It’s July.

And it’s hot right now where I am.

Where I live.

Over July 4th, we moved into our new home; so far, we’ve spent four nights there. I kept wondering how it would feel. To be in a new environment. You never know before going through the change. But I am thrilled: I love the house’s open space and garden; Lulu loves to watch the squirrels gather in the garden under the tall we-cannot-figure-out-the-name-of tree; and soon, I’ll be finding my new marks in the newly renovated kitchen. I need patience until it’s done (three months as I am told) and in the meantime, with the bare cooking utensils I am cooking in the old one. Until we move out for the renovation–it’s a good thing that I will be spending time in France again in August.

Our summer is one full of transitions.

So far, I’ve baked apricot tartlets and vegetable tarts; I’ve prepared tabouli, salads, rice and vegetable stews and we’ve barbecued fish and shrimp skewers. Not to forget raspberry and strawberry sorbets to refresh us, and puddings to comfort us–I can never can resist those, no matter the season.

There’s also a piece of news that I’d like to share with you.

I’d like to tell you about the workshop where I will be teaching two food styling classes during the fall, on September 16th and 17th. That will happen at Squam Art Workshops, a retreat held in a beautiful setting in Rockywold-Deephaven, New Hampshire, by a lake; the event has an emphasis on visual arts, writing, yoga, theater, cooking and food styling. I am really excited about participating. Incidentally, today also celebrates the launch of their journal–you can find more information by following this link.

So perhaps I will see you at Squam Art Workshops in September?

The transition into beautiful Spring, with its blooming trees, happened while we were away. As we were driving back the airport, I could not help but notice pretty tiny pink and white flowers cheering up the streets. The display is the same every year, but it’s invariably as pretty. And I am always feverishly waiting for it to happen.

This week flew by and as came Saturday, I realized that I hadn’t done much beside trying to catch up. I didn’t spend much time taking pictures either, but the few I took, I wanted to share, especially because they had Lulu in middle. It was such a joy to see her run in the park. Last year, she had barely any idea that all this beauty was there.

But now she can enjoy.

In the meantime, while I get back onto my feet, I have a few pieces of information for you, if you allow.

First, I am excited to have been asked to do a photographic job for Boston Magazine. The photograph, an Egg Benedict dish shot on site in a restaurant, is printed in the April 2010 issue.



Then, I will be speaking at the Food Blogger Connect Conference in London in June of this year. Thanks so much Hilda for having extended this invitation to me. Along with Meeta and Mowie I will be talking about food photography and styling. Check more details as described by Hilda. Of course, any recommendations on what to do and see in London while I am there, please feel free to let me know. It will be the first time I take the train between Paris and London, so I am really looking forward to that too.



I’m also honored to have received the award for Best Special Interest Blog held by Saveur Magazine, in their 1st Annual Food Blog Awards. Many thanks to all of you who have voted for my blog. See the list of all the winners here. Merci !

Voilà…this is my weekend news.

And when I am back from enjoying the gorgeous weather we are having at the moment–better do it as long as it lasts–I will have more recipes. That’s coming soon!

Je rentre de vacances émue après avoir vu le reportage Envoyé Spécial la suite en ligne ce matin. Un grand merci à tous ceux d’entre vous, nouveaux et anciens lecteurs, qui m’ont si généreusement laissé un commentaire, ou envoyé un message. Je suis sincèrement touchée par vos gentils mots. Le lien à suivre pour voir l’émission se trouve ici. J’étais si ravie d’y voir aussi mon amie Pascale, du blog C’est moi qui l’ai fait.

Mon prochain sujet, cela sera de vous parler de l’île où nous sommes allés nous balader, et où je me suis amusée à nous cuisiner de petits plats. Avec, de la maison, une vue sans égal. A bientôt !

It’s already Tuesday and I am a day late. Désolée ! I promised a winner for the Around Fog Linen catalog. And I am happy to announce that Dawn McBeth is the one with the lucky number. Thank you Dawn, I will be sending you the catalog tomorrow.

This week is also one amongst many that requires my full attention. So you’ll have to excuse the lack of chit chat. And recipes. I have my cookbook manuscript to finish, the pictures to organize and prepare for print–and I am feeling fairly rushed with life, to say the least. But I am *so* looking forward to finally see my cookbook take shape. To see my recipes on paper, with colors and a design. To have the book be given a life outside my home. It will be published and available next Spring.

This morning, while I was chatting with a friend and I told her that I felt quite exhausted, “I am not surprised,” she said. “Your book,” she went on, “it’s like you are giving birth again!”

Obviously, it’s not exactly the same kind–we know that. But it’s definitely a life event that took its course over numerous months, growing slowly and steadily, step by step, day after day. And today, I am really keen to feel the final product between my hands.

Merci! Thank you for being here. For coming back, no matter what. Next to the love and support I receive from P. (who is well fed, under all circumstances, as he likes to tell me when I ask that he goes grocery shopping at odd times of the day) and Lulu–who took her very first steps this weekend–you are making this book happen!

Here’s a snapshot of what’s going to be the feel you’ll find inside my book.

It’s the feel of a soft fabric touching my hands that becomes addictive. Its color and pattern. And its thickness and shape. My imagination flows and my head bubbles with ideas as I look at the pile of kitchen towels loosely arranged on the old wooden corner table in the living room. It’s high enough so that Lulu cannot reach for them. Not yet.

I look at them again. They make me dream of pictures.

With food in the middle.

I think that it’s about a year ago that I discovered Yumiko’s textiles. It was love at first sight. Yumiko is simply the talented Japanese woman behind Fog Linen Work. She is a lovely, friendly woman.

I forget how it really started, that connection Yumiko and I developed. To start, there was the purchase of a few kitchen towels that sufficed to make me become a fan of her work. Then we started to email each other. And one day, when I didn’t expect it, she asked whether I would like to participate in one of her projects. She wanted a few designers, stylists and photographers to collaborate with their own personal touches to her new Spring catalog 2010. She wanted to see her linens and baskets and aprons and pretty objects to find a home in the context of these people’s own homes. She wanted to hear about these people’s stories. Their lives. I loved her idea. And I felt honored that she asked me. I accepted right away. Enthusiastically.

A few months later, a few clicks and pictures after, her catalog is now available. It’s beautiful and lively. It’s full of pretty pictures.

If you happen to see it, perhaps like me, you’ll fall for Fog Linen Work. It’s easy to. It’s yet another reason that will make us travel to Japan. One day, we really will.

Here is the list of the other people participating in Yumiko’s project. Absolutely gorgeous work. All.

• Maria Alexandra Vettese
• Ryan and Alissa
• Julie Baine
• Rae Dunn
• Marisa Shimamoto
• Jennifer Causey
• Sally and Chris
• Jenny Hallengren
• Lena Corwin
• Elodie Rambaud
• Lotta Jansdotter

I’ve also recently found out that La Tartine Gourmande was nominated as one of the Best Special Interest Food Blogs in Saveur’s 1st Annual Food Blog Awards.

Yes, that’s right. It’s Saveur magazine! I am honored. Un grand merci!

If you are interested, there are many wonderful blogs nominated too, and you can vote for your favorites in each category by following this link. You have until Friday April 2d to do so.

The winners will be announced on April 5th. Good luck to everyone!

If you recall, last year, I told you about the first cookbook I contributed to, styling and photographing the foods. Jennifer, the author, came to my house for a few days to work — we immediately became friends. Her cookbook was just published and I am so honored to have been able to work with her and the people at Chronicle Books.

It’s a book about Gingerbread and every goodie that comes with it. It’s funny to think about it. I was three months pregnant when I worked on this project last summer. It was so hot, I remember, and I was completely morning sick, but it was a marvelous experience to team with Jennifer. She’s funny and witty, and full of energy–we worked really well together.

Her book is now available in bookstores and amazon, if you are interested. And, since I baked all the recipes with pictures attached, I can tell you that they work fantastically! So if you like gingerbread, you know what to do next. It’s the season!

Note that the second picture (a gingerbread I baked from her recipes) in this post is not in Jennifer’s book, but I just liked it so wanted to put it here! Simple and tasty!

You know that I like to travel and write about the experience of my trips. I’ve always been that way in the family.

Don’t ask me why but I’ve always been extremely attracted by les pays du Nord — Scandinavia in general. Over the years, P. and I traveled twice to Iceland and once to Denmark.

And we’ve been dreaming about Norway.

I’ve not yet been to Norway but it’s a destination high on my list. So when Hanne, a journalist working for the Norwegian magazine Maison Mat & Vin, emailed to ask if she could interview me for a feature in their magazine, I felt pretty excited. It had me dream of traveling to Norway and its colors and fjords and culture again. Lulu will love it as much as we will — I know.

The article Hanne wrote is about food bloggers and was just published in the September 2009 issue — the recipe of mine they featured is my upside down olive oil apple cake. I was really happy to see fellow food bloggers like Ilva, David and Cecilie. I don’t speak Norwegian but sometimes it doesn’t matter. Pictures speak for themselves. Maison Mat & Vin is one of those delicious-to-read food magazines that make you dream of food and travel.

Thanks Hanne!

“Vous avez dû attendre pendant longtemps ?” (Did you have to wait for long?) my parents asked. We were standing at one end of terminal E in Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport, hugging and kissing. My parents were as eager to see us as we were to see them. But I knew that, in fact, they were even happier to greet and hold their little grand daughter. Lulu was snuggled cozily against my stomach in her ergo. We could only see the top of her head and hair and eyes which she had wide open. She was smiling and flapping her bare legs against mine, turning her head to the right, then to the left, not to miss anything that was happening around us. We were all tired but so happy to be home in France.

The thought of traveling back home had filled me with feelings of excitement even if I had worried about our journey to Europe. It was Lulu’s first transatlantic flight. How would she handle it? Would she be fine with the many plane rides, between Boston, Paris, Dublin and Paris again? How would she do with the jet lag? But our little Lulu didn’t mind at all any of it. In fact, she adjusted extremely quickly, much faster than P. and I did.

Summer in rural eastern France, where my parents and brother live, has left me wonderful memories. I realized that it had been years since I had traveled there during summer.

It’s the soft morning light cast on the countryside early in the morning, the colorful wild flowers illuminating the fields, the rich smell of freshly cut grass, the butterflies dancing from flower to flower and the clacking sound of the crickets late at night that I love. It’s the time of year when, I remember, as a young girl, we used to harvest hay at my grandparents’. Sometimes, I was allowed to drive the tractor back from the fields, and proudly did so. Later in the afternoon, my brother and cousins would sneak in the barn to play, jumping on bales of hay neatly stacked high.

Days in the countryside are spent at a slower pace even if summer means it’s a busy time for many who live there. In my family, we like to pick all sorts of fruit to make jams and preserves and bake tarts; we preserve French beans and beets, and make ratatouille. We walk in the grass bare foot and nap under the cherry trees, if we feel like it. We did that very well, I must say, the day after we arrived, then the next, and the day after the next too — and we never seemed to find the activity boring. Would you?

Lulu, too, made the place her own. She and I loved the daily routine we established. There were the usual morning and afternoon naps, the walks to the village to buy baguettes for lunch, and the many hours spent playing on a large blanket spread under the trees, in my parents’ garden. It was delightful to see her enjoy herself so much. She was fascinated by trees and loved to watch the wind move their leaves. She played with the flickering shadows created by the rays of sun filtering through the branches.

I told her about where our food comes from. When I took her to the village, I showed her the cows and sheep and chicken and rooster and rabbits. I pointed at eggs nested at one corner of the hen house. I made her smell red currants and apples and strawberries and plums that my parents grow.

She ate the vegetables — carrots, beans, zucchini, beets and tomatoes — we prepared from my mother’s and brother’s gardens. Every day, it seemed that she was learning something new — her new discovery is to clap her hands (she does that so joyfully, really, it’s cute!) while blowing raspberries at the same time. It’s amazing, actually, how quickly she has changed over the course of these last three weeks away.

Our life is so much richer with her at the center of it.

“Tu veux que je la prenne ? “(Do you want me to take her?) my mum asked me one morning after I had just finished to nurse Lulu. She was wide awake, laughing, talking and kicking her legs above her head. It was also 6 am, the time of day when my mother gets up — it’s brave! I didn’t need to answer. She knew. I felt relieved. Si tu veux! (Sure!)

While falling asleep, I could hear them *converse* with each other in the kitchen at the breakfast table — Lulu sitting in her high chair while my mother was eating her bowl of muesli and yogurt.

It didn’t matter that we did not travel long distances or do much. We did what we had been craving for weeks: we rested.

The food was gorgeous, and I ate a ton. I even wonder where I put it all! Between the fresh vegetables and fruit from the garden, I also indulged in dairy products hungrily, eating yogurts, petits-suisses and fromage blanc as if I was discovering them for the first time again. I devoured cheese greedily, at all times of the day. Oh yes! Everything felt more tasteful and flavorful. My mother cooked — isn’t this the nicest? — and I helped, baking and making fruit tarts.

Every day, Lulu came with me to the garden where I picked more berries and seasonal fruit, carrots, salad and tomatoes for lunch. The mirabelles, prunes de cochon and quetsches were so ripe that we stewed them and made tarts.

One day, my mum and I took Lulu to the local market.

In my brother’s garden, I collected fresh herbs, different types of basil, sage, thyme, chervil, livèche (lovage) — my sister-in-law’s favorite — and mint to make a herb risotto. I’ll have to tell you about it. We enjoyed it so much that I cooked it twice.

We had family lunches and dinners at home that we ate outside and a few times, we drove the scenic winding road, just a few kilometers away, to l’Ecluse 16 — a lovely restaurant nested in the Bonne Fontaine forest, by the canal de la Sarre — where we ate scrumptious modern food.

I thought I wouldn’t find red currants, as suggested by my dad, but I was excited to discover that the bush in my parents’ back garden was still heavy with bright red berries, fully ripe. Every day, my mum used them in fruit salads while I baked them in muffins.

I also made a red currant and almond tart.

Red currants are a delicacy in the US, which always surprises me when they are so abundant and easily found where I am from in France. In the city of Bar-le-Duc near by, locals use the fruit to make a special jam. The tradition consists in removing the seeds with a goose feather and dates back to 1344. The jam is extremely delicate.

If you’ve eaten the berries before, you know that the fruit is rather acidic, and has small seeds inside. The berries are delicious in tarts when they are prepared with a sugary almond batter, which balances the tartness of the fruit.

“I told you it would be worth it,” I told my dad, with a victorious look on my face, when we all sat down at the table again to have dessert. He had jokingly asked that I stopped stealing the last red currants on the tree. It was hard to! One of his favorite thing is to pick and snack on the fruit while working outside.

“Oui, elle est très bonne ta tarte,” (Your tart is really good) he said, helping himself to a second slice.

What I didn’t tell him is that, a few days later, I grabbed another handful of the red berries to bake muffins. I just couldn’t resist.

Everyone commented on how delicious the muffins were.

And the missing red currants went unnoticed.

It’s wonderful how that works.

The expression does not make sense when translated into English, but I love it: Poisson d’avril, which literally means April’s Fish.

Well, I guess I know what we are eating tonight. And that is no joke.

Or perhaps I just wanted to post a picture of a colorful fish since I cannot imagine hanging this one on anyone’s back — we really do those things en France.

Sérieusement. I cannot remember when was the last time I played an April fools’ day trick on anyone. Lulu will have to learn the tradition. She will love it. And the fish too.

Well, it’s April.

Wow. Incroyable !

And there’s so much activity in our house. A daughter who is growing like une mauvaise herbe (a weed), says le papa. She is happy and *so* curious about everything. About every single detail of life. That’s what babies do.

And there is my cookbook that requires so much of my energy. It will be another full month. Hopefully less fast. But as full.

Well, I hope that you are also starting April on the right foot.

Well fed. Happy and jolly.

I just needed to stop by, to wish you a happy April Fools’ Day. And share with you a simple fish recipe.

Take a whole fish of your liking, thyme and sea salt, add a splash of olive oil, a few steamed potatoes on the side, and a tossed salad, and turn dinner into a simple fare.

You’ve had something like this before, haven’t you?