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River cruise: Rouen

January 15, 2019 2 Comments Filed Under: Travel

Pic:Kerstin Rodgers/msmarmitelover.com
Parapluies de Rouen

I went on a sea cruise with P and O last year, which, despite some initial resistance on my part, ended up being a very enjoyable experience. I may have been the youngest person on the ship by at least two decades, but I discovered my inner ‘nan’. It was so relaxing. It was structured. You had a timetable. You got breakfast in bed. There was a sea view from my cabin. I could eat as much as I liked. I joined the choir.

Fred Olsen’s river cruise ship was older and less showy. Again I shared my cabin with my sister. It was a bit like a granny’s bedroom: no balcony, pale greige floral bedspreads and no wardrobe space. The up side was because the ship was smaller, it was easier to meet people. I talked to folk who spent their lives on cruise ships: after all it’s cheaper than an old people’s home. People book back-to-back cruises and I don’t blame them. There are also mystery cruises where you don’t know where you are going!

I had a massive row with the PR as soon as I got on. She tried to kick me off before we even set sail because I asked if we could have a balcony. She was bloody scary. I spent the rest of the cruise hiding in my cabin and being very quiet during the enforced group dinners every evening. But a night towards the end I had a little too much to drink and started talking about my one and only acid trip for my birthday last year. The other press, from provincial newspapers, looked a bit taken aback.

A river cruise is interesting: I know the north of France very well, but now I was seeing it from a river. Every inch of the way you are enclosed by the comforting boundaries of land unlike the endless watery horizon at sea.

  • Pic: Kerstin Rodgers/msmarmitelover.com
  • Pic: Kerstin Rodgers/msmarmitelover.com

We stopped for two days in Rouen which is a city that one usually a passes through on the way to the ferry. This time however, Rouen was an actual destination. The first day I visited: the Museum of Ceramics, where I could satisfy my blue and white fetish; the cathedral which is spectacular and humbling with an exhibition on Jean D’Arc (she was 19 when she died); the many half-timbered houses and cobbled streets.

  • Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen
  • Pic: Kerstin Rodgers/msmarmitelover.com Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen

La Couronne restaurant

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen

The second day I booked for an elegant lunch at La Couronne restaurant in the central town square where Joan of Arc was burned to death at the stake. This 14th century restaurant, the oldest inn in France, was the setting where in 1948, Mrs Julia Child and her diplomat husband Paul had a revelatory meal which changed the course of her life.

It wasn’t cheap, the Julia Child Menu, at 110 euros with wine (65 without). It consisted of:

Half a dozen oysters (which I gave to my sister) with shallot vinaigrette

Sole meunière

Green salad

Fromage Blanc with raspberry coulis (they didn’t have this so I ordered a divinely puffy and alcoholic Grand Marnier soufflé)

Bottle of Pouilly Fumé, a crisp white wine

  • Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen
Sole Meuniére

The piece de resistance was of course the sole meunière, served whole on a pewter tray, covered in brown butter. The waiter, who had trained at college for three years to be able to do this job, prepared the fish table-side. This was an exercise in excellence: perfect service by someone who did this as a career not as a student job. He separated the spine, the fins from the filets, laid them onto my shiny white plate, then spooned over a slick stream of hazelnut brown butter.

pic: Kerstin Rodgers/msmarmitelover.com
La Couronne, Rouen

What wasn’t part of the Julia Child Menu was the extraordinary cheese board with 21 cheeses. This was the second best cheese board I’ve ever had after that of Michel Roux Jr at Le Gavroche. (I never wrote about that. Why not? It was incredible). Note: I also tend to do stunning cheese boards at my supper clubs.

I felt peaceful, happy, fulfilled. The buzz of 21st century stress fell silent as I ate. All was well with the world. This is what the French do brilliantly: classic, pure, tasteful, unfashionable, immune to trends, rigorous expert cuisine. The restaurant itself was rather old fashioned with an unfortunate ‘animal’ print carpet and 1980s tablecloths and plates. I did enjoy looking at the walls covered with photographs and autographs of stars from the past who had eaten there, many French but also American movie actors and singers from the post-war period. But the cooking and the service were sublime. Go.

We worked off this meal by sauntering through the elegant Musée des Beaux-Arts viewing works by Ingres, Manet, Renoir, Roger-Viollet. Lovely, just lovely.

  • Pic: Kerstin Rodgers/msmarmitelover.com


Msmarmitelover was hosted by Fred Olsen cruises. This cruise costs approximately £400 per person, all inclusive.

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Comments

  1. Miss Brodie

    January 15, 2019 at 12:15 pm

    What a fantastic trip. I love Northern France and the food sounds great. Never been on a cruise but id consider it now.

    Reply
    • msmarmitelover

      January 15, 2019 at 12:34 pm

      I’d love to do more river cruises- a water’s eye view of a country.

      Reply

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MsMarmiteLover aka Kerstin Rodgers.

Chef, photographer, author, journalist, blogger. Pioneer of the supperclub movement.

This is my food and travel blog, with recipes, reviews and travel stories. I also stray into politics, feminism, gardening.

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msmarmitelover

Kerstin Rodgers/MsMarmiteLover
Apple rose blossom tarts with rose jam. Rose Appl Apple rose blossom tarts with rose jam.  Rose Apple Blossom Tarts

Serves 8

Equipment: 
Microwave
Cupcake or muffin tin

I use a red-skinned apple to make these, to get a hint of blush at the edges of the ‘petals’.

Ingredients:
4 Pink Lady or Royal Gala apples, cored, cut into quarters, sliced thinly into half moons
1 lemon, squeezed
1 pack all butter readymade puff pastry 320g, on a roll, cut into 8 strips about 6 cms long
100g of melted butter
1/2 jar of rose jam
1 or 2 tbsp cinnamon or cardamom, ground 
Pinch maldon salt
2 or 3 tbsp icing sugar

Instructions

Prepare a bowl of acidulated water (cold water with lemon juice) to prevent browning.
Core the apples, and cut them in quarters. Slice thinly into half-moons (a mandolin is useful for this). 
Put them into a large bowl of cold water with the lemon.
Microwave the bowl of sliced apples for 5 minutes until soft enough to bend slightly but not cook them.
Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
Roll out the puff pastry. Divide into 8 sections by cutting the roll into quarters then halving each quarter. You will end up with 8 approximately 6cm strips.
Brush the strip with melted butter then paint with a layer of rose jam. You can then dust with either ground cinnamon or cardamom.
Lay the apple slices along the top of the pastry strip, overlapping them. Fold up the bottom half of the pastry strip to make an pleat with the skin side of the apple half moon poking over the top.
Roll up the folded pastry strips until they look like a rose made of apple at the top
Place ‘rose’ side up, in a buttered cupcake tin
Repeat until all are done and bake for 20 -30 minutes.
Using a tea strainer or small sieve, sprinkle with icing sugar.
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