Treat of the Cooking School Dinner and a Visit to Le-Puy-en-Velay

November 26th
Well, this was a very fine treat! At the Lycee Saint Julien, they have a "real" cooking school, called La Visatation. Three times a week they serve lunch to the public. Soline and I met Jean-Jacques there to enjoy quite the delectable repast of:
-Creme brulee au Cantal (wonderful cheese) ANY creme brulee is to die for in my opinion!!
-Potee auvergnate (similar to New England boiled dinner with pork and sausages, potatoes, carrots and cabbage)
-Assiette de fromages (two local cheeses-blue and St. Agur)
-Coupe vellave: blueberries, vanilla ice cream, sprinkled with Speculoos (DELICIOUS spice French cookie) crumbs, and Verveine Verte, a lime liqueur, but bet others would do fine...eg. amaretto?

We entered, and the students greeted us looking very professional! They had white towels over their arms; when standing, they had to keep their free hand behind them. Our (very nervous) waiter took our coat and pulled out our chairs to seat us! The table decor really blew me away! ....Remember now that I have been here nearly four months, I am really into presentation. (I'm not sure how or IF this will transfer to Chez 56 upon my return!) The tables had chartreuse tablecloths (ties on the waitpersons were a green to match the tablecloths) and purple napkins with long pieces of real ivy with Chinese lantern plants or physalis alkengi on the table and in small jars like caning jars!!
Soline learned that our waiter had only served there twice, and on this day he was being graded. The instructor seemed quite harsh to Soline, as she listened to what she was saying!
Afterwards we toured the IMMACULATE  kitchen. It did occur to me that its spaciousness would not be the same in the "real world". This building had been a convent long ago.
Now we were off to Le Puy-en-Velay, about an hour's away, so we arrived about 3:30. We went to the Cathedral Notre Dame, a Unesco site. Unfortunately the Cloisters were closed, so we went in and toured the most grand building with a statue of St. Jacques, patron saint of the pilgrims who walk the Camino. We saw a pilgrim with his Camino backpack walking into the Cathedral.

All we could see of the Cloisters

One of most famous Auvergne Vierge Noire

Sainte Anne

Looking up at church

 There is school here at the Cathedral, and we listened to part of the Vesper service where the children were singing, before we headed back to Brioude.

It was another delightful day of seeing more of Brioude and the Auvergne region!