I have to say that I do like French baguettes and patisserie in general (see my post on Tarte aux Pommes), although sometimes French baguettes can have a hard crust that scrapes the inside of the mouth.

I can’t see the French wanting to import British bread, especially the sliced white type - sacrebleu!

I’ve found an apple frangipane tart recipe on Waitrose’s website, which looks just as good, but will involve a bit more labour - enjoy!

However, many French take the opportunity to ‘faire le pont’, which means they bridge to the weekend if the holiday falls on a Tuesday or a Thursday. Two of this years’ holidays are on Thursdays, so no doubt most French won’t work on 1st or 2nd May. To add to their holidays even more, the 8th May holiday will no doubt turn into 5 days as they’ll take off 8 & 9 May, plus 12 May. Oh, to be in France in May!!

So, not only do the French do very well with public holidays, they are also the world leaders in the number of days holiday they have per year, according to the Daily Telegraph - 37 on average in total!

Along with the pictorial vocabulary guide as they call it, there are grammar lessons and some readings to follow with audio.

According to a post on ‘Talking Retail’ this week

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love a good cheese and there is such a wide choice available nowadays to suit all tastes, strong ones and milder ones which I prefer. Not only does France have a diverse range of cheeses, but so does the UK. There are some great British ones to be had too (I love Cornish Yarg).

As for French cheeses, I like a good goat’s cheese, ‘tomme’ (mountain cheese) and emmenthal, but am not so keen on camembert. When it comes to buying brie (in the UK), I often go for the ‘Somerset’ variety!

For those of you who would like a few pointers, here’s an article on how their eating habits keep them slim:

11 Reasons Of French Paradox - in a nutshell, eat less (don’t eat all those croissants at once!), drink red wine (but not the whole bottle!), get some exercise and eat lots of fresh fruit & veg. Mostly things we already know, but don’t like to adhere to!

 The debate on ethically produced food is really starting to heat up, not only with boycotts on traditionally produced food such as foie gras, which is a delicacy in France, but  recently in the UK too with high profile campaigns such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Chicken Out campaign to encourage people to eat free range and organically produced chickens, instead of cheaply reared broiler chickens. Veal is another meat that has been hotly debated.

Will the British public follow the royals’ ban on foie gras? That remains to be seen - many top restaurants will continue to serve it until they find an alternative that tastes as good as the traditionally produced foie gras. This was Gordon Ramsay’s take on the subject after trying ethically produced foie gras from Spain on an edition of the F-Word.

This follows on from my last post that more and more French people are choosing to relocate to the UK because work opportunities are so much better. For them, perhaps it’s not so much ‘vive la France’, but ‘vive l’Angleterre’!

I have several French friends over here and their main reason for staying is work. One friend has been looking to return to France but hasn’t found any jobs anywhere near as good as his job here, so it’s just not worth moving. Another friend has a high flying job over here and knows she would never have got such a well paid job back in France. Another friend of mine’s husband works in the States as a software engineer, no doubt earning far more there than he ever would back in France.

There are many positive things about France such as the quality of life, traditions, food, beautiful countryside that are so appealing to us Brits. I think many more of us would like to live in France if it weren’t for the fact that earning money could be so difficult (including me!). Just have to make do with holidays there for the time being!

Here’a recipe if you’re interested in making them, though definitely not for those of you on a diet!