This coming week is an important one for me. February 7th. The day when my cookbook is officially released.

Finally!

I couldn’t be happier.

My cookbook, entitled La Tartine Gourmande: Recipes for an Inspired Life, will be sold in numerous bookstores all across the country, like Barnes and Noble or Indigo bookstores in Canada, on Amazon of course, and in a lot of other gift and pretty boutique stores (hello Anthropologie, I am so pleased you are welcoming my book!)

And for a preview, visit this link.

In any case, for all of you who already have a copy, or will receive one soon, many many thanks for your support. You make a difference.

I know well that my book took its time to come out. After all, I announced it already in January 2009! But it was worth the wait as I am really happy with the way it came out.

It is ready. Cuit à point.

One of my challenges was to accept the fact that not every single one of my recipes would go inside the book (I know, Sara, this book would be so long…); It was also to refrain from wanting to redo every picture; and accept the fact that I would not have all the pictures that I wanted inside either.

We made choices.

I think they are good ones.

On Wednesday February 8th, I will have a book signing at a lovely boutique called Pod, in Brookline village, from 5 to 7 PM. There will be treats. If you live close to where I am, I hope to see you there.

Hello everyone,

Thank you for your interest in our Food Photography & Styling Workshop! We are opening up official registration today.

Here’s a little more information about our workshop:

• Student rate: $2,250 US
• Non-student rate*: $1,650 US (includes accommodation, same meals and drinks as those offered in the workshop). Limited spots are available.




*A non-student rate is for people who are not attending the workshop but want to accompany an attendee (ie a spouse)

Beside soaking in the French culture (hello farmer’s markets, and French village life!), and a lot of hands-on exercices to teach you food styling and photography (we’ll cover from camera basics, use of Lightroom and Photoshop, to lighting), included in the workshop are:

We strongly recommend that students who want to attend the workshop own a SLR camera, if their main interest for attending the workshop is food photography.

How to register:

Registrants will then receive an email (and later a contract to be signed and returned to us), and details on how to submit a $300 US non-refundable deposit to confirm their registration.

In case the list is filled, potential attendees will be placed on a waiting list.

Confirmed attendees will then receive a detailed (but tentative) itinerary, and more details about how to complete the full registration.

We hope to see you there! We are excited to make this happen with you all.

Béa & Lara

Bonjour à tous,

Cela fait déjà un certain temps que mon amie Lara et moi parlons d’organiser un atelier de stylisme et de photographie culinaire ensemble. Alors voilà ! Ca y est. On se jette à l’eau. Nous avons réussi à trouver une date qui nous convient à toutes le deux. Et nous avons trouvé un endroit magnifique.

Dans notre beau pays. La France….

Nous aurons davantage de détails dans les jours qui viennent, mais nous voulions partager avec vous l’essentiel de cet atelier:

Faites-nous savoir si vous êtes intéressés et nous confirmerons les dates.

On espère vous rencontrer très vite.

Hello everyone,

It’s been a while now since my friend Lara and I started talking about running a food styling and photography workshop together. Yes! It took us some time to find a time when it both fitted our schedules. Yet we had found an amazing place to run it.

In my homeland.

We will have full details available soon *but* today, we’d like to share the essence of the workshop with you:

Let us know whether you are interested so that we can confirm this time slot!

We cannot wait to meet you there.

I forgot to tell you on thing.

Back in early December, I wrote a cauliflower recipe for the Boston Globe. I had found beautifully colored varieties of cauliflower at the market and I fell in love. I bought more than I needed, but I yet knew I would find home to these jewels. They are irresistible, even when you don’t care much for cauliflower.

Because I am French, the idea of a gratin came naturally to me. So I prepared a cauliflower gratin. A light one. One where the vegetables are topped with a mixture of fresh herbs, ground nuts, crème fraiche (of course!), grated cheese and garlic. One that lets the vegetable breathe and lead the dance.

I simply love this recipe. I hope you do too. The recipe was published on December 28, and I simply missed to let you know….

I wanted to start the new year with delicious salads. Made with légumes secs (legumes), vegetables, and fruit. Offering zest and crunch. With mixed flavors of the earth and sea.

This verrine recipe has it all. It showcases black chickpeas, which I had never used before. I simply fell in love with its unusual color…

Yesterday, on the 1st of January, we had a picnic at the beach. I cannot begin to tell you how excited Lulu was at the idea! And how both P. and I were looking forward to it too!

“On va faire un pique-nique à la plage,” Lulu kept repeating to my mum on Skype while helping me to pack a picnic basket.

The truth is that we could not have dreamed of a more glorious day.

Oh the weather my dear readers! “What happened to winter?” we’ve been wondering….

It felt mild and calm outside. So sunny. So soft. Similar to a day in late summer or early fall.

After the holidays, Sunday was the first day when P., Lulu, and I were alone again. All family had returned home. The house felt too big. Too empty. I wanted that day at the beach. I knew it’d feel soothing to be outdoors.

To clear our heads…

We packed simple foods: A thermos filled with African Roobois tea; slices of chocolate cake; clementines and sheep yogurt; and our black chickpea, crab and fennel salad. Next time, I might even add finely shaved jicama or red grapes in it.

It might sound like it was the perfect day.

It really was.

Quiet.

Calm.

Reflective and full of lightness.

We were lucky.

Hopefully, it is setting the tone for the year to come?

Happy New Year to you all! May this new one bring happiness and love and fulfillment in whatever area that is dear to you.

May you be inspired to cook! In one of my next posts, I will share more pictures reflective of the past year….

I’m holding this moment close to my heart. On Christmas day, we celebrated Lulu’s birthday.

She turned three. I am amazed we are already there.

It’s an amazing age of innocence and curiosity for every detail of life. The time when her world is filled with teddy bears, butterfly stickers, coloring pencils and markers, hot chocolate sipped with a straw, Charlie and Lola, kitties, puzzles, doudous, T’Choupi books and legos. Lots of openness and love. And what’s this, qu’est-ce que c’est, and what’s that questions about the world in which she is growing.

I’m in love with this age. I’m in love with her exponentially.

For the first time since Lulu’s birth, my parents were with us for this special time.

The perfect occasion to build together a lovely French Christmas celebration–I was really excited.

My mother and I spent a lot of time together in my kitchen. That was where she felt comfortable. It made me happy to watch her make it her creative space.

Most days, we cooked simple meals. Every day foods that I’ve learned to cook by my mother’s side. One day, it was an organic chicken flavored with garlic and a bouquet garni that she prepared with mashed sunchoke and potatoes. Another day, she treated us with braised fennel served with wild Alaskan salmon and short brown rice, and we also begged, Lulu included, that she cooked her petit salé, an old favorite.

Foods we were so glad to eat after taking walks to the farm and at the park.

On the day of Lulu’s birthday party held a week before the day, she even pulled together a large dish of paella to feed a crowd.

Next to her, I prepared custards and chocolate cakes and muffins and puddings.

“C’est toi qui t’occuperas de faire les desserts, (You’ll be in charge of making desserts) she told me on the first night after they’d arrived.

Because between the two of us, I’ve always been the one known to make desserts.

To have them taste some of our daily favorite dishes, I prepared lentil soups and spaghetti with vegetables and langoustines.

We ate lunch and dinner in the French manner with baguette, cheese and salade verte to seal our meals–my dad is so French about it.

I liked to watch my mother create our meals. They came effortless to her. In a beautiful sort of way.

And so quite naturally, we ended up giving our Christmas an obvious French flair.

I don’t know whether you know this, but for the French, le réveillon de Noël–the dinner eaten the day preceding Christmas–is as important as Christmas day. It’s when the festivities start late in the night with family members gathering around a table filled with out-of-the-ordinary delicacies.

I keep lovely memories of our réveillons: smoked salmon and snails and an array of colorful amuse-bouches were treats that we’d enjoy after going to midnight mass. On Christmas day, when my dad was busy opening oysters and a bottle of champagne, my mother would prepare scallops or foie gras with onion jam, chapon (capon), duck, pintade (guineafowl) or game meat which she’d serve with seasonal petits légumes and airelle relish. Invariably, my brother and I kept our eyes and interest largely riveted on the chocolate bûche de Noël that always finished our meal.

I wanted that our Christmas spent together had a little bit of it all.

Together, my mother and I imagined tradition in our menu. But as the words fresh, colorful, and earthy kept popping inside my head, I knew that our foods would have a bit of each. And, since neither my mother nor father had seen my book before, the idea to cook from it made sense as well.

It really felt right to make it happen in that way.

So we did it.

On the night of the réveillon, we ate delicious, plump and sweet oysters from Island Creek Oyster Farm. We enjoyed a mâche and scallop salad dish, from the same recipe I had imagined for the Christmas the year before. I loved that it was so easy to make, but so eye-catching too with its pretty finely sliced potato galettes arranged on top. And then I prepared a veal tajine with preserved lemons, Turkish dried apricots and millet, and a homemade raspberry sorbet for dessert.

“Avec les cookies du père Noël !” Lulu had exclaimed excitedly as she was pulling a plate filled with the cookies that she and I had prepared in the afternoon for Santa Claus.

Then, on Christmas day, we used recipes from my book: Endives leaves with roquefort, grapes, radishes dressed in a pistachio vinaigrette served as an amuse-bouche; dressed-up crab and avocado appetizer (I used a fresh leg of cooked crab to replace fresh salmon in the recipe). Then, my mother cooked cailles aux raisins (quails with grapes) and a potato gratin dauphinois, two French classics. And I made a raspberry charlotte which brought oh and ah to the table when Lulu caught sight of the three small candles lit on top of it.

“Souffle fort !” (Blow !) we encouraged her while singing “Joyeeeuuuux aannniversaaaiiire, joyeux anniiivvveerrsaaiire Lulu” (Happy Birthday) in French.

She was beaming. She looked touchingly shy. But so happy with all of us gathered around her.

She is a Christmas baby.

She had just turned three.

And she looked beautiful.

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas celebration. And will have a wonderful night to enter into the new year. Can you believe that we are so close to 2012 already? My last post of 2011.

Bonne année ! I will talk to you next in 2012!

Back in October, when there were still gorgeous looking homegrown apples around us, we could leave the kitchen windows open and walk outside bare legged, I met Margaret and Max for the first time. Together, we shot the video trailer for my cookbook.

Margaret and Max are the talented photographer duo behind Unusually Fine. Working with them was simply delightful.

I will keep wonderful memories of us all, working in my kitchen.

Of them making me feel so comfortable because of course!, I felt nervous–especially about the speaking part of the shoot.

Of us sitting around the table for an impromptu lunch between two video sessions.

Then, spending an afternoon apple picking close to where we live.

Of the generosity the members of my publishing house –Julie, Megan, Sara–expressed when they came to work with us.

Of Lulu making and enjoying chocolate crêpes with me. And us eating apple verrines and tartlets, beet millefeuilles, and pistachio with poppyseeds financiers–a few recipes from my cookbook.

Of seeing M. & M. drive in their old and cute red Volkswagen pickup. There was a sense of joy and such simplicity about it.

Of the uplifted and sparkling energy we felt throughout the house during the time of the shoot.

I discovered the video only a few days ago. And I truly hope that you’ll enjoy it, imagining the fun time we had when we made it.

Today, a few days after the release, my cookbook was mentioned in the radio show The Callie Crossley Show on WGBH and then, in the New York Times Diner’s Journal, in an article written by Emily Weinstein called Coming to a Bookstore By You!

Wow. I am really honored. And touched.

Needless to say that between these 3 press events, the current visit of my parents, Lulu’s big birthday party last weekend–I am so thankful for the paella my mother cooked for over twenty five guests–it’s been a pretty fulfilling (and full), and happy week in our household.

Filled with scrumptious foods, and generous moments around the table.

Merci à tous ! And happy holidays to all! I will be back with more stories and recipes very soon, when the regular routine of our life resumes.

Hello everyone,

I wish I could be here more often these days but it’s just not happening right now. We have renovation going on upstairs in our house, side projects, my parents arriving next week, and simply the business of every day life–we are all on the same boat, aren’t we? I cannot wait to be back with stories and pictures, though, so much thanks for your patience. For those of you I will meet this coming Saturday for the book signing, I am really super happy. It will be such a special moment for me.

In any case, today, I am still saying hello, with a recipe I wrote a while ago for the Boston Globe. You know how much I love celeriac. The French often do. Do you remember this soup, this salad, and this tart?

I even have another new soup recipe in my cookbook: hello celeriac, sweet potato and apple soup with parsley oil and marjoram!

I hope you will enjoy them all. The recipe for Mashed Celeriac and Potato can be found here.

If you have been a regular reader of this blog, you know that, about one month and a half ago, I launched the presale of my cookbook, La Tartine Gourmande: Recipes for an Inspired Life.

I recently reflected on the making of the book, realizing that I didn’t talk a lot about the process involved to complete the project. In view of this, I thought that it’d be nice to share tidbits with you today.

Such as tell you that, unlike perhaps what you might have thought, there weren’t roses all the way. Like with every life process, there were bumps and uncertainties. Delays. A lot of going back and forth. Redoing. Rewriting. I had a lot of work in my hands since, while writing, styling and photographing the book, I was also learning to become a mother–oh yes, do you remember that I started my book project when I was pregnant with Lulu? On Christmas day, she will turn three, so this gives you an indication of the time involved in the making of my book.

To my surprise, I was told it was completely normal.

I’ve been lucky though. During the months and years, I constantly received support and encouragement from Sara, my editor, and Shambhala Publications Inc., my publishing house. My book was going to be part of Roost Books, a line of books focusing on everyday activities that nourish and enrich our lives–they published Amanda Soule‘s books too (from the popular blog Soule Mama).

What I want to tell you today is that I am very proud of the result. Of the style and feel of my book, the design and quality of the images printed inside. It’s a highly illustrated book. It’s an intimate book. And I really think that it turned out beautifully. It has the feel that this blog has–this is just what I had been dreaming about all along.

On December 10th, I will be having my first book signing in Boston. I am delighted. Excited. Feeling shy and nervous too. All of it.

The lovely Maggie from Eat Boutique kindly invited me to be part of the Holiday Local Market held at Made in Fort Point. There will be yummy food (check the list of food makers) and other cookbook authors present, such as Judy Rosenberg and Erin Buyers Murray. The event is free. I am sure that it will be fun and filled with lots of interesting people. I will be there from 1 to 3 PM, with some food, books and my pen. So I really hope that, if you live in the Boston area, or are willing to travel, I will finally get a chance to meet some of you. That’s what makes the whole experience even more real. And human.

Non?

Also, I would like to thank each of you who kindly emailed me with feedback, or tweeted, about the book. Each one of your messages is special.

Alors, un grand merci !