I’ve recently found some great food blogs and although strictly speaking they’re not about ‘French’ food, they have a French flavour to them. I think these blogs are definitely worth sharing, particularly if you enjoy your food like I do and they’re a little bit quirky, giving snippets about the writers, so giving the blogs a personal touch.
French Laundry at Home is an excellent account of one lady’s efforts to reproduce the dishes made at the exclusive French Laundry Restaurant in California, which has received many food awards globally and in the top 10 best restaurants in the world. Evidence on the blog shows that she must be a great cook to be able to successfully make what look like quite complicated recipes.
Whisk: A Food Blog is a well written account of the author wishing she had followed a cookery school course, so has set up her own cookery school at home and teaching herself from a variety of sources including Le Cordon Bleu.
La Tartine Gourmande is a food blog written in French and English, so each recipe is in both languages. Some of the recipes are a little bit different, and with great photography, makes the food look very appetising!
I’m going to be looking out for French language food blogs too, so will do a food blog update in another post!
Getting the French to Work was a Radio 4 programme today interviewing French Finance Minister, Christine Lagarde, discussing the economic reforms which Sarkozy is currently undertaking, one of them being extending the 35 hour week. As you can imagine, it’s a heated subject among the French who value their family time and don’t see why they should work longer hours, with many of them comfortable in a civil service job offering good benefits and pensions.
However, Sarkozy wants to boost the French economy, and one of the ways he’s doing this is to give businesses the option of extending the working week. France has one of the lowest working hours in Europe and with an ageing population (as with many countries), the state benefits have to be paid one way or another. Many workers take long weekends, especially when a public holiday falls on a week day (which I’ve mentioned in a previous post) which is a problem for many businesses.
The other side of the coin however is that the French value family time and aren’t driven by money as much as other nations, such as the British and Americans (I don’t think the ‘work hard play hard’ mentality exists much in France, which isn’t a bad thing in my mind). Also many self employed people in France end up working very long hours to keep their business going because of the high amount of taxes they have to pay, which doesn’t encourage people to set up their own businesses.
I’m going to be keeping an interest in this debate to see how successful Sarkozy is in shaking up the French economy!
Tomorrow sees the last French Grand Prix at the Magny Cours race circuit in Nevers. It’s not a particularly popular race among the drivers and it’s remoteness, being pretty much in the middle of France, means it’s quite difficult to get to, with teams finding it inaccessible. BlogF1 has a bit more about the reasons for Bernie Ecclestone wanting to pull out of this particular meeting, and some discussion as to whereabouts in France it should be held in the future.
I’m not sure that Lewis Hamilton will do terribly well either as although qualifying well, he has a penalty for driving up the back of Kimi Raikkonen in the pit lane at the Canadian Grand Prix which means he has to start 10 places behind wherever he qualifies. It’s unlikely to be a particularly spectacular event!
This weekend (14/15 June) sees the 76th 24 Heures du Mans, with a race which is sure to get the locals rising from their seats in excitement. For this year sees the duel of the diesels with the Audis looking under threat from main rivals Peugeot. The first race was held at the Circuit de la Sarthe on the 26/27th May 1923 and has seen no end of triumphs and tragedies. It seems half of the fans who make the annual pilgrimage to the circuit are British, many getting there a few days before to get the party atmosphere started.
Interestingly the only person ever to win Le Mans in a car bearing his own name was Jean Rondeau, who lived in Le Mans and won there in 1980. Jean used to test drive his car around the streets late at night, the gendarmes often turning a blind eye to his activities.
If you’re going to Le Mans this weekend, lucky you and have a great time. Please let us know about the race, we’d love to hear your comments!
To remind you of the atmosphere of the occasion, I’ve found a clip on YouTube which you may find interesting from the 1999 Season. It’s about 7 minutes long.
I’ve just finished reading this French novel by Laurent Gaudé and it’s the first French novel I’ve read for about 17 years! I had my reservations about reading it when it was lent to me by my French teacher as I really thought I would struggle with it and not get through it. However, I persevered, helped by the fact that each chapter is quite short. OK, I didn’t understand every word in the book, but found it relatively easy to follow the plot.
It’s a story about 5 generations of an Italian family living in Puglia from 19th century up to the 1980s and how each generation copes with living in one of the poorest parts of Italy. It’s not a fast paced novel and probably not the sort of novel I’d normally read (I like a good thriller, something I can escape into), but I enjoyed the story nonetheless, more so because I read it in French!
The novel won the Prix Goncourt in 2004 (a French literary prize), so was written quite recently.
We hope you enjoy our posts on anything & almost everything about France. We'd love to hear from you, so please feel free to comment on anything we say!
This month's header image is of a vineyard in the Bourgogne.
A friend is currently selling their house in the Nerac/Agen area, south west France. It's a very pretty property with about 5 bedrooms and plenty of land, just outside the village of Vianne.
You can find out more here: Charming Old Gascon Country House
335,000 euros - a real bargain!
Tomorrow sees the last French Grand Prix at the Magny Cours race circuit in Nevers. It’s not a particularly popular race among the drivers and it’s remoteness, being pretty much in the middle of France, means it’s quite difficult to get to, with teams finding it inaccessible. 
I’ve just finished reading this French novel by Laurent Gaudé and it’s the first French novel I’ve read for about 17 years! I had my reservations about reading it when it was lent to me by my French teacher as I really thought I would struggle with it and not get through it. However, I persevered, helped by the fact that each chapter is quite short. OK, I didn’t understand every word in the book, but found it relatively easy to follow the plot.
