Chers Amis, Bonjour!!! I have just returned from 7 delicious weeks in Provence and upon my return a friend commented that it looked like I had lost a little weight on this trip. Knowing that the average U S traveler to France, who stays only maybe 2 weeks, often comes back with some unwanted extra baggage around their waist lines, I thought about this and have this idea to propose. Most tourists, who don’t have French residences and native friends entertaining them, gain weight because they eat only in restaurants. In most restaurants, even many 4 star restaurants, the table settings, the room decor, and the audio experience is seldom really fabulous even though the food is. So what do people do??? They partake of the one best things, the food, and end up over eating.
On my stay of 7 weeks, I only ate 3 restaurant meals, but did go to 22 wonderful dinners or luncheons at friend's homes and I gave an additional 10 dinners or luncheons at my home. These occasions were not just about delicious food but were really about a more total experience of "Bon Gout dining". This meant meals set in visually delicious (and intellectually stimulating) rooms or gardens, antique dining furniture as well as table settings of 18th or 19th century silver, china and glassware, fresh flowers, candle light, and delightful audio, whether it was the chirping of birds in an almost totally silent garden terrace setting or period music softly coloring an interior environment.
Please find following photos from my trip, which may inspire you to consider enhancing the total aesthetic experience of dinning in your life as well as some photos of some "dining equipment" available here at Au Vieux Paris, in case you need a little help with the setting.
Mes Amities,
Robert E. Smith
Visit the Au Vieux Paris Antiques homepage (click here)
Browse a sampling of the merchandise available (click here)
