Vanilla Rum Panna Cotta with Rum Roasted Cherries

It’s all a balancing act, isn’t it? Whatever we do, work, parenting, marriage, home, we spend all of our days juggling. Add to that the little luxuries of life, cooking, shopping, visiting friends, visiting interesting places. Reading and writing. And it’s a veritable circus: juggling, balancing, tightrope walking, taming wild animals…. A friend, spending two ...

Six

Tuesday, September 15, 2015 4 No tags Permalink 0

Six years. A lot happened in six years. Whirlwind. Changes. Our little boys grew up. The one rowdy and bright eyed, the other rather mournful and private became men, smart and vibrant. And handsome. And have something of their uncle about them. Our young men went to college; one became an architect, the other a designer. One graduated ...

Breakfast

Sunday, August 30, 2015 20 , Permalink 0

I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process. - Vincent Van Gogh Six months we have owned and been running the Hôtel Diderot and I have rarely slept through the night. Knowing that my alarm will ring at six sharp, that I prefer to be (need to ...

Nectarine Jalousie

Friday, August 21, 2015 11 , , , Permalink 0

Summertime. It’s the little bundle of memories we carry with us from our childhood, year after year that makes summertime what it is. Whether stifling hot days and balmy evenings or chilly, gray dampness seeping through the cracks of tightly closed windowpanes and drawn curtains, June, July and August are infused with something intangible, special that ...

Happy Birthday, Julia!

Saturday, August 15, 2015 8 , Permalink 0

I was given a set of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in 1986 just after I had moved to France, which was, when I come to think of it, a bit like bringing coals to Newcastle or, as I did, bringing a pasta machine to Italy. Although I have always loved my copies of "Mastering," it ...

One More Day

Thursday, June 25, 2015 8 No tags Permalink 0

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. - Ralph Waldo ...

Learning Curve

Wednesday, June 17, 2015 15 No tags Permalink 3

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut Shortly after I married, I began working as an interpreter in a large, prestigious cooking school in the center of Paris. The gentleman for whom I worked had created the Anglophone section at said cooking school ...