Happy Mercredi de Cindres!

So I went to Nice and Monaco last weekend and there is a big post coming about that, but I want to tell you guys about the cooking class I had last night.

As you may know, today is Ash Wednesday and so yesterday, we cooked the traditional dinner that people in Provence eat tonight. We learned how to make aioli, which is basically a really garlicky mayonnaise. ("Ail" means garlic in French and "oli" is an old word for oil) We used the aioli to make oeufs mimosa, or deviled eggs.

The reason they are called "mimosa" is because the finished product looks a bit like the mimosa flower, which has just started blooming here. Have a picture from Google.

We also ate poached fish and lots of vegetables, including potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, leeks and green beans.

But the best part was the tarte tatin, which I sadly did not get a picture of. Happily, Google will provide what I lack.

A tarte tatin is essentially an open face apple pie. It is super easy to make and absolutely delicious. You just grease a pie dish with butter, sprinkle in about five tablespoons of sugar and some cinnamon, cover the bottom of the dish with large apple slices (we only cut out apples into quarters) and tuck the pie crust dough on top. When it bakes, the sugar and the apple juices caramelize. When you take it out of the oven, you flip it over, so the crust is on the bottom. The nice thing about this method is that it ensures that the crust won't be soggy, as it might be in a traditional apple pie.