L’Art de Bien Manger

  • A Postcard from Summer – Fig Liqueur

    A Postcard from Summer – Fig Liqueur

    Somewhen in July my electrician gave me a ring to tell me he had got plenty of green figs and if I’d like to get some, he’d set some pretty ones aside for me. Of course I wanted some, and I immediately agreed to pop by his place later the afternoon, whereon he sounded very… Read more

  • How to Cook a Duck Breast – Greeting Autumn

    How to Cook a Duck Breast – Greeting Autumn

    It’s Monsieur’s favourite, duck breast, and although I am sure of his infinite love and affection for me I secretly suspect him of being perfectly capable of choosing a perfectly cooked duck breast over my precious company.  Magret de canard, such a French classic, and thus a regular on my table whenever we have something… Read more

  • Histoire d’un Festin, the Story of a Feast

    Histoire d’un Festin, the Story of a Feast

    Imagine. A house on the square of a quaint little village in the East of France. From the windows on the first floor you see the fountain, the road that lazily slopes towards the river, green beyond.  Imagine a house untouched by time for decades, its dust whirled by tiny furry feet only. A house… Read more

  • Saumonette Feuilletée and Changing Plans

    Saumonette Feuilletée and Changing Plans

    In fact I had planned on giving you the recipe of my Fameuse Pintade à la Marengo, but then it’s the year of plans overthrown, hence, today it shall be a Saumonette Feuilletée for you*. While plans overthrown might not always be easy to deal with**, occasionally there might be something good coming from it. Such… Read more

  • Cherries with Friends – How to Make Chriesitschope

    Cherries with Friends – How to Make Chriesitschope

    I made a Chriesitschope, isn’t this a glorious Swiss word, it essentially is a cherry cake and translated into English means Cherry Jacket. Now there’s hundreds of ways of making Chriesitschopes apparently, which is why here I give you my own version. And this is how it came about that I made a Chriesitschope:  The… Read more

  • Asperges en Chemise – In the Pace of the Seasons

    Asperges en Chemise – In the Pace of the Seasons

    As asparagus season slowly comes to a turn in our corner and we slide into the exquisitely languid summer months (hopefully, currently we’re all down to wet and cold), this year, with all that happened during the past months, the change perhaps is a little more marked. Now I am my mother’s daughter, and seasonal… Read more