This is the perfect time of the year to walk down the street to Place des Pêcheurs to La Confiserie du Prieuré for their delicious hot chocolate.  Monsieur Charpentier makes wonderful chocolates too, and he has won many awards for his chocolates.  I do confess that I have a serious weakness for dark chocolate and I do enjoy monsieur's chocolates. There is a cozy tea room at the back of his shop where he serves pastries and his incredible hot chocolate.   What makes Monsieur Charpentier's hot chocolate so lovely is that he makes it from scratch.  You do have to wait for about 15 minutes for your hot chocolate, but it is well worth the wait.  If you do go, make sure you take your time and sit back and savour every sip of your hot chocolate.  Oh yes, don't plan on eating too much for dinner that evening as his hot chocolate is the real thing and very filling!

During the summer Monsieur Charpentier makes his own ice cream and waffle cones.  He has a number of different flavours and you can sit in his ancient courtyard and enjoy your ice cream and the view of the church tower. You will find us in Monsieur's courtyard eating ice cream many times throughout the summer.

As it is near the end of 2011 we thought you might enjoy some more photos we took this month of La Charité-sur-Loire in December.  The above photo is of the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall).  And yes, those are onion domes on top of the fountain!  These are in keeping with the holiday Russian theme on Grande Rue.

So far our winter has been very mild.  I really did wish for a white Christmas as La Charité-sur-Loire looks magical with snow.  The snow rarely lasts more than a half day, so we usually rush out of the house to take advantage of the photo opportunities.  Our friends in town just shake their heads at us and say - 'oh, those Canadians'!

One of the store windows on Grande Rue.

Every December we go to Paris for a few days to see the lights and the decorations. The above photo is Byron's favourite window at Printemps in Paris this Christmas.  All windows at Printemps were designed by Chanel for the holiday season. This window had numerous Karl Lagerfelds.   We couldn't resist adding the photo to our blog!

We were served a dish on Christmas dinner at friends that we had never tried before.  Red cabbage with chestnuts.  Delicious! Red cabbage is usually on our Christmas menu at Christmas, but now we'll chestnuts to the dish in the future. 

We wish you and your families a very Happy New Year!

This Christmas season the merchant association decided on a Russian theme for Grande Rue, a New York theme for the bottom of town and for the upper part of town the theme is Greenland. The window displays are beautiful again this year.  We took a few photos andwanted to share them with you.

The above photo is on Grande Rue and every year an older man decorates the front of his house.

Our annual Christmas market was last weekend.  The Saturday evening of the Christmas market the children's choir sang Christmas songs.  They looked like little angels in their green hats. After mayor's address to the town there were fire works and then vin chaud (mulled wine) and hot chocolate for everyone.

We so excited as we received our first fresh truffle a few days ago.  Friends of ours, Yves and Marie-Paule,  ordered our truffle along with their truffle this year from the Perigord. They carefully instructed us on how to care for our truffle and generously shared their recipes for truffles. 

Everything we heard about storing a truffle with eggs is absolutely true.  The scent of the truffle penetrates the egg shell and when you cook the eggs (we scrambled them) they are are infused with the truffle scent and taste delicious! 

Yesterday we invited two friends for an early Christmas lunch and we shared our truffle with them. For the starter we put foie gras with shaved truffle on puff pastry.  Then wrapped the foie gras and truffle up in four packets, brushed the pastry with a beaten egg and baked them in the oven until the pastry was golden. We all loved the starter and this recipe will be repeated again in our house next Christmas.  A great way to start the Christmas season!