Friday, October 3, 2008

Strasbourg Day II part 2



The debates were Thursday evening, and I managed to miss both of them. The front cover of Le Monde had an article about Sarah Palin – mostly about the faux-pas she has been making. Search as I might through the paper, there wasn’t the least mention of Harper, let alone May. I gather from the CBC that both debates were pretty tame. Rex Murphy commented they weren’t even real debates. Even the financial melt-down in the U.S. (and Canada?) is not making big headlines in the press here, although what there is suggests that the Europe is not immune. Getting the Canadian news via cbc.ca is one of the greatest technological tricks (along with Skype!). Otherwise from the media here, you wouldn’t know Canada exists.

Alsace seems to have a local dish, commonly called ‘tarte flambee.’ It isn’t what one might suspect; it’s actually closer to pizza. Most restaurants serve both, often with similar ingredients. The ‘normal’ tarte is oval (not round) and has a base of crème fraiche, along with bacon and goat cheese. It’s flamed in the kitchen, and comes slightly burnt around the edges and sizzling hot. As Sweeney Todd said to Mrs Lovatt, it all goes down well with beer!

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