Tami in Nice, Thomas Fersen in Antibes

This weekend, there was a rather famous Finn visiting Nice, to promote his new book. None other than Juhani Tamminen, a.k.a Don Tami (well, that's the title of his new book anyway). Tami is one of the most famous sports personalities in Finland. Ex hockey player (one of the best of his generation), globe-trotting coach (he's coached the national teams of Switzerland and France, and his next project is apparently to coach South Korea of all countries!!??) and most entertaining and opinionated TV commentator.

So, as I said, Tami was here to promote his new book together with his mate Juha Rantasila, another hockey legend (the award for best defence-man in the Finnish league carries his name). Juha, who lives here in Nice, I've met a few times while attending the local team's games.

The other reason to check out this book signing session was to meet up with Aki & Henna (and little Emil, of course!). So off I went then, to Giuseppe & Pepino at Place Garibaldi (Mathilde went shopping meanwhile ;-). Anyways, it was a pretty interesting & entertaining talk these two gentlemen gave, an interesting mix of anecdotes involving some rather legendary Finnish hockey people, and genuine insight into what modern sport is all about. And what's important, there was also free food & drink ;) After the book signings, Mathilde joined us as we headed off to have coffee and cake at a nearby cafe. Great to catch up with Aki & Henna again, and to see little Emil growing up! Juhana, his girlfriend as well as their baby also came along, good to see them as well, it's been a while...

Whilst the other Finns headed off to watch the local hockey game, we sped off to Antibes for a concert. This time the star was Thomas Fersen, a rather original musician/poet or whatever you want to call him. It was a great concert - I have to say I was positively surprised! I do like his offbeat music, but can't call myself a fan exactly, but Mr. Fersen is a grest entertainer! Certainly we enjoyed it better than our last visit at this venue (when we saw a rather dreadful Romeo & Juliet adaptation). And of course - we ran into Aurelien and Julie, with whom we had a couple of drinks with!

Night out in the Port of Nice

Vincent and Clemence had some very good news just before Christmas - their second son Bartholome was born. I guess the Christmas holidays weren't exactly relaxing this time around... ;)

So anyways, to celebrate this great event, the usual gang (Julie, Aurelien, Sarah and us) met up at their place for an aperitif, after which we headed off for dinner in the port - one of the trendiest and nicest places in Nice to go out. We ended up in one of our favourite places in the Port - Rosalina, and had excellent food as always. And great to catch up with everybody again after the holidays.

Congratulations to Vincent and Clemence, then!

Olive-themed dinner with Naim

Naim, our good globetrotting friend (who splits his time between England, France and Belgium) was in town, so we were happy to meet up with him for dinner in Nice. Knowing Naim appreciates good food, we booked a restaurant we'd been wanting to try for a while, which specializes in olive oils (with the unsurprising name of Oliviera). Good choice - the place is quite small, cozy with a limited menu (which is often, I reckon, a good thing, since it reduces the likelihood of getting microwaved food...). And the little olive oil tasting sessions that come with the meal were good fun too. Not sure it quite deserves its high Tripadvisor ranking (although I see it's dropped to 12th place), but still well worth a try. Oh, and of course it was great to see Naim, too ;-)

A nice French epiphany tradition

There is a nice French epiphany culinary tradition that I very much appreciate - that of the galette des Rois (or King Cake, as it's known in English, according to that inexhaustible source of online wisdom, Wikipedia). The kings in the name of the cake come from the three Biblical kings, who apparently visited Baby Jesus on Epiphany. Enough about the history, let's get down to what's important, what the cake is like. It's made up of flaky puff pastry layers with a dense center of  frangipane.



It is sold all over France, at supermarkets and bakeries, after pretty much all of January. What's nice about the galette des Rois tradition is that a figurine, or feve, is hidden within the cake. And whoever gets the feve has to buy a new king cake. So as you can guess, dear reader, plenty of king cake gets eaten in January. I lost count of how many I had at the office ;-).


Anyways, we decided to make our own galette des Rois this weekend - well nearly anyway - we bought a kit ;-). But we still had to mix the frangipane pasty and so forth, so let's say it was half home-made ;-). But anyways, I have to say, the end result was rather excellent for a price of 4 Euros or so (compare that to paying between 10 and 20 Euros at a bakery...). Yummie! (as you can see in the picture above!)

New year at Nantes

After my brief adventure in rainy Riga, I finally landed at Charles-de-Gaulle airport at Paris, where I jumped on the Angers-bound TGV train (where I was to be reunited with my darling!). The plan was to stay a couple of days in Angers, and then head to Nantes to celebrate New Year together with our dear friends Aude and Magaye.

I was most delighted to be reunited with Mathilde, and happy to see Joel and Francoise as well. And rather happy to enjoy Francoise's generous and tasty cuisine as well, as goes without saying! Francoise's nieces Colin and Titouan brought a bit of energy to the proceedings! Our brief but sweet time at Angers took its usual course - excellent food, hanging out, and Scrabble of course! To spice things up, we did play a bit of Hanafuda as well.

New Year's eve, we jumped on the train and headed into Nantes. We took the opportunity to have a walk around Nantes, one of my favourite cities in France, since the weather was very nice, for a change. It just feels so young compared to Nice as well... To replenish our energy, we had a nice little crepes meal (Nantes is nearly in Bretagne, after all...).

After a nice day spent in Nantes, Aude and Magaye picked us up and drove them to their flat in nearby Reze. Time for me to finally meet their pet rabbit, Oishi, as well ;-). We welcomed the new year with quite a lot of energy for the bunch of oldies we are! It's rather rare that we stay up partying 'til 6 in the morning, but this time, we did it! We were also joined by Aude and Magaye's neighbours for the fun. If memory serves me, I may even have danced !!??

The next day, we were unable to summon the energy to do anything too energetic. We did head off to the cinema in the evening to see the Wolf of Wall Street, Scorsese's latest (which I have to say disappointed me a bit. I did like the film, but expected more, considering the rave reviews the movie's had...).

The next day, it was time to leave Nantes and head back to Nice (After a nice lunch at Le Lieu Unique in downtown Nantes). 2014, here we come...