My World of Travel and Food: New Years Eve, Briancon 2016

New Years Eve 2016 for us was spent in our gorgeous bed and breakfast in Briancon. We were staying in Le Bacchu Ber, a very cute property that dated back several hundred years. Restored carefully by the owners Georges and Maria, it is more than the sum of it's parts. A wonderful place to stay and immediately felt like family.

It was just the three of us plus the family who run the house - Georges a larger than life chap who was one of the most loving people we've had the luxury to meet. A huge guy, always either outside smoking his pipe, bringing in firewood, scraping the cars or taking his very cute dogs for a walk. Or inside presiding over the breakfast table. Breakfast was Georges department. We never saw his wife, Maria at breakfast time.

Maria was the cook though. She cooked up a veritable storm for us. We were served appetizers - a huge array of delicate little bites. With champagne.

Moving on to entree, foie gras and raisin chutney. A very good combination. Served with a prized sweet wine.

On to our third course - snails. The one Katya had particularly been looking forward to. She ate them all! What a trooper she is. She must have had it locked and loaded in that head of hers and she did not miss a beat. Not only is she vegetarian but she HATES anything slightly slimy and/or rubbery. Snails fit that category. I've had them before and liked them mainly due to the huge amounts of delicious French butter they happened to be swimming in but these were served simple. Grilled, with parsley (in the shell). They were light and delicious.

Forth course was a good quality (I cannot remember the breed but one of those good ones the French love so much) chicken with a foie gras and mushroom sauce. Not as rich as it sounds. It was served with a Saint-Emilion Grand Cru 2007 (yeap Tim and Sandra, that gorgeous town we visited when in Bordeaux). Damn fine it was too.

Then came along the dessert of Bûche de Noël. It had been painstakingly hand made and topped with candied chestnuts. We'd never had candied chestnuts before and when I came back to Dubai I promply recreated them. They're that good.

On to petite fours. A huge tray of yumminess which we could hardly squeeze into our tummies. But we gave it a good old Kiwi go. One has to be polite about such things. Served with (I think but cannot swear to it at this point) more champagne.

It was an incredible display of generosity on behalf of our hosts who gave their night to us. Yes we paid for it, 75 euro per person. This provided us with what would have been days of planning and cooking, some of best French wines around and their hosting.

To say we were humbled is an understatement. One of the most memorable new years eve experiences ever.