Meringues are the most pleasurable desserts to make from start to finish. From separating the eggs, whisking up a sky of fluffy clouds, shaping them into pretty petticoats, these sweet confections are simply magical. When I was small, I always imagined clouds tasted like vanilla meringues. Slightly crisp on the outside, creamy yet airy inside. […]
There are only two hundred snail farms in France, so you can imagine my delight when I discovered that one of them was just around the corner. Heliciculturalist Françoise Pion and her husband Francis have been successfully cultivating the Helix aspersa maxima, better known as the ‘gros gris’ snail. France remains the largest consumers of […]
The vineyards around Médoc are looking very handsome these days. The grapes have ripened to a velvety dark colour, looking robust and just about ready to be picked. I found out this week harvest dates will be postponed till October. It has been a dry year and the grapes need to mature for a few […]
What to cook for homesick French friends? Well, les grands classiques, bien sûr! My friends Jean-Pierre and Alexia came over for a visit last week-end. They left Paris three long years ago and came back to France for a little holiday. They absolutely love their new life, but had turned into homesick Parisians, or, should […]
What’s a summer cook to do? With temperatures reaching more than thirty-eight degrees, I hardly want to switch anything on, especially the oven. We have been alternating between the pool, the Atlantic beaches (Médoc is a peninsula with eighty kilometers of beautiful beaches), trips to Cap-Ferret and some brave city slicking in Bordeaux where the […]
This summer, we had several friends staying at Château Cordeillan-Bages , a beautiful ‘relais-château‘ located in the heart of Médoc. They loved every moment of their stay, but most importantly, they adored the hotel’s restaurant, headed by chef Jean-Luc Rocha. When I told them that I had the chance to meet him and cook by […]
My grandmother loved taking me on long garden walks in the beautiful countryside of Périgord. She always had a pair of old-fashioned garden scissors ready to cut off a few of her favorite herbs and flowers. She loved vervain, and religiously had a cup of infused leaves every night before going to sleep – ‘La […]
When you have friends over for dinner, what do you enjoy cooking for them? The words sharing, laughter, delicious, special, impressive and fun come to my mind. You want to enjoy the moment, accompanied by fine wines, good music and candlelight. The key to a successful dinner is cooking something that everybody will like, making […]
A lovely pastime of ours since moving to the country is simply to get in the car and drive through the countless villages and vineyards that grace the eastern side of Médoc. It’s a wonderful maze of charming roads and invariably we get a little lost, chasing a beautiful Chateau we see on a distant […]