Voyages

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Provence and the Basses-Alpes

Monday, August 29th, 2011

   Bonjour, mes amis! We got back from our vacation a few days ago and I’m still glowing from the Provence sun and scratching my mosquito bites. It was a bright and busy two weeks, filled with lovely friends, delicious food (including homemade melon ice cream — yum!), and a couple of road trips in [...]

Summer holidays

Thursday, August 11th, 2011

It has been my favorite kind of summer this year in Paris — cool and grey and drizzly with flashes of warmth and bright sun. Even though I love it (I know, I’m weird) I’m ready for a blast of dry heat, lazy afternoons by the pool, and the juice of a nectarine trickling down [...]

Guernsey

Thursday, July 28th, 2011

I missed a blog post last week, which doesn’t make me happy, but I do have an excuse. See, I was traveling, away on a wild island in the midst of the English Channel. Located about 30 miles off the coast of France, Guernsey is a mix of craggy coastline, green pastures and the quaint cobblestone streets [...]

Clafoutis aux cerises

Thursday, June 9th, 2011

  Last week I bought a bag of cherries at the market in Lyon, but after they spent the whole day in my handbag, they were a little worse for wear. What could I do with a handful of bruised fruit? The words “clafoutis aux cerises” kept calling to me. A clafoutis is a dessert, kind [...]

Stroll Lyonnais

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

  Lyon is called the capital of French gastronomy, and, yes, the food here can be very, very good. And if you’re inclined to walk off all the cream, butter, saucisson and cracklin’ (called gratons) that you’ve consumed with a post-prandial stroll, you’ll discover that this city is as lovely as it is delicious (even [...]

Nice

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

Ah, Nice — it is very, very nice. (How many times do you think that pun has been made in the history of the world?) I felt very lucky to spend a long weekend in this Côte d’Azur town by the sea, soaking up the Mediterranean light, skipping stones across the sea and eating socca. [...]

Breton bed, breakfast and bounty

Tuesday, April 5th, 2011

I once read an article about hotel cleanliness, one of those exposés on all the bacteria (and worse) lurking in the pristine-seeming corners of guest rooms. Needless to say, I haven’t had a good night’s rest away from home ever since. But on a recent trip to Brittany, I was surprised to find myself close [...]

Butter in Brittany

Friday, April 1st, 2011

Wandering around Brittany this week, I made an important discovery. Butter is so ingrained in the culture of Finistère — a département in the extreme west of France — that the town of Quimper named a square after the stuff: Place au Beurre. Historically, this cobblestone square hosted the village market; today it’s home to [...]

Provence with Marcel Pagnol

Tuesday, December 14th, 2010

Until about a month ago, I’d never heard of Marcel Pagnol, though he’s beloved in France as a filmmaker and writer. But on the eve of my trip to Marseille, a friend recommended I read his books, La Gloire de Mon Père and Le Château de Ma Mère (My Father’s Glory and My Mother’s Castle). Once I read them, I [...]

Adventures in bouillabaisse (and more!)

Thursday, December 9th, 2010

Port cities are the best, aren’t they? A salty melange of cultures, a proximity to the sea, vigor, diversity, a gritty crackle in the air… I felt it in Marseille, where a thousand years of seafaring has given way to a vibrant food scene that mixes the cuisines of the Mediterranean — among them, North [...]

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