I like to put a a decent amount of thought into celebrating around my birthday each year. After having a kind of crummy beginning of the year I decided to cook French meals for the week of my birthday. I usually only eat twice a day- an egg and veggie scramble around 11am and then dinner- so I mostly focused on dinners.Here’s what I made: Croque Madame from Tasting Paris. Quiche from Pardon Your French. Swiss Chard Potato Gnocchi from…
Happy New Year and happy Wednesday. I hope you enjoyed the holidays and have some good ideas of how you’d like to spend 2019. I spent New Year’s in Whistler, BC with Joe and his parents. It was my first time there and the fact that we don’t take many snowy, wintery trips made this one special. It gave me a good excuse to break out all of my cold-weather gear. On to some links! Book I’ve mentioned Tasting Paris…
I have conflicting feelings about this book. I love the story but not the writing; it feels too neat and tidy to be realistic. The dialogue feels written instead of spoken and real and the foreshadowing feels like a sticker placed over the natural story. There are errors such as “Latine Quartiere” instead of Latin Quartier or Quartier Latin (hopefully this was fixed for the final book as I read an ARC) and having Caty, a photographer, make individual prints…
Happy Wednesday, the first one of November. I have a massage scheduled for today so it is an especially happy one. I’m looking at my calendar for the month and I notice that I don’t have anything French on the books. I’ll have to find a new themed book release or a Whole 30-friendly French recipe to try to spice things up a little. Oh! Or I can find a new French movie I haven’t seen. Once I finish binging…
Ageless Beauty the French Way is not just another French lifestyle book. While I thoroughly enjoy most of those books out there, this one gives me what I actually want: How to care for myself the way the French do in an accessible way to me. After introducing all of these wonderful skin, hair, and body care tips, von Mueffling shares with you places she recommends (mostly in NYC) and in most cases gives suggestions on how to care for…
I am currently 9 days into Whole30 so I won’t be celebrating this 14 Juillet like I usually do- at a restaurant with other Francophiles, French food, and wine. Even though I’m mostly staying home for the day, I thought I’d share what I’ll be up to and a few other ideas for those of you who don’t want to or can’t go to a Bastille Day fest. Most of these are free and can be done in the comfort…
When Clotilde Dusoulier announced that she was coming out with her fifth book I may have lost it a little. In a good way. I have all of her books, love her blog (Chocolate and Zucchini, which is one of the first blogs I ever read), and even hired her for a food tour of Montmartre when we were in Paris in January 2017. She has such a healthful and unique approach to food, using and combining ingredients I never…
Bonjour and happy Wednesday. I spent last week recovering from ECCC and going to even more author events. On Monday I went to see Anne Bishop and Patricia Briggs at the University Bookstore and on Wednesday I went to see Zack Davisson, who did a presentation on the supernatural cats of Japan. This week I had a new book club meeting on Monday and tonight I am going to see Leslye Walton (I know her from The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows…
Where the Wild Cherries Grow is an absolutely stunning tale. Two points of view separated by fifty years guide us through this story of friendship, love, and determination. Bill Perch is tasked with finding out what happened to a lost family member of a client so they can sell land to a developer. He travels to the childhood home of Emeline Vane where he finds her diary. He becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to her when she disappeared…
Bonjour! Happy Wednesday and Happy (belated) New Year. With how busy the holidays were I have not put much active thought into the Wednesday Whimsy posts. Now everything is so slow that I’m looking forward a little too much to making a quiche later in the week. Though honestly I’d look forward to that on a busy week too. Book T.V. Show I recently finished the Netflix show Call My Agent (Dix pour cent in France). I kept coming across it…