It is so much fun cooking and eating with people who are passionate about good eating and good life. As what I am trying to do with my blog is to cook, eat and drink with other people, I created a “Guests Cooking” page where I was thinking of writing stories about cooking with friends, families, people I know or even total strangers who want to cook for me and eat with me. And the first posting happened to be of the French couple, Julien and Emma, who stayed with us for a few days and recently started on their month-long adventure around Turkey.

What incredibly pleasant people they were! They were good examples of beautiful human beings, full of knowledge and passion for everything including history, language, sociology, science, computer, and food, etc., and hearts for sharing, caring and learning. Especially, Julien is multi-talented, currently working as a shepherd, a French shepherd! Fromage! fromage!, but unfortunately his farm is for meat not for cheese. Still, he brought all these cheeses and wines for me, and I was so dumbstruck by the sight of a huge volume of cheese that no words were coming out of my mouth until I got back to reality. I was THAT excited to see and smell the familiar stinkiness of raw milk cheese, which I’d missed since I left France. To pay my gratitude on the first night, I quickly whipped up a healthy soup with beans and vegetables, and I was glad that they liked it enough to go for a second serving. Maybe they were just hungry, but nonetheless, it was a good start!

The menu they cooked for us the next day was vegetable lasagna as Emma was vegetarian. Julien got out his cooking knife and I couldn’t stop giggling at the sight of the knife he was vigorously chopping ingredients with.

The Opinel Knife is one of my favourite French knives and I bought two of them just before leaving Bordeaux last year and have been carrying around the world with great affection since. The French lovers cooked in a good synchronisation, making u think that couples who work well as a team in the kitchen are more likely to have a happy relationship. Ha! What a good biased generalisation by a foodie!

The lasagna came out perfect. It’s time to be fed. For someone like me who cooks everyday, being cooked for feels very strange but in a good way. I sip wine while waiting. How luxurious!

The wine of the night was a Turkish wine, Vinkara Öküzgözü – Boğazkere – Alicante 2009, and I was very curious about what they would say about the wine. He was of the same opinion as me about the wine starting nicely and finishing flatly and quickly. But it wasn’t that bad for the price. But the good food and company made up for the not-so-good wine, and we all had a great night, chatting about a lot of stuff. The vegetables were well cooked and flavours were very well-incorporated, the eggplants, zucchini and mushrooms. Everyone, I’m sure, has their secret recipes for lasagna. Mine includes kidney beans for some reason, probably because I used to cook for someone vegetarian and got the taste for it. 

The lasagna was a bit greasy as they also admitted; I supposed they couldn’t help being French, people of butter. 🙂 If you have secrets for making good lasagna, please share with me or, even better, come cook for me!

Ratings for food and wine:

Lasagna ♥♥♥♥(taste) ♥♥♥(health)
Wine ♥♥.1/2 (taste – medium bodied, fruity, but lacks complexity and depth)
♥♥♥ (value) – I wouldn’t mind drinking it with a simple, light everyday meal

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