An homage to a wonderful vacation

So I think I’ve mentioned that DH and I love to travel and every summer we head out, generally in the direction of some alpine place to clamber amongst mountains and streams and forests. Yes, yes, I have walking sticks and proper hiking shoes but don’t get excited, I’m no fearless rock climber. I’m a bit shleppy and until I got the sticks, relied upon the hubby to pull me up more times than not.

I mentally hear “climb every mountain, ford every stream” in my head on these escapades and we take pleasure in checking how many steps we have walked (yay IPhones, you go) and how many floors climbed. Of course it’s pretty weird when DH has 54 (OMG) floors and I have 15 but hey, I get more steps being shorter so I won’t complain. 🙂 .

We got back about two weeks ago and only now do I feel I have the time to write about it but I gotta say, we went to both in Italy and the French Alps and while we had a great time in both places, I wanted to give a shout out to Yossi Wreschner who has a place in the French Alps in Val Thorens since we had the most amazing time. Unbeknownst to us, we were in time for the Tour de France, and we saw all these crazy people practicing everywhere we walked. We got to see the amateur race which was great fun.

I don’t know why they are smiling, they’ve just completed the 20th stage here 130 kilometers! AAAAGH, and they are the amateurs!

From the moment we walked into the hotel which is normally a ski lodge but this summer was made into a kosher retreat, we were greeted beautifully by the young ladies at the desk, and to the people who organize the rooms and the dining room, thanks to Chani and Motti Gafni, unflappable, charming and efficient, kudos to you for dealing with everyone in such a nice way, I really enjoyed your company.

Yossi Wreschner himself is the calmest and coolest host who listens and quietly deals with everything with a nice smile and never a raised voice (he even got me Turkish coffee after I explained kindly that the granulated stuff is mock coffee in my eyes and he laughed and dealt with it within a day) and his lovely wife Fruma. He is a tremendous mensch and always went the extra mile.

They truly enhanced our stay. Besides the gorgeous walks, hill and dale (mountains and valleys) I cannot help it people, OMG the food. First and foremost was chef Avi Peretz, who is both a private chef and one of the chefs who cooks for the top people in government in Israel, who turned out, day after day, the most exquisite and creative food. We had beyond the ubiquitous (but super excellent and crispy but not dry) shnitzel, kubeh beet soup, stuffed onions, risotto, polenta (properly cooked, next to impossible to find, and it was non dairy, need I say more?) and his sauces were amazing, the brioche tender, I could keep on and on but am controlling myself. He was kind enough to give me his recipe for kishke which I will have to figure out since it starts with 2 bottles of oil…hmmm but it makes 10 rolls. Don’t think I’m doing that quantity. 😉

Besides Avi, we had two pastry chefs, one a French fellow and one Israeli. Sit down people, you simply cannot imagine. Every day these dainty pastries, eclairs and profiteroles, lemon meringue tarts (I had an ongoing disagreement with a friend of ours who turned up unexpectedly which was great too) he thought them too tart, I LOVED them too much, tart and sweet just like they should be. If you can imagine it, they made it. And none of that fake whipped cream tasting stuff, no no, don’t make that mistake. The patissiere cream tasted like the real thing (although I know it wasn’t dairy) and I was in a food coma for about a week plus. Just a hint of what they made…

The staff was gracious, attentive, they saw to everybody’s needs, including Yoni who was in charge of the waiters and Motti Daitch in charge of the prayers (the Gabai), our waiters Amichai and Gedalyahu, it was just so special and great fun. So thank you my friends, you made what could have been a nice vacation an extraordinary one. We look forward to joining you again.