francofiled

One of the parties in the French Presidential and Legislative Assembly elections brought its campaign to Belfast yesterday in the person of Parti Socialiste candidate, Axelle Lemaire. She came hoping to enlist the support of French people living here who are registered voters back home in France. For the Presidential elections, French people can vote by proxy or using a ballot box at one of 9 centres throughout the UK. For elections to the Legislative Assembly, which take place in June they have an even greater choice being able to use: ballot box, proxy, mail and for the very first time the Internet. Axelle explained that also for the first time, two and a half million French people living abroad would be able to elect 11 députés to represent them at the Assemblée Nationale . The constituency, La 3ème circonscription - Europe du Nord , is expansive, comprising the 10 countries of the UK, Ireland, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. T...

The Calvados evening went well. A little sample was offered and those driving had theirs tightly wrapped in cling film to taste later. Had a nice Domfront cheese to go with it but found out today that Sawyers Deli is selling Calvados Camembert! Need to get a picture to share here. Santé

A week to go until my talk on Calvados. It is intended as a collection of faits divers, drawing on historical, geographical, literary and culinary aspects. At the heart of the evening will be a degustation of this hors d'age bottle of the famous spirit. Plenty of content still to be added yet and it may help to pour a small sample just to let the inspiration flow.

Bonjour Paris - Recipe: Galette des Rois or Epiphany Cake of the Kings

I've always loved to eat flan. As a language assistant, walking a couple of kilometres to school each morning, I would stop to buy une part de flan . A sweet, onctious breakfast that had it not been for the walk would have added several kilos over the year in Vierzon. Old habits die hard and so a stay in France is not complete without a trip to a patisserie to remind the taste buds of a tried and tested treat. The patissier looked on as I was served one of the few remaining portions of his creation. He seemed pleased at my appreciation as I took it to a table outside. It is said that one eats first with one's eyes, so I took a while to survey and savour. It was a generous portion, one and half centimetres deep with a lovely amber glaze on top of a golden yellow custard, dusted at the rim with icing sugar. Perfectly set, firm yet yielding to the touch of fingers that would soon break the portion into smaller parts. And in the mouth, as so many times over the past 40 year...

Although I have quite a large collection of French films on video and DVD I thought it would be interesting to check out the capabilities of my new iPad and download a film from iTunes. Ne le dis à personne is a 2006 thriller from director Guillaume Canet and it certainly lived up to the promise of its accompanying notes. It got a César award for best director and had a further two nominations. Adapted from a novel by US author Harlan Coben , it follows a series of twists and turns when Dr Alexandre Beck receives an email from his wife, Margot, who he believes was murdered 8 years earlier. I’ll not spoil the plot but it was 5 star and gripping from start to finish. You can check out the bande annonce (trailer) at AlloCiné here. Something I noticed early on was that both the camera work and dialogue were “bright”. This made the whole film very easy to follow. Although there were subtitles these too were clear and unlike some films didn’t get in the way of enjoyment. ...