jazz music.
Artist Ben The Modern Art Museum of Lyon presents Ben Vautier's main artworks from March 3 to July 11, quai Charles de Gaulle
69006 Lyon, 04 72 69 17 17.
Concerts Alpha Blondy, the king of reggae, 2 April- 8.00 p.m, at Espace Double Mixte, 19 rue Gaston Berger, 69001, Villeurbanne.
Tokio Hotel, rock pop indie, 18 March, Halle Tony Garnier, 69007, Lyon.
Medrano Circus Entertaining shows for children will take place at Medrano Circus near Perrache railway station.
for a cultural exchange between the French and the Japanese communities.
City Guide to Lyon, France an in-depth Lyon city guide featuring information about Lyon tourist attractions, sightseeing, where to stay, what to eat, and other useful Lyon, France travel tips.
Contact Expats Contact expats worldwide through their network
for people choosing a new life in a foreign country
Dreamkaravan This blog is a very original travel in the world of beauty and wonder by a very talented local writer
Expat.org Portail de la mobilité internationale et de l'expatriation
The Frog Legs (cuisses de grenouille)are a very traditional recipe of France. They are very popular in the region of the Dombes in the North East of Lyon. They are usually prepared with butter (beurre), garlic (ail) and sparsely sauce (sauce persillée). The French really appreciate their mild flavor that tastes like chicken wings (ailes de poulet).
What is more, the frog legs are often associated with the French cuisine as the English nickname for the French is “Frogs” or "Frog eaters" (mangeurs de grenouille). If the frog legs are mainly eaten in France and in China, they are also eaten in India or in the United States, particularly in the state of Louisiana where they are either fried or grilled.
The most famous recipe of Lyon to cook the frog legs is the Cuisses de grenouilles sautées à la persillade (Frog Legs sautéed in garlic butter):
4 people
Ingredients:
40 frog legs
1 tablespoon flour
200 grams onions
50 grams butter
Salt, pepper and parsley
1. Roll the frog legs in the flour.
2. Sauté the legs and the minced onions in hot butter.
Season with salt and pepper, then stir and cook for 5 minutes.
3. Sprinkle with minced parsley at the last moment.
Serve very hot with a dash of lemon juice.
The Atelier Clafoutis welcomes you in a very cozy home kitchen where all the fans of the kitchen can learn how to cook very modern and original recipes.
The bilingual chef Nathalie Guiral will share her passion for food with you as she teaches you how to prepare a large selection of dishes that you can bring home for a very reasonable price.
As a member of the slow-food movementshe defends the local food traditions as she considers that biodiversity for food guarantees tastefully high-quality products and well-being.
In her workshop situated in the center of Lyon, Nathalie Guiral offers adult classes for individuals or private groups as well as classes for children and adolescents in French or in English. The adults can prepare full menus or menus for special events and they can also learn the expertise of pastry cooks whatever their level of cooking. The kids can learn how to cook their favorite recipe and prepare birthday snacks in a very festive atmosphere on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons or during the school holiday sessions.
The Atelier Clafoutis
138 rue Duguesclin, 6ème arrondissement Lyon.
Tel : 06 63 43 15 15
Situated in the heart of Lyon, the capital of the French cuisine, In Cuisine unique shop offers many products and services all dedicated to the food.
You can buy novels, culinary guides, dictionaries, studies about food and nutrition, but also books about the cuisines of the world, food history, recipes, healthy food, food for the children… in a very recreational atmosphere.
In addition, you may find the best kitchen utensils or have your name printed on a chef toque if you are ready for a gastronomic adventure.
To make your own recipe, you will find a wide range of high-quality products in their delicatessen section .
Don’t worry if you aren’t a good cook. In Cuisine food workshops for the adults and the children can help you to learn how to make your best French macaroons or Sushis.
What is more, you can have a tea or a meal in the tea room while you are looking at the exhibition of the art works about food.
As a professional you can also organize a cocktail party for your colleagues and use the business rooms available.
Of course, all the services and products of In Cuisine can be ordered on their on-line shop.
So, don’t hesitate to have a good time in In Cuisine shop if you are a food lover.
Can you imagine NASA astronauts eating French haute cuisine during their space missions to Mars?
In the 60s, the astronauts could not bring their home-made sandwiches (sandwichs faits maison) on board. Yet, space food (nourriture de l'espace) was awful. The compressed sandwiches into cubes and tubes were rather tasteless (sans goût) or even disgusting (dégoûtants). In 1965 John W. Young was reprimanded as he brought his favorite corned beef in 1965 on Gemini 3.
Today,space food is of much better quality since the astronauts are offered a wide range of starters (entrées), main courses (plats principaux) and desserts (desserts) packed in vacuum-sealed pouches. The chocolate cake (gâteau au chocolat) is always appreciated in orbit, especially by the astronauts who spend more and more time in the shuttles that are not equipped with refrigerators.
However, other people want haute cuisine when they travel in space. Some billionaire business men are ready to pay an incredible amount of money to be the first tourists in space, provided that their trip to Mars looks like a luxury cruise (croisière de luxe). They are not different from the 1st-class passengers of the Titanic ship that sank in 1912. Just before the tragedy happened, the rich passengers of the Titanic were having a French dinner mainly composed of salmon, oysters, foie gras and champagne of course in the prestigious Café Parisien. So, we can easily imagine the passengers of the next space mission to Mars having duck confit with capers (confit de canard aux câpres)or apple fondant (fondant aux pommes) prepared by very popular chefs like Emerile Lagassewho learned the art of the French cuisine in Paris and Lyon before he opened his famous fine restaurants in the United States, especially in New Orleans. The well-known French chef Alain Ducasse is preparing the menus for the future expeditions to Marssince his gourmet menus may have a positive psychological impact on the astronauts who may spend 18 months in space before reaching the red planet. Emeril Lagasse
So, we may consider the Haute cuisine not only as a symbol of social position and snobbery, but also as part of the most adventurous and challenging missions of the future. All the international chefs can take part in this incredible adventure as soon as they know all about the French cuisine. That is why Lyon has a very important role to play as the capital of the French cuisine in the world in the future.
The Bugnes are a traditional culinary dessert from Lyon. La bugne est une spécialité culinaire typiquement lyonnaise.
It is a kind of sweet donut that the local people eat from January to Shrove Tuesday. Sorte de beignet sucré, la bugne se déguste en famille entre fin janvier et Mardi gras.
Jean Bérard was the inventor of the first recipe that was bought by the municipal offices of Lyon city in 1538.C’est en 1538 que la ville de Lyon acheta la recette à Jean Bérard, maître « bugnetier ».
At that time, people improved their diet by adding the Bugnes to the food for Lent marked by abstinence. They took only one meal a day . La bugne était alors un moyen d’améliorer le quotidien lors du Carême, période de jeûne pendant laquelle un seul repas par jour était autorisé.
The Bugnes are donuts made from flour, brewer’s yeast and water. They are fried in a frying-pan and then sprinkled with powdered sugar. À base de farine, de levure de bière et d’eau, la bugne est ensuite frite à la pôele. Les beignets ainsi obtenus sont saupoudrés de sucre glace.
Later on the Bugnes were flavored with lemon zest, rum or orange flower liqueur by the local housewives. Les mères de famille l’ont plus tard agrémentée et enrichie d’un zeste de citron, de rhum ou d’eau de fleur d’oranger selon les goûts de chacun.
Culinary speciality/spécialité culinaire: plat ou recette préparé pour une occasion particulière (cérémonie, fête…)
Donut/Beignet: dessert à base de pâte frite
Taste/ se déguste: boire ou manger avec plaisir
Shrove Tuesday/ Mardi gras: dernier jour du carnaval juste avant le carême
Chef in charge of making the bugnes/ Maître « bugnetier »: chef de cuisine don’t la spécialité est de faire des bugnes
Lent/ Carême: période de 46 jours de privation et de prière imposée par l’Eglise catholique entre le mardi gras et le jour de Pâques
Abstinence/ Jeûne: pratique religieuse qui consiste à ne pas manger Brewer’s yeast/ levure de bière: champignons utilisés dans la fabrication de la bière, du vin ou du pain grâce à leurs qualités de fermentation
Sprinkled with/ Saupoudrés: couvrir lègèrement un gâteau ou un plat avec du sucre, du sel…
Powdered sugar/ sucre glace: sucre en poudre très fine
Lemon zest/ Zeste de citron: peau du citron pelée très finement
Orange flower liqueur/ eau de fleur d’oranger: liqueur à base des fleurs de l’oranger
Here is the recipe of the Bugnes Lyonnaises
Voici la recette de la bugne lyonnaise:
Ingredients/ Ingrédients
500 gr flour/ 500 gr de farine 3 eggs/ 3 oeufs 125 gr butter/ 125 gr de beurre 1 glass of water/ 1 verre d’eau Lemon zest/ Zeste de citron or rhum/ rum or or orange flower liqueur/ eau de fleur d’oranger
Préparation
Mix all the ingredients in a bowl/ Mélanger tous les ingrédients dans un saladier
Roll out the fritter batter/ Étaler la pâte avec un rouleau
Cut rectangles and make an incision/ Découper des rectangles au milieu desquels vous ferez une incise
Fry the rectangles in a frying-pan/ Faire frire les rectangles à la poêle
Sprinkle with powdered sugar/ Saupoudrez de sucre glace
Le Pot au feu (boiled beef with vegetables) is one of the most popular French dishes since it is very easy to make and very cheap.
In Lyon the recipe is usually made with beef broth, but the beef is sometimes replaced by sausage or pistachio sausage.
The Pot au feu used to be a peasant dish cooked in a big pot where the poor could cook soups or porridges that were sometimes garnished with meat and vegetables.
The Pot au feu is always associated with the winter when it was possible to cook a dish for many hours.
Today, a very good pot au feu is composed of beef and vegetables that are stewed in a pot or pressure-cooker (cocotte-minute). The beef should include 3 pieces of meat with different flavors:
Lean meat (blade-bone of beef) Gelatinous meat : beef knuckle, silverside of beef, clod of beef, oxtail ( jarret, gîte, jumeau, queue de bœuf) Fatter meat: beef brisket, flank of beef, short ribs of beef (tendron, poitrine, flanchet, plat de côtes).
Côtes du Rhône wine can be recommended to go with the Pot au feu.
For 4 people
Preparation time: 45 minutes,
Cooking time: 25 minutes.
Utensils: saucepan and pressure-cooker
INGREDIENTS :
500 gr silverside of beef (gîte de noix)
250 gr short ribs of beef ( plat de côtes)
400 gr chuck of beef ( paleron de boeuf)
1 marrowbone (os à moelle)
3 carrots (carottes) 3 turnips (navets)
2 leeks (poireaux)
4 potatoes (pommes de terre)
1 big onion studded with cloves (gros ognion piqué de clous de girofle)
1 celery stalk (branche de céleri) 1 bouquet garni,
1 garlic clove (gousse d’ail)
coarse sea salt (gros sel marin) and pepper (poivre)
Guérande salt (sel de Guérande)
Lemon (citron)
gherkins (cornichons)
1. Peel the vegetables and cut them.
2. Boil all the vegetables (except the potatoes), the garlic, the celery and the bouquet garni in 2 litre boiling water. Add the salt and the pepper, then the meat.
3. Stew for about 10 minutes while you are regularly skimming.
4. Close the pressure cooker and cook at low temperature (cuire à feu doux) for 20 minutes
5. Take out the vegetables. Close the cooker again and cook for about 30 minutes when you have lowered the temperature.
6. Peel the potatoes and boil them in salted water
7. While the potatoes and the meat are cooking, cover the marrow bones with slices of lemon and boil them in salted water seasoned with lemon for 10 minutes
8. Drain the meat. Serve it with the garnish of vegetables, coarse salt and gherkin. Drain the bones and keep the beef marrow extract that you will serve with some toasts flavored with garlic. Garnish the dish with the meat broth (bouillon de viande)
Gâteau du Nouvel An New Year’s Eve cake Petits fours et chocolats Petits fours and chocolate
* The truffled soup VGE was created in 1975 by Paul Bocuse for the presidential dinner when Valery Giscard d'Estaing was the French president (VGE are the intials of the president).
Champagne is a keyword that is part of many culinary expressions:
arrosé de champagne: drizzled with champagne au champagne: with champagne, cooked in champagne
au vinaigre de champagne: with champagne vinegar
braisé au champagne: braised in champagne
déglacé au champagne: deglazed with champagne
parfumé au champagne: flavoured with champagne rafraîchi au champagne: chilled with champagne
sauce au champagne: in champagne sauce
Champagne wine is produced in the Champagne-Ardennes region and the most prestigious champagne wines are produced in Reims and Epernay.
But the first sparkling champagne was accidentally created and the méthode champenoise was used in the 19th century when the champagne wines began to be considered as prestigious wines. The wine producers used the méthode champenoise that enables them to produce a more complexed wine undergoing a secondary fermentation in bottle.
Le Remueur: 1889 engraving of the man engaged in the laborious daily task of turning each bottle a fraction
From The Lordprice Collection
Many French people think the French chocolate is undoubtedly the best of the world since all the French people are chocoholic.
True, chocolate history shows the important role played by the French. Chocolate was first introduced by Queen Anne of Austria in the French kingdom in 1615. During the reign of Louis XIV, chocolate was usually offered as a present. Some were convinced that it could be used as a medicine whereas others like Madame de Sévigné thought it was devil.
But the British were the first to open chocolate houses. Everybody, not only the wealthy people, could taste chocolate in the Cocoa Tree by 1655. They were also the first to introduce the dark chocolate by adding eggs, wine or even milk instead of water.
Unfortunately, chocolate was still reserved for the Bourgeoisie until the 19th century when it was industrialized and produced in Europe. The Swiss created the first chocolate bar and hazelnut chocolate. Milk chocolate was invented in 1875 in Switzerland that became the kingdom of chocolate.
Today, chocolate is part of the French traditions as it is always associated with Christmas and Easter celebrations. The Christmas Yule log and the chocolate Easter eggs are still the most traditional Christmas desserts in France.
Created in 1897 by Leon Voisin, the Voisin chocolate house is very popular in Lyonas it is well-known for its fine chocolate, sugared almonds, high quality tea and coffee.
What is more, many tourists are very keen on their specialties like the Coussins or the Quenelles de Lyonmade with almonds, hazelnut and sugar ground to powder and then covered with white chocolate.
Now, if you want to taste the most delicious chocolate in Lyon, you should go to the Bernachon chocolate house and discover their unique chocolate flavor: Bernachon
42, cours Franklin-Roosevelt
69006 Lyon - FRANCE
Tél. :(0033) 04 78 24 37 98
Graves wine is a French wine from the Bordeaux region. Most Graves wines are white with flowery, passion fruit and apricot aromas although there are also some robust to full-bodied red wines of 6 to 20 years age.
The elegant dry white wines are usually sweet wines. Of course, the well-known Sémillon, Sauvignon and Muscadelle are the best grapes.
About 22 million bottles are produced every year with the Appelllation Graves Contrôlée for the sweet wines only. The most prestigious white vintages are 2006, 2003,2001, 1999, 1996 and 1995.
You may drink white Graves with lobster and Cantal, Crottin de Chavignol, Roquefort French cheeses.
Pike dumplings are usually big ones, so have 1 dumpling for 1 person.
The white savory sauce: 50 grams butter, flour, milk and 25 grams crayfish butter.
1. Drop dumplings in boiled water for about 10 minutes. You should see them rise to the surface once they have been cooked.
Then dry them in kitchen rolls.
2. Bake the dumplings in a buttered dish with a crayfish sauce to a temperature of 180 °C and serve them very hot in the same dish.
Preparation of the crayfish sauce:
Make a savory white sauce with 50 grams butter, flour, and milk. Then add the crayfish butter.
How to translate a French menu ? That is a kind of magic.
1. The French gastronomy is considered as the highest quality and most refined cuisine in the world.
In 2008 French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he wanted to see French gastronomy classed as a world heritage by UNESCO.
"We have the best gastronomy in the world," he declared. (AFP)
Trish Deseine’s Nobody Does It Better: Why French Home Cooking is Still the Best in the World will teach you how to master French cuisine and understand why the French are definitely the best at cooking.
So, everybody seems to consider the French cuisine as the most appreciated cuisine in the world. Food and cooking are so much associated with the French that many cooking phrases are not translated into a foreign language.
2. The English-speaking people do not usually translate the most typical and traditional cooking expressions since they convey the magic of poetry to the French dishes.
Examples: “au pistou” means a basil, garlic and olive-oil sauce from the Provence region.
In the menu, the French word “pistou” is never translated: Petits légumes au pistou: baby vegetables “au pistou” (in basil, garlic and olive-oil sauce)
"chaud-froid" means a cold, glazed sauce. Chaud-froid de volailles: chaud-froid of poultry (breast filled in a cold, glazed sauce)
When you eat French cuisine you do not only taste delightful dishes, but you also feel like you are travelling in the French regions.
Paul Bocuseis an international French chef and one of the best chefs in Lyon to promote French cuisine.
Born in 1926 in Collonges-au-Mont-d’Or in the North of Lyon, he contributed to nouvelle cuisine, which is lighter than the traditional haute cuisine and the cuisine in Lyon said to be rather calorific. Nouvelle cuisine is made from fresh products of the highest quality that you can find in the covered market of the Halles of Lyon, near La Part-Dieu mall.
What is more, Bocuse was very famous for his Soupe VGE, a truffle soup he made in 1975 for the former French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.
Some of his students became prestigious chefs as they were awarded the three Michelin stars. Bocuse himself received many awards and created the Bocuse d’Or in 1987 to award the best chefs in the world.
His traditional and luxury restaurant l’Auberge du Pont de Collonges and his chain of brasseries, Le Nord in the center of Lyon, l’Est, Le Sud and l’Ouest in the West of Lyon, contribute to the French gastronomy as they offer traditional and modern French cuisine.
Savarin de brochet aux cuisses de grenouilles et aux queues d’écrevisses Pike Savarin cake with frog’s leg and crayfish tails Chassagne-montrachet les Caillerets, 1980
Chassagne-montrachet Les Turbot au vin rouge (Château l’Angelus, 1980. Grand cru Saint-Emilion) Turbot simmered in red wine. A great Saint-Emilion vineyard. Pigeon en feuilleté Pigeon in puff pastry Crème brûlée Caramelized custard cream
Swimming and Aqua Activities for adults, children and babies
The Frog Eaters in Lyon
. They are usually prepared with butter (beurre), garlic (ail) and sparsely sauce (sauce persillée). The French really appreciate their mild flavor that tastes like chicken wings (ailes de poulet).
