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!

I’ve been meaning to tell you about my weakness for anything involving potatoes.

Growing up, my mother prepared râpés de pommes de terre (grated potatoes cooked like small galettes, close to latkes) perhaps once a week, which invariably made my brother and me extremely happy. Because it was food that involved potatoes, and because hers were deliciously crispy, always cooked to perfection. She liked to serve them with a dollop of silky fromage blanc, a sprinkle of sea salt and freshly chopped chives, and a side lettuce tossed in a vinaigrette with piquant. That was dinner during a wintry week day: simple and gorgeous in every way.

I’ve been a lover of that type of comforting food since then. During the winter, that’s what we have for dinner at least once a week.

Sometimes my râpés will make a casual meal, just as we used to eat them at home, and at other times, they’ll dress up our meal, as I prefer to serve them as an appetizer, topped with crème fraiche or mascarpone, a slice of tasty smoked salmon and pear.

While my mother never uses eggs to prepare hers, I use a few — like in this recipe. I also find root vegetables delicious in this dish, and often make new variants following the produce seasonality and my fancy. Here, you’ll see that I used white sweet potato, parsnip and carrot. You’ll thank me for it! It’s a real boost of flavors and vitamins in your plate.

When I prepared these a few days ago, I remember looking at Lulu when she and I sat at the table for lunch. “Je suis sûre qu’elle va aimer,” (I’m sure she’ll love that) I couldn’t help but think.

That didn’t fail.

She took a small piece in one hand and looked at it cautiously at first, as she always does. Then she grabbed another piece delicately with the other hand, before bringing the food to her mouth and looking at me with a smile in her eyes.

It’s a funny thing to admit but the fact that she ate the râpé enthusiastically really made me happy. Enjoying these just like her papa and her maman.

Tomorrow is Christmas. It’s the day when many of you, and us too, will celebrate with family and friends. For us, it’s also the day when last year, our little Lulu was born. The meaning of Christmas has completely changed since then; life has never tasted as sweet since our daughter has been with us.

She is truly the best Christmas gift that we will ever have. What an amazingly rich journey this year will have been! I wonder what 2010 will keep ahead…

Have a wonderful celebration! My best wishes for this end of year and for the next.

And many thanks for being such a fantastic crowd on the other side of the screen! Between the writing of my book and taking care of Lulu, I might not have been as present, but know that every email and comment you wrote was special and meant a lot. Merci !

Joyeux Noël et bonne année à tous !

When I was a young girl growing up in France, Sundays were often the days when my mother cooked a boeuf aux carottes (beef stew with carrots) during the winter. She’d start cooking hers early in the morning, leaving it to simmer on the stove for a few hours. The aromas of onion, sauteed meat, wine and spices made the house smell like lazy mornings and Sundays and hachis parmentier. Oh yes! She’d always make sure to prepare a large pot of stew so that she could use what was left the next day, to prepare stuffed squashes or hachis parmentier.

That thought inspired these two recipes (check the boeuf aux carottes recipe here, and the winter squashes here), which I wrote for Sunday Supper, the new food column in the Boston Globe.

I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as we did. They’re lovely meal ideas of honest traditional French food.

What my mother knows how to make so well.

I know. I am not writing a lot in this space these days, but I promise that there’s a lot of food prepared in my kitchen. I sometimes wonder how comes it disappears so quickly!

Anyway, while I am trying to find time to write something that will sound cohesive — yes, well, let’s just add that I sent my book manuscript to my editor last week, so I am feeling deflated for words — at least I can show you what we enjoyed today for dessert.

Our Sunday treat.

It’s the sweetest thing: I woke up thinking chocolate! I wanted a chocolate dessert.

The dessert was going to have a dark chocolate with character, coconut milk, and lightly sweetened meringues baked on top. I had already made chocolate creams last week and thought to bake another batch, adding a meringue on top — a lovely idea that I was inspired to try from a recipe found in a recent copy of the French food magazine Saveurs.

Swoon.

The creams were delicate and deliciously smooth. They tasted like December and snow and winter and I-want-to-make-a nest-inside. That alone made me suddenly realize that Christmas is just at the corner.

It made me think about that exact same day last year, when our beautiful bébé Lulu was born. Can it be one year ago already?

Somehow, the memory of that magical, powerful and incredible time of our life came back, leaving us emotional. I remember the pavlova I baked the day we left quietly for the hospital, and the cakes I had baked one day before.

My head is filled with those vivid images. They make us feel cozy.

Ready to enjoy this upcoming family time. In our small nest.

With chocolate.

For Lulu’s birthday.

On Sundays, we like to find a nice spot for a walk. A special one that allows us to appreciate the beauty of the season that is passing. Yesterday, this is where it took us. We saw cows and sheep and goats and chicken and pigs, and when we returned home, I baked and made a salmon poached in olive oil dinner while Lulu took a long nap.

And while Perry Blake was playing on the stereo, I peeled and diced a butternut squash to yet make another large pot of steaming wintry soup.

For lunch today. And probably the next.

That’s one of the many reasons why I love the fall. You too?

And by the way, a few days ago, exactly on November 26th, this blog turned 4. Isn’t it also ironical that my very first post talked about food photography? I had no idea….It’s been four amazing and fulfilling years, with so many joys–the best thing I’ve ever *baked*–and foods cooked, styled and photographed. Needless to say that I am very thankful for you, my dear readers, to be coming back to say hello. This place would obviously be very different without you.

Encore merci!

When I traveled to France this summer, my family and I had lunch a few times at the restaurant l’écluse 16–only ten kilometers away from where my parents live. I really enjoy the place, not only because of its quiet, off-the-beaten-path location by a canal, à la campagne (in the countryside), but also because Leroux, the chef and talent in the kitchen, is a man who creates inventive eye-catching foods that showcase the best local ingredients. I wanted to write about the place. And so I did, in the Boston Globe food section last week.

If you are interested, especially if you plan a trip in this part of France, you can find the article here.

In the meantime, here are a few snapshots I took when we ate there in the summer. And oh, yes, if you wondered, we ate all the foods that you see. Vraiment délicieux ! and worth the détour.

She was holding the small apple tight between her delicate hands. It was colored with beautiful shades of red, orange and yellow blending harmoniously. It was also perfect in size for her. She was casually leaning against P.’s chest but didn’t even seem to notice as she was too engrossed in observing the apple — her new treasure. Right. Left. Up. Down. And again, turning the apple with her fingers.

Lulu seemed so happy, sitting on the grass between P.’s legs, that we simply wanted to stay quiet and watch, eager to prolong the moment. It was the first apple picked right from the tree that she was holding.

It was one of those perfect days in late September in New England, when the sky is blue, the light has a warming yellow hue and the air is crisp, and we had decided to drive to an organic farm forty minutes outside of Boston, to go apple picking. We hadn’t gone yet this year, so we were especially looking forward to the day. We wanted it special for Lulu. I wanted to bring apples home to make compote, tarts and clafoutis.

There were still late summer raspberries and plenty of apples to pick and when we arrived, the place wasn’t too busy — I liked it that way. One family was eating a picnic under a tree with their one year old baby boy toddling hesitantly, which made Lulu very amused. We sat down on a large blanket next to them and ate our lunch. I had tossed together something quick but nourishing, a quinoa salad with cherry tomatoes, avocado and ricotta salata, and we finished with a piece of goat cheese, plain sheep milk yogurt — Lulu’s favorite — and oatmeal cookies.

I carried Lulu on my back while we picked the fruit and, once our baskets were full with raspberries and apples, we sat down again in the shade of an apple tree. It’ll be peaceful, I thought. But I was far from imagining how pleasant it would be.

“Tiens, prends la pomme,” (Take the apple) I told Lulu, holding a small red apple in front of her. She looked at it and then looked at me. Then she looked at P., as if to receive more reassurance. She paused and then smiled. Her eyes were lit with a spark that seemed to be smiling too. It was something special. She knew it. She reached for the apple and took it delicately between her hands and, while P. and I each ate an apple, she kept looking at hers, playing with it in her hands, bringing it to her mouth, feeling the texture of its soft skin against her lips, learning how to bite in it. It perhaps lasted for fifteen or twenty minutes. Surely more. She never let go of the apple. And later in the afternoon, when she fell asleep as we were driving home, she was still holding the apple tight in one hand.

Back at the house, I baked apple clafoutis. And the next day, I stewed apples with spices that made the house smell like fallen leaves in the forest and September in early fall.

Note that in French, a clafoutis aux pommes (apple clafoutis) is often called a flognarde.

Moules marinières — mussels cooked in white wine, shallot and parsley — is a French classic. It’s also a dish that P. and I adore, especially if the dish is paired with thin oven baked fries on the side — our favorite are parsnips and carrots (these are yellow carrots!)

This is exactly the kind of dish I wanted to prepare for my most recent contribution to the Seasons column in the Boston Globe.

In fact, I made the recipe last week when my mother was visiting. She helped to clean the mussels — and I was glad since we bought three kilos — and gulp down the food. Because whenever there are mussels and fries for dinner, this is exactly what we end up doing! I am not sure how much each of us ate, but by looking at the pile of mussel shells on the table, I guess it was a lot. Then, I shelled the remaining mussels, kept the broth, and the next day, prepared a dish of spaghetti and sauteed julienned vegetables in which I added the reserved mussels and broth. Scrumptious!

In this mussel recipe, the flavor of the white wine-based broth is boosted with the addition of an earthy spice like saffron, orange bell pepper for a touch of color, and crème fraiche for smoothness. Make sure not to forget a loaf of crusty bread on the side, to sop up the broth.

It’s simple but delicious! The kind of honest food that tastes even better eaten with your fingers, making sure to lick them afterward.

“Tu ne peux pas partir avant d’avoir mangé des tomates farcies!” (You cannot leave before eating stuffed tomatoes) my mother exclaimed as she walked in the kitchen with a basket full of tomatoes picked in the garden. Of course not! Les tomates du jardin (tomatoes from the garden) are always delectable, making me never want to buy a tomato ever again. And her recipe for tomates farcies is a must-have-right-now.

And like my mother, whether using tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant or peppers, during the summer, I love to stuff vegetables. Don’t you? Just like in the recipe of these stuffed eggplants.

It’s a recipe that I wrote for the Seasons column of the Boston Globe. I like to vary the stuffing. Sometimes, I’ll make one using ground veal and pork, or beef. At other times, it’s going to be rice or quinoa with grated vegetables, spices and herbs in a vegetarian version.

Here, the recipe calls for Italian eggplants (I prefer them because they are smaller, tastier and easy to stuff) and a stuffing combining ricotta, ham, coriander, tomatoes, the flesh of the eggplants and a generous amount of freshly grated pecorino. It’s honest, humble food. It’s a dish simple to make, one that you can prepare ahead of time and reheat at the last minute when you want to spend more time outside.

I hope you enjoy it!