L’Art de Bien Manger

  • Window into the Past, the Gateau Sceycolais

    Window into the Past, the Gateau Sceycolais

    The other day I was desperate for an afternoon delight, not having enough time to bake one myself, I popped into the bakery in the village next door (I live in a mere hameau, a hamlet, with no shops and restaurants), because it was the only bakery open at that time (I’ll never ever get Read more

  • Confessions and the Sea

    Confessions and the Sea

    Quite recently I stumbled across a website advertising a very cool project, to do with art and culture and a French chateau, so inspiring, but then I read that I was encouraged to choose an eco friendly way to travel there and that I could ask the hosts about carbon offset programmes. I don’t know Read more

  • Oh Kitchen

    Oh Kitchen

    The kitchen is the heart and soul of the house, at least where I come from. Our old farm houses are typically rectangular with four rooms per floor with a built-in tiled oven in the middle of the house. It’s fired up from the kitchen stove, its biggest part reaches into the parlour. Regular meals Read more

  • Lent

    Lent

    It’s Lent. This is the forty days between Carnival and Easter, when, in an attempt to purify one’s soul and body, one is to abstain from all earthly delights and eat cabbage soup. Forty days of cabbage soup. And water. And stale bread. Or in other words, purgatory. Though I believe, at least concerning the Read more

  • February

    February

    Et voilà and it’s already February. The extraordinarily cold days are behind us, now it’s the ordinary cold days and The Great Wet that has taken hold of our world. Muddy lanes and a fine drizzle, low hanging clouds, the trees and shrubs are entirely bare now except for the two life trees in the Read more

  • Summer at the Chateau

    Summer at the Chateau

    Summer at the chateau and no, this blog is not dormant and yes, I’m still here! And feeling a little bad as I’ve been leaving these pages empty for so long! Think of it as a big summer vacation, my being off, yet of course it was one filled with ever so much activity. We’ve Read more