The French and The Pizza!

So there I was, 2011, a new chapter of my life (one I had dreamed of since childhood) – I moved to Paris. Paris of the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Belle Epoque, Hemmingway, Balzac, Van Gogh, Dali, Proust… Yes, I moved to Paris, bag and baggage with my cheese allergies and red wine allergies and a general dislike for all things sweet. And the past two years have been an interesting culinary adventure since the usual French delicacies are pretty much out of the question. I discovered Turkish kebabs, mussels & fries, violette ice cream, …rediscovered lemon tarts (the only exception to my me-no-like-sweets rule), black black coffee, rare steaks…and, to my surprise, the immense love the French have for Pizzas. They can be found everywhere…in all shapes and sizes…with all kinds of flavors and sauces. Yes, unfortunately they really can be found with all kinds of flavors and sauces. ‘Unfortunately’ because I am an Indian – we do have pizza hut, dominos and Papa John’s but we are very very far away from the classic pizza – Italian or American! We love spice, keema, tomato sauce (ketchup), paneer and lots of onions on our ‘very thick pan’ pizza. We like our pizza very very cooked and God Forbid you do not offer a good vegetarian version or if you do not give us FREE oregano and chilli flakes. All of the above are also reasons why I never liked pizza (especially the tomato sauce). 

Crash and Burn Pizza!

Now, here I am in France surrounded by Pizza at every corner and when I happen to be in the south of France literally every restaurant has pizza on the menu. And what pizzas – with tomato sauce (read Italian but still processed sauce) or cream if u please…a half fried egg (why not)…all kinds of cheeses…mussels too if you like…and they do have a vegetarian one too – margarita! After managing to make me dislike pizza even more than before Paris decided to smile down at me and lo and behold! There was suddenly a Dominos next to my house! I was delighted! Mostly because I was bored of eating McDs or kebab every time I was lazy and did not want to cook, but also because my darling boyfriend loves pizza and I thought well here is a compromise – I can get the safe and time tested pepperoni and cheese pizza :D There was me prancing and dancing my way to Dominos for (finally) a good pizza until the menu hit me like a ton of bricks – there was no pepperoni and cheese! No, there was Indian pizza with curry sauce and some strange Turkish version with chorizos and all kinds of French ones and even a couple vegetarian ones… but no pepperoni and cheese! Sigh! Well here I am again in this mean old town with no sign of relief from the French Pizza!

Grasse - A Personal Discovery ;)

On a bright sunny day we took a long drive up the hills of Cote D’Azur, dog and all, and made our way to Grasse – the little town made famous by it’s historical perfume industry.  Now, I have been to Grasse before and done the whole explore-the-town, perfume museum tours and shopping for perfumes dance. This time round though we went in with a very single minded focus – a sort of self-discovery – we went to Grasse to create our very own custom perfume!

Yep, you heard it right – I now have my very own signature fragrance :D and so does Alex haha. Anyhow, it all started with me doing some random research on what ‘else’ could I do in Grasse other than buy perfume (read: me wanting to invent my own walk around the city :P ). I found a few companies which host perfume making workshops with many many MANY different permutations and combinations of price points and offerings and recalled (rather randomly) that Alex always wanted a unique perfume that no one else had. It being man’s birthday and all during our vacation week I decided that a workshop like this makes for the perfect gift. We picked Galimard, which is the oldest Perfume house in Grasse (started in 1747), offers a complete 2-hour workshop and the noses that work there can speak many languages. At the start of our workshop they gave a set of 9 bottles with no names on them and asked us to choose 2 smell that we liked the most. These two smells served as the base families of our perfumes. From there we went on to pick out heart notes and then finally head notes; with a break in between so as not to get too muddled with all the smells around us. They had around a 100 scents to choose from for both men and women and each of our individual perfumes is made up of 4 base, 6 heart and 5 head notes. So, not just do you get to make your own signature perfume but they also keep the recipe on record so that you can order the perfume again once its over and also order stuff like Eau de Toilette, Soap, Body wash and Body lotion.

Turns out that Alex and I both like very strong, woodsy smells :P Also, I loved the hospitality because not only were they kind enough to accommodate the doggie poo but he actually went into the workshop area and slept blissfully in the cool AC room :) Overall I would say that if you do take the time out to go down to Grasse at any point do make an appointment with Galimard for this workshop (and you can of course buy some of their signature perfumes :P).

The Effect of All the Scents on my poor Nose :P

OOOhhhhhh Perfume Maker Thingies 

Our Perfumes :D

Galimard Website: http://www.galimard.com/