The sincere friends of this world are as ship lights in the stormiest of nights. - Giotto di Bondone Forty-two years ago, a young man on the brink of adulthood, a young man just seventeen years old and soon having the heavy responsibility of choosing his future career, of selecting his university, stood in the ...
The calamity that comes is never the one we had prepared ourselves for. - Mark Twain, Letter to Olivia Clemens, August 16, 1896 I woke up at quarter past five, as I usually do, yet with the first hints of a headache and a sore throat, only wanting a hot cup of coffee. I grabbed my phone and ...
Homegrown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes What would life be like without homegrown tomatoes? Only two things that money can't buy That's true love and homegrown tomatoes. - John Denver, 'Home Grown Tomatoes' Raymonde stands in the lobby of the hotel legs slightly apart, vaguely military, hands clasped behind her back when not stretched out in front of her punctuating her ...
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 ...
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 ...
Life is sometimes sad and often dull, but there are currants in the cake, and here is one of them. – Nancy Mitford I sit next to Jane comfortably and convivially at the white plastic picnic table in the shade of the overhang, a tangle of branches heaped upon the table. We each have a plastic ...
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 ...
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 ...
“Oh, I adore to cook. It makes me feel so mindless in a worthwhile way." - Truman Capote, Summer Crossing, 1943 High season. It’s been hectic, to say the least, to put it mildly, and I don’t know where I find the energy. Commitment to the project, to the team, to my own sense of self. Thirty, thirty-five, forty ...
A small town is a place where there's no place to go where you shouldn't. - Burt Bacharach I like the small-townness of Chinon. Everyone seems to know one another but not in an American small-town way; the knowing is very discreet, a restrained nod of the head in passing, a simple acknowledgement of recognition, of ...
I'm Jamie; welcome to the new Life's a Feast!
I run a hotel in Chinon, France, and write about life, culture, modern day living and food.
My passion is to create vibrant and unique experiences.
