On a roll: Souvenir

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 A carefully stored bread roll from a get together at Le Grand Villalin, Quincy, Cher. A few years old now, preserve dried with the memory of friends, music, food and wine.

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Green lemon moments

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  It was a green lemon moment.  It happened when translating  citron vert   for a menu I was working on.   It would be nice to say that my rendition was due to pressure of time or working late at night but no, from a French language perspective, it was a basic school day error. The translation should of course have been lime .  I realised and self-corrected my mistake for a later version but the original menu had already been circulated.  You can guess: Blush and red now added to the colour palette of lemon, green and lime. However: The interesting thing is that green lemons do exist and they are not limes.  Although lemons and limes are from the same plant family they are not the same fruit.  In fact, some supermarkets recently had to compensate for shortages of lemons - you know the yellow ones - by selling green lemons.  Now they are the same fruit at different stages of ripeness, with the green ones having some days extra s...
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Idiomatic wine labels

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Browsing the wine section at my local supermarket, I suddenly stopped as I found it interesting to come across these bottles with French idioms on their labels.  Varietals / Grape Varieties More about their meanings below, meantime the varietal names, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay are by now so well known to wine consumers that they need no further explanation.  If it were a competition varietals would win among local consumers. In many establishments that's all that is offered.  However, most of the wine in France is bottled with regional or estate names and may not immediately recommend themselves to those who select their wine according to grape variety - Chablis, for example is a Chardonnay.   We're getting there but it may take a while longer until outlets and the wine consuming public develop greater confidence with LaBel(le)France  And that's why these labels are such a good idea.  They create  a splash of fun with the language and...
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Françoise HARDY - 12 juin 2024

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  Françoise HARDY has left us at the age of 80.  Time then to revisit her reflective 2018 album, Personne d'Autre.  The sleeve notes record: "Pour des tas de raisons raisonnables, je n'envisageais pas de refaire un album".   So pleased that she did make it thanks to conversations between her and producer Erick BENZI.    The last track of the album, Un mal qui fait du bien was co-written in September 2017 with Thierry STREMLER.  The final couplet roughly translates as "I stop there, I hold back; neither last word nor final word..." It says:  "j'arrête là,  je me retiens ; ni dernier mot ni mot de la fin..."
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The Parisianer

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Spending a bit of time browsing recently I came across a post on the Lost in Cheeseland  blog.  It related to a creative arts project that needs funding to ensure its success. No different, you might think, from any other project but what I liked in addition to the theme itself was its funding model.  More in a moment. The project is called The Parisianer and the idea is that 100 artists/illustrators will share 100 pictures capturing the essence of Paris.  At the end of this year there will be an exhibition, a book and posters of the artwork. To succeed the project needs financial backing and rather than chasing grants or money from other sources it uses the concept of CrowdFunding fuelled by social media.  People share details of the project on their social networks and if they are so minded contribute to specified subscription ranges. When the project is realised they are sent the items listed for the respective price bands. If insufficient funds are rai...
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Surréalisme 1971 - together and apart

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"Make sure," advised the museum art curator, "to always buy the catalogue of important art exhibitions you attend." She explained that a great deal of time and effort would have gone into bringing the various items together from different collections or galleries around the world. It would be fairly certain that those pictures would never again be together in the same exhibition. Since that talk to our French Cercle around 15 years ago I've heeded her advice as often as interest and wallet would allow. Pity I wasn't aware of her good counsel for one exhibition I attended when I had just turned 20 and when such advice was beyond my maturity.  Still, that exhibition left an indelible mark and an enduring appreciation. Surrealist exhibition It was 1971 in Bordeaux on a free day away from summer camp duties as  moniteurs a group of us visited the Galerie des Beaux-Arts which was hosting an exhibition on Surréalisme. We recognised of course some of the artists...
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Étagères - bookshelves

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We recently took a mid-week break in one of our more prestigious hotels and among the facilities I spotted on arrival was a small library space but with expansive shelves. Books!  Forget about the spa; a reading nook is my pamper place.  Getting absorbed in a book is something that I really enjoy and what a delight it was to find these volumes from the Masterpiece Library of Short Stories.  Naturally I picked the one marked FRENCH Volumes 3 and 4.  Look at the contents page in the second photo above.  Wouldn't you be tempted to spend an hour or two?  Well, I was and that's just what I did.  It was time well spent. What a labour of love it must have been for editor Sir JA Hammerton and his board of eminent critics under the auspices of The Educational Book Company to compile these volumes of stories across countries and time periods. The books, dating from the early twentieth century, naturally show signs of age, wear and tear ...
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Wine and Cheese in Belfast

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It was a first visit to OXCave in Oxford Street, Belfast and the good reports that we had heard turned out to be fully justified.  It was great. As a cheese lover it was nice to be informed about each variety and to pick a selection from the large board: Over on the counter, under a glass cloche, sat a huge tranche of Comte. The staff member said that the way it was served had proved to be very popular - it came grated with truffle honey. Here's the tranche: and the plate of the prepared cheese with truffle honey: It certainly was an interesting combination, packed with flavour. As a wine lover, with a strong preference for European, and as you would expect from the title of my blog, especially French wines it was equally good to have a knowledgeably offered choice.  This one was very nice indeed: A nice first visit... We'll be back again soon.
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