Indulge in wonderful French food & wine in person or vicariously – where to find the foodie haunts – share recipes – tips & advice…
A (Painless) Beginner’s Guide to Uncorking French Wine: The Loire Valley — Part 2
La vallée de la Loire (the Loire Valley) is an important, intriguing, & diverse region. It is such a wonderful region to visit.
Manigodine: The Wonder of Fromage – unveiling one French cheese at a time
Manigodine is a product of passion: The best milk from local cows, who spend winters in the valley and summers grazing on the open pastures.
French Recipe: Goat’s Cheese and Onion Tart
It may just be residual stress from cookery school, but making a tart-sweet or savoury – is up there in the top five reasons to bring me out in a cold sweat. Various forms of confrontation are another as is speaking French. But back to tarts; over the last 6 and a half years since leaving cookery school, I have avoided making tarts at all costs. But now I live in France where not only do I have to speak French but the tart was born and bred here. So, I mustered the strength, rolled up my sleeves, and made a goat’s cheese [...]
A (Painless) Beginner’s Guide to Uncorking French Wine — Part 1
The Launch of The Beginner's Guide to French Wine: Don't be intimidated anymore! Ordering French Wine can be maddening, and just plain frustrating, but no longer.
French recipe: Peach Mille Feuille — with recipe
Peach Mille Feuille— Is this a sacrilege? To a French native, mille-feuille is what many other cuisines know as a cream or custard slice – crisp pastry layered with thick crème patissiere... Sliced fresh peaches on a mille-feuille is unusual.
Today’s baguettes are tomorrow’s cookies: A crumby idea to fight food waste
Heightened awareness of #foodwaste has us asking how much bread gets thrown away in French bakeries every year?
Entremets: C’est pas du gâteau! (Not a piece of cake!)
Entremets: When leaving France I grab one last pastry - a last péché mignon before I depart from the Motherland.
French Recipe: Espresso Chocolate Fondants
Chocolate fondants: Recently, six chocolate fondants were on trial. They faced a jury of impartial tasters to prove their virtue above all the others.
Allez, Hop ! Au Resto: Inside French restaurant culture, with a tasty little slice of my former life
Au Resto: Mastering the French restaurant experience—Working in a restaurant is the best school for key life skills. Plus ... read about my backstory—being a sommelier, a restauranteur and more...
Please Keep your Hands in my Food: Why this butter made people mad
I had never heard of Beurre Bordier, but I soon discovered that was almost like never having heard of Ben & Jerry’s — it was the butter, renowned both in France and around the world, a gem, but hardly a hidden one.
