France is such a beautifully diverse country, I want to make sure you see and taste the best it has to offer! When it comes to Paris I’ve got you covered, but there are many other cities with exciting and delicious things for you to experience. So I’ve asked a team of French bloggers from different cities to share their favorite spots, and I am offering them to you in this series.

In Lyon, Quentin recommends…

Our guide to Lyon is Quentin Caillot. A lover of food and travel, Quentin created the blog Geek and Food, which focuses on culinary trends, dining recommendations, and urban agriculture. He is also the co-founder of a communication and culinary creation agency, and the first culinary coworking space in Lyon, La Food Factory.

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When we get to spend time at my parents’ vacation house in the Vosges, a mountain range in the Northeast of France, one of our favorite daytrips is to drive over to Colmar, a historic Alsatian town on the other side of the mountain.

We’ve been going for as long as my parents have had the house, a little over twenty years, and though Colmar is as gorgeous as Alsatian towns get (i.e. very), with paved streets, pretty canals, and amazing architecture, the capital-D Draw for me is the flammekueche we get for lunch.

Also known as tarte flambée, the flammekueche (pronounced flam-küsh*) can be described as the Alsatian pizza: a super thin round of dough topped with cream, finely sliced onions, bacon strips, and sometimes mushrooms (la forestière) and cheese (la gratinée), baked in a woodfire oven until the edges are golden brown and crisp.

Sitting at one of the outdoor tables outside our favorite restaurant in Colmar, we make conversation as we wait for our tartes flambées to arrive, and our collective joy vibrates through the air as the waitstaff brings them out, all hot and fragrant, on wooden boards.

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Over the summer, Maxence and I spent a few blissful, brightly sunny days hiding out in my parents’ vacation house in the Vosges mountains. One day, we took a day trip to Alsace, the region just on the other side of the mountain famous for its wines, its storks, and little houses with pointy roofs and exposed beams.

We went on a pilgrimage to Niedermorschwihr, the Alsacian village where Christine Ferber, whom I’ve mentioned before, officiates. This is where the Jam Fairy makes the best French jams, and this is where she sells them, in a little bakery named Au Relais des Trois Epis.

I had been dying to go there ever since I learned about it, and grew increasingly excited as we neared the village. We parked on the tiny church square, got out of the car and were instantly knocked off our feet by the intense fruit smells. They were coming out of a small ground floor window in the back of the shop, through which we could see the lab where the magic happens.

Somebody’s pet is hiding in the picture. Can you spot it?

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Would you believe this recipe for fennel soup with lime stems from my once entering a giveaway for a three-day juice fast, and actually winning?

(I know. Some of you can’t get their head around why I entered in the first place, but what can I say? I’m curious, and I like cold-pressed juices.)

Presented with the option to do an all-juice fast, which I’d done once before and didn’t love, or to opt for the slightly less challenging, juice-and-soup combo, the latter is the one I chose.

I ended up not doing the actual fast — I was really very hungry — but rather incorporated the juices and soups into my regular meals, sharing them with my family and enjoying the nutrition boost. (Also, the ah-ma-zing convenience of having three days’ worth of ready-to-consume fruits and vegetables delivered to my door.)

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