"Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all." -Harriet Van Horne

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to attend cooking school or at the very least cooking classes. When I was in the seventh grade, my mother started teaching cooking classes out of our Newport Beach kitchen. I fell in love with the whole process. First, when my mother would plan the menus, then her “students” (mostly rich Newport Beach women looking to impress their friends at dinner parties) would sign up, then my mother would buy all of the ingredients and prepare and my favorite part was when my mother actually taught the classes. Her enthusiasm was contagious (and funny because she has dyslexia and says everything backwards). Everyone loved my mother’s cooking classes. She taught her students how to make everything from Beef Wellington to Bûche de Noël (with my mother’s famous meringue mushrooms).

 

My mom (isn't she pretty?) and I at our Newport Beach kitchen. My mom is, of course, using her Quisinart. The Wolf range had a built-in wok which I loved.

 

Ever since then, I have been obsessed with cooking school. However, something always gets in my way of attending. In 1989, my senior year of high school at Marymount in Los Angeles, California, everyone was applying to colleges for the following year. I wanted to attend Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris. My parents refused to let go on the grounds that they were worried about “terrorism.” I swear to God that was their excuse. My high school bestie, Giada DeLaurentiis, had more rational parents and she attended Le Cordon Bleu and look at her now! #StillResentMyParents

Flash forward to 1994… I was accepted into the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in New York. I was over the moon happy until… I found out I was preggers with Gracie. #DreamSquashedAgain #GracieWorthIt

Ever since, I have appeased my culinary love with cookbooks, cooking shows, cooking magazines, cooking websites, restaurants, food blogs and I follow every culinary Instagram star I can find. Now that I am living in Provence, I decided I better educate myself with the indigenous cuisine. I am looking forward to learning how to make all of the local specialties…aioli, pissaladière, ratatouille, bouillabaisse, le boeuf en daube, tapenade… You know, the basics. But, I would like to take it a step further and learn some more intricate and lesser-known specialties of Provence. The real Provence. So, I thought it would be wise to sign up for some cooking classes.

As long as I can remember, I have always wanted to take cooking classes from Patricia Wells. Patricia Wells wrote a cookbook in the 1990s called Patricia Wells At Home in Provence and in 2004 wrote another cookbook called The Provence Cookbook. I have been smitten with her ever sense. Mme Wells has offered cooking classes from her 18^th-century farmhouse in Provence since 1996. (She is the Queen of Provence cooking schools.) In total, Mme Wells has written 14 cookbooks, has cooking classes in Paris as well, has received numerous culinary awards and now has a brilliant app for all things culinary in Paris. For her whole bio click HERE.

 

 

 

So, seeing that I now live in Provence, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to fulfill one of my dreams… Attend a Patricia Wells cooking class. Not so fast… All of her classes are sold out through 2017! But I decided, this was my new goal. I’m going to live long enough with my ALS to be able to attend a Patricia Wells weeklong culinary class. #LifeGoal

 

 

 

 

 

And I think all of you should do the same. It never hurt anyone to plan ahead. Wouldn’t it be fun to plan a week in Provence at a cooking school with one of your girlfriends, your mother, your daughter/son or even your husband. My husband would be totally into this, surprisingly. Hold out for one of Patricia Wells classes because they are the best. You can sign up on her website HERE. Even though the cooking classes are sold out through 2017, you can be placed on a waiting list in case there are cancellations. I checked out one of the previous week’s schedules and it gave my heart a flutter. Take a look at a little sampling…

SUNDAY

'WELCOME TO CHANTEDUC' DINNER

Menu:

Champagne
“Inflorescence”
Blanc de Noirs
100% Pinot Noir
Cédric Bouchard
Importer : Polaner Selections

Toasted Pumpkin Seeds
Chanteduc Black Olives with Rosemary
Dates Stuffed with Almonds and Fleur de Sel
Individual Goat Cheese and Onion Gratins

Yveline’sChilled Cucumber, Avocado, and Cilantro Soup
With Avocado Sorbet

Caponata

Slow-Cooked Lamb Shoulder
with Lemons, Olives, Cumin and Cilantro
Epeautre Risotto
Homemade Harissa

Chanteduc Salad: Arugula, Sorrel, Tarragon, Parsley, Oregano, Fennel Fronds, and Cilantro
Dressed with Lemon and Olive Oil Dressing

 

---

MONDAY 

Food Topics:
Knives; kitchen habits, pot sizes; kitchen organization and design; cutting vegetables;  sweating; mis en place; salt

Techniques and menu:

Chanteduc Olive and Caper Tapenade

Soupe au Pistou: Provençal Vegetable Soup with Fresh White Beans
With Light Basil Puree, Gruyère and Parmesan

Individual Cherry Clafoutis
Sheep’s Milk Yogurt and Honey Sorbet

Prepare:
Raspberry Panna Cotta for Tuesday dinner
Galette dough for Monday dinner

Wines:
Tavel Mordorée La Dame Rousse 2014
Grenache, Syrah, Clairette, Cinsault
Importer: Kysela Père et Fils

Lirac Blanc
La Reine de Bois Blanc 2014
Grenache Blanc, Viognier, Roussanne, Marsanne, Picpoul
Importer: Kysela Père et Fils

---

In the meantime while you are waiting for her cooking classes, you can purchase Mme Wells Provence cookbooks HERE. There is also a great glossary of French culinary terms on her website HERE. From A to Z, you can learn the difference between ail (garlic) with aile (a poultry wing), chevreau (young goat) with chevreuil (venison). #IamAGeek

 http://www.patriciawells.com/

A toute!

*Something you don’t know about me? Usually, I wake up naturally at about 8 AM without an alarm clock but that has changed in the last 10 days since I have moved to Provence. I now have a new alarm clock. I receive a wake-up call at 8 AM from my neighbor in the form of a shotgun and 10 dogs barking. Yes, you heard me correctly… A shotgun. Apparently 8 AM is the prime time to shoot birds directly over my house. On Gracie’s first morning here, she ran into my room in a panic, ready to take cover, and said, “What was that noise?!!!” My response: “A shotgun, go back to bed.” Thank God I have read A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle, a manual to living in Provence, so my “shotgun alarm clock” came as no surprise. Welcome to Provence.

Surviving Thanksgiving Cookbook!!!!!!!!

Today is October 1^st and you know what that means… Only 57 days until Thanksgiving!

It’s time to start getting ready, ladies and Stephen! The OCD, control freak, and spaz in me is already preparing. The guests are invited and will remain the same depending on their behavior, the tablecloth has been thought out, the platters are organized and because I live in Paris, the land of no Thanksgiving, I will have to make my pilgrimage over to The Thanksgiving Store in the 4^th arrondissement of Paris over the weekend to order/purchase everything I need. And yes I realize it’s only October 1 but you can never be too prepared.

Thanksgiving Shop

20 Rue Saint Paul 75004 Paris

 

And that, my friends, is why I am reintroducing my Thanksgiving cookbook, Surviving Thanksgiving, today! I want all of you to have plenty of time to order it, receive it, read it and prepare before the big day.

If you weren’t around last year for the inaugural Surviving Thanksgiving blog posting, CLICK HERE.

Surviving Thanksgiving is a humorous look at Thanksgiving, a guide and most importantly, a cookbook. All of the recipes are generational O’Connell family secrets.

Here is a little excerpt from the book:

Ahhh, Thanksgiving dinner. The holiday where emotions run high. My family has at least two fights on Thanksgiving …pre-dinner. It could be about ironing the napkins, it can be about why I invited every Tom Dick and Harry in the neighborhood, it could be about my sister hogging her new baby, it could be about my brother eating all of the appetizers before the guests arrive, it could be about my former sister-in-law acting like a guest and not lifting a finger but usually the fight is always about my siblings and me “not helping in the kitchen enough.” The funny part is that if we attempt to help in the kitchen, my mother always tells us that we are doing it wrong and pushes us aside. We are either chopping the onions incorrectly, we are stirring the gravy too fast or not fast enough, we are not basting the turkey with love, we are being too dangerous with the Cuisinart blade, we are not watching the pies in the oven closely enough, etc. We decided that the best thing to do is just to leave my idiot savant mother in the kitchen to work her magic by herself. And she has, for 44 years. We have never helped her. To this day I have never made a Thanksgiving dinner on my own because she has never taught me. This is the first time she has ever even written the recipes down.

My mother was born cooking. She had no choice because it’s what my family does. My mother’s home when she was growing up was a big Carthage stone house that was always filled with tons of family. My grandmother, her housekeeper, Parthenia, my mother and her two sisters, Judy and Becky, ruled that house with an iron spatula. Everything revolved around food and the holidays. Sunday dinners complete with formal dinnerware and chafing dishes on the buffet were de rigueur. Even if we had my grandmother’s famous green pepper steak Chinese dinner, it was going to be on porcelain with linen napkins and crystal glasses. All of the children, including all of the cousins never really helped in the kitchen. We were only allowed to watch. Our job was to help set the table. I’ve been setting the table since I could walk. The good news is that I don’t ever remember anyone asking us to do the dishes.

I don’t want you to think that this Thanksgiving dinner recipe cookbook was put together lightly. This is an accumulation of years of testing, experimenting, and fine-tuning. My mother has been the teacher of private cooking classes, the chairman of the Los Angeles Junior League cookbook committee, has had 2 successful gourmet cookware/gourmet food shops, and has thrown more cocktail parties, dinner parties, birthday parties, weddings and holiday parties than Martha Stewart could even dream of. She is the dyslexic Martha Stewart… Which brings me to another subject.

As much as we love my mother, she is definitely…how can I say this nicely? Well, I’m just going to say it… She is cuckoo. I know this may sound mean but my mother has self-diagnosed dyslexia and the things that come out of her mouth are downright hysterical. She has no filter, spells everything incorrectly and sometimes backwards, never gives a clear explanation, and gets frustrated if you don’t know how to brown pork chops because, as she says, “It’s obvious.” However, she is pretty and can cook the pants off of anyone. So, as a warning, I have left all of her recipes nearly exactly as she has written them. I did have to edit a few things otherwise you would be offended by her tone and most likely would not have been able to completely understand the recipe because the words are out of order due to her dyslexia.

But what you will get with this Thanksgiving cookbook is a set of recipes that you can use for a lifetime and that you can add your own touch to as well. The recipes are easy, approachable and the ingredients are readily available at the supermarket. And, as an added bonus, I’m going to give you my mother’s email address so you to email her with any questions you might have. She loves helping people out and always has little secret cooking ideas to share. But I warn you, her emails back to you will be cryptic and possibly rude, but not intentionally. She will treat you as she treats her children…with love, humor, and a lack of social skills.

I would say bon appétit but my fancy Parisian friend, Sally Perrin, told me that is tacky and if you say bon appétit it is as if you are saying, “chow time.” So, obviously, I will never say bon appétit again… Yes I will.

Bon appétit!

The book guides you through the perils of Thanksgiving from setting the table, flower arrangements, cooking timeline, supply list, the recipes and most importantly how to keep your cool on the big day.

This is the first year that I will be (with my handy dandy caregiver, Joel) cooking Thanksgiving dinner by myself. As you know last year we were lucky enough to enjoy a very special Thanksgiving at the Ralph Lauren restaurant, Ralph’s, in Paris. Thank you Rex and the Lauren family. If you missed that blog, you can read it HERE. This year I decided to have Thanksgiving at our apartment using all of my family’s recipes from the cookbook. I’m sure I will be calling my mother four thousand times to ask her for advice and guess what, you can too! I have included my mother’s Thanksgiving cookbook email in the cookbook for all of you to use if you have any questions. She is eagerly anticipating your emails because she loves to give cooking advice. Remember, my mother used to be a cooking teacher and this is definitely her forte, so ask away! If you want to have the most delicious, home-cooked, authentic Thanksgiving of your entire life, Surviving Thanksgiving is the cookbook for you! Also, a portion of the proceeds will go to ALS research so it’s a win-win!

To purchase the Surviving Thanksgiving cookbook CLICK HERE. The book is available in softback and as an Ebook. Surviving Thanksgiving is also continuously available on the homepage of my blog on the right sidebar.

Gobble gobble!

*Something you don’t know about me? I have curated the October antique sale all around entertaining for the fall holidays. There are lots of goodies that I think you will all love. The sale starts in a few days but I will give you all a heads up via blog postings but in the meantime follow me on Instagram HERE for updates on the sale and sneak peeks!

 

C’est fini! Thanksgiving Cookbook!

To order Surviving Thanksgiving as an e-book delivered to your iPad instantly click HERE.

To order Surviving Thanksgiving as a soft cover delivered to your door click HERE.

The Thanksgiving cookbook is finished! Jesus Christ, that was more of a project than I had anticipated. I have never written a book or edited a book or put a book together. I have read about 1 million cookbooks but I never realized just exactly how much work goes into it so kudos to all of you cookbook writers! Setback after setback, I finally finished this book. Oh, what setback, you ask? Let’s see, where should I start? First, I had to gather the recipes from my mother who is not the most computer savvy lady on earth. Then I had to edit the recipes because when my mother is explaining a recipe, she assumes that you know as much as she does in terms of cooking. “Why don’t you know what an egg wash is,” she would think. Secondly, my mother had to email me family photos. That involves scanning and that involves a whole other set of problems. Photos needed to be enlarged, cropped, and color corrected. Next up, after I had the recipes and the photos together I had to put the book together. Even though a few of you kind readers offered help, I declined and enlisted the help of my 19-year-old daughter. Not my brightest idea. I must have forgotten that she is a typical self- absorbed teenager with a boyfriend, a job, an internship, full-time school, her own apartment to take care of, and according to her, “a life.” By the third day of her half assed, critical, bare minimum, know it all assistance… I fired her. She was not phased.

Now what was I going to do? I asked my husband for help. No such luck because according to him he has “a job.” Okay, who’s next? My French-speaking African Muslim caregiver who has never made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich let alone operated a computer? I think not. My other caregiver, Nabin, who is from Nepal and has been helping me with the blog for the past year left for Spain for two months. In his absence, we have hired a new Filipino caregiver, Victor. Victor is nothing short of a saint. Together, he and I did the cookbook. As you know, I cannot move an inch of my body except my tête and I had to dictate, teach, and explain the entire process to Victor whose English is “limited.” One word: frustrating. Like I said, I have never put a book together and I had to learn the software by myself before I taught it to Victor. “Add a page, remove a page, two-page spread, text layout, photo layout, upload photos, photo bleed, text alignment, fonts, ornaments, importing and exporting, dragging text, text spacing…” Oh my God, it was endless. I only yelled at Victor 3 to 400 times. He took it like a champ and ignored my verbal abuse and patiently adhered to my obsessive instructions. So here we are, the book has been put together and edited and now we are finally ready to publish. Victor and I looked at each other and decided we each deserved a medal or at the very least a vodka tonic.

My apologies to everyone for disappearing for these past few days. I didn’t answer emails, I didn’t do a blog, I didn’t check my text messages, I didn’t Instagram, no Facebook, I ignored my husband, my friends and my daughter. I didn’t even have time to fire off a nasty email to this girl who I hate.  I didn’t even take my medicine (don’t worry, the medicines don’t work anyway) and I hardly let Victor eat. My husband turned into a giant needy baby and pouted if I wasn’t available to take a walk with him or have an apricot tart and Earl Grey tea with him. Why is it just when you start doing something for yourself, everyone wants your attention? But here’s the good news, the book is finished and I had the time of my life doing it. I felt creative, fulfilled and a smidgen like a real person again.

So, the book is ready. I have titled it, Surviving Thanksgiving, because that’s exactly what happens every year. We survive another year of organizing the dinner, setting the table, ironing the tablecloth, idle chitchat with distant family members, ignoring that weird uncle, mother screaming in the kitchen, my brother trying to prove that he can lift me over his head, tipsy guests, bratty children, last-minute preparations and your basic family dysfunction. But, we all must be idiots because year after year we do it again and again. You know why? Because it’s fun and it’s family and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Voilà! Surviving Thanksgiving! I have published it as a softback book to keep the cost low and I have also published it as an e-book if you want to read it on your iPad and get it instantly. Or you could do both. If you see any typos, anything out of order, fuzzy pictures… just ignore it because f*ck you, I have ALS. :-) By the way, a portion of the proceeds will go to ALS research because I’m cool like that.

Additionally, because nothing in life is ever easy including cooking, I have included my mother’s email address (askmymother10@gmail.com) so you can ask her any questions you might have. She might answer you, she might not. She loves helping people with cooking but only if it doesn’t cut into her “treadmill time” and if she doesn’t forget her email password.

I hope you like the book, gobble gobble and bon appétit!

Purchase Surviving Thanksgiving HERE for a soft cover version.

Purchase Surviving Thanksgiving HERE for the e-book version for your iPad. It's instant.

*Something you don’t know about me? While I am still working on my regular book, I have decided also to do a Christmas book with my mother. This book will be all about Christmas. Decorating, entertaining, cooking, gift wrapping, shopping etc. If you think that my mother’s Thanksgiving recipes are fabulous wait until you see her Christmas dinner. And you will be floored at how this lady decorates a Christmas tree. It’s basically going to be a bossy book about how not to have a tacky Christmas. Stay tuned.

Happy Halloween. Trick or Treat.

 

I am already doing my “trick” by staying alive with ALS for almost 4 years, so now I want the “treat.” The porch, front door and interior are decorated, and the pumpkins are carved… It’s time for a party!!! The best part about Halloween parties are the treats. No, no, no… You are at the wrong house (and wrong blog) if you think that we are going to look at Rice Krispy Treats in the shape of Frankenstein. Halloween is the perfect holiday to get your dessert game on. You can get creative, spooky and clever but don’t get disgusting and do desserts shaped like brains or fingers or intestines because that’s just disgusting and you should keep that side of yourself…to yourself, freak.

I’m all about the chic Halloween dessert. Even if you’re not exactly a baker (I’m not) or crafty (I’m not), you can still pull off a cool dessert if you are slightly creative (I am.) And by creative I mean going on the Internet and finding a chic recipe. Voilà! I have taken the liberty and put together, I think, a rather spooky, chic, clever Halloween party dessert board HERE Take a look…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t you hate those types of people who don’t share their sources? I do. I think it is nice to share ideas and recipes and I hope you do too because I thought it would be fun if everyone shared their Halloween sources in the comments section of the blog. If you have a great place where you order hand-painted pumpkins, tell us! If you have a great source for chic decorations, share it! If you have a great Halloween dessert recipe, tell us! If you know of a great Halloween decorating book, share it, for God’s sake! Just put it in the comment section of today’s blog and we all win!

A toute!

*Something you don’t know about me? It’s really about my mother but I am going to expose her anyway. For the past 44 years, or more, my mother has bought a giant Thanksgiving Butterball turkey from the grocery store. But, now that farm raised poultry is readily available to order via Internet, my mother has evolved. To get fresh, cruelty free, free range organic turkey for Thanksgiving, look no further than Williams-Sonoma! You can order a famous and much coveted (uncooked) Willie Bird Ranch Thanksgiving turkey on the freaking Internet. Isn’t life grand when you’re not an idiot and can use a computer? You can go to the website HERE and learn all about these turkeys and how they are shipped. I think it’s genius. If I were you though, I would get your order in fast before they are sold out. They have a special Thanksgiving delivery. I actually called Williams-Sonoma today and asked them all the details about these turkeys… how they are shipped, if they are seasoned, do they need to be de-thawed, can you add your own stuffing, cooking temperatures and times, etc. They knew all of the answers so I suggest if you have any questions just give them a quick call. This is going to be the perfect turkey for all my mother’s recipes for Thanksgiving dinner. The cookbook is almost finished!

The Wachtmeister Years

Mini Meatballs and Spaghetti!

 

Don’t worry, I’m not dead. We have taken off to Annecy, France for the week. Remember that I mentioned there was a little old house I found on the lake for rent? Well, good news, we are going to go look at it today. But in the meantime, back to The Art of Entertaining series. I am continuing today with more hors d’oeuvres because I love hors d’oeuvres. Sometimes my caregivers ask me what I would like for dinner and my answer is, “hors d’oeuvres.” No wonder they want to poison me.

Do you want to hear a funny story about hors d’oeuvres? Okay, so on the eve of my 21^st birthday, I met Count Erik Wachtmeister. The world may know him as the dashing Swedish playboy who started A Small World, the private Facebook equivalent for the “jet setting, wealthy, well-traveled and well-heeled few.” I know him as “my roommate.” Erik rented a big house in Bel Air, California and invited me, a snobby girl named Julia, and the actress Elizabeth Hurley to rent the house with him. All we ever did was entertain. God, if those walls could talk!

 

 

Erik was the ringleader and the girls and I were the hostesses with the mostesses. We had a dinner party nearly every weekend. These were no normal cocktail parties or dinner parties. Before A Small World debuted, our house was the small world. Celebrities, musicians, royalty,  notorious playboys, models, actors and actresses, socialites, philanthropists, nobility, an heiress or two, various bon vivants, business tycoons, and more than one infamous “character”…you name it, they were at our house. Believe it or not, we did everything on our own for these parties. We had a housekeeper but that was it. Erik, obviously, organized the guest list and took care of the entertainment. The girls and I did all of the decorating, setting the table, shopping and cooking. We had a great kitchen that was the hub of the house so I liked to be there. I would search through cookbook after cookbook to find interesting hors d’oeuvres. You cannot just serve Nicholas Berggruen a lil' smokie on a toothpick, for God’s sake. We had standards…or did we? Let me explain…

 Elizabeth Hurley is one of the chicest, loveliest, most beautiful, elegant, sophisticated, well-dressed, polished, cosmopolitan fancy pants women on earth. There is no attesting that. However, the girl cannot cook. This is the funny part of my story. So on this particular day, we were preparing for a dinner party, looking forward to entertaining Prince and Princess So-And-So. I was preparing the actual dinner so I asked Elizabeth if she could take care of the hors d’oeuvres. “Absolutely, darling,” she replied. Great, I thought, a few things off of my plate and I could focus on the dinner. Elizabeth left for about five hours and finally returned with the “hors d’oeuvres.” Wait for it… She walked into the kitchen with five grocery store bags filled with… Swear to God, Puffy Cheetos! Elizabeth Hurley! Puffy Cheetos!

So, in honor of dear Elizabeth, I dedicate this hors d’oeuvres blog post to her.

My other favorite trend in entertaining is the “mini hors d’oeuvre.” The concept has been attributed to the legendary New York caterer, Peter Callahan.

Martha Stewart cannot say enough good things about Peter Callahan. Watch the video HERE

Okay, let’s take a look at some of these adorable and très chic hors d’oeuvres from Peter Callahan and others…

 

Mini Croque Monsieurs!

Mini Pulled Pork Sandwich & Mini Onion Rings!

Mini Cheese Burgers and Fries!

 

Mini Cotton Candy!

Mini Fish Tacos & Mini Margaritas!

Mini Caprese Tea Sandwiches!

 



Mini Baked Alaskas!

Mini Fried Chicken & Mini Coca Colas!

 

Mini Chinese Chicken Salads!

Peter Callahan’s book, Bite by Bite, is an absolute must have. Do not have another party before you get this book. That artichoke dip just isn’t going to cut it anymore. Neither is your seven layer dip. Nor your charcuterie platter. Nor your stuffed mushrooms or stupid pinwheels. Those days are over. This is the future. :-) But I would hurry because this trend is going to get obnoxious real fast.

 

Bite by Bite by Peter Callahan

Purchase HERE

Mini Cheese Corn Dogs!

Mini Berry Cobblers!

Mini Muffulettas!

Mini Pancakes with Blueberries!

Mini Oysters with Tabasco!

Mini Buckwheat Blinis with Caviar & Vodka!

Mini Crispy Clams & Mini Bloody Mary's!

So that’s it for today. Keep your fingers crossed that I get my little house on the lake. If I do, you are all invited to a cocktail party chez moi!

*In case you were wondering… My sweet Erik and his beautiful wife Louise have launched a new website called Best of All Worlds. Read the articles HERE. And for the record, even if I did serve Nicholas Berggruen a little smokie with a toothpick, he would have eaten it with a smile because he is an absolute gentleman.

French Idiots, I Mean Idioms

My favorite husband, David, always uses these weird French phrases that I don’t understand. My French is juvenile at best and when he throws in these bizarre phrases I get even more confused. I ask him about it and he will say, “Oh, that’s just what we say in French.” My response, “Oh, like an idiom?” “No,” he will say, “it’s just a French phrase.” My response, “That’s an idiom, idiot.” His response: “Learn to speak French, idiot.”

Definition of idiom:/ˈɪdɪəm/noun – a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words  

Definition of idiot:/ id-ee-uht/noun – an utterly foolish or senseless person

Gracie and I love to tease David about his use of the English language. David likes to tease us about our lack of the French language. Although David speaks English perfectly…some of his English phrases are just a bit off. He always says to me, “Get off your high horses.” It’s just one horse, David. Get off your high horse. Sometimes David will write emails on my behalf (in English) and when I proofread them, I scream in protest, “Bunny, you can’t send that! Oh my God, not only are your choice of words offensive, but also people will think I missed the first five years of elementary English grammar.” Two thirds of our lives in my household are lost in translation. It’s probably just as well.

Every language has idioms , but the French idioms I think are the most charming. Here are some examples…

• Pédaler dans la sémoule – “to peddle in the semolina” – to become insane / senile
• C'est la goutte d'eau qui fait déborder le vase– “it’s the drop of water that made the vase overflow” – the straw that broke the camel's back
• Coup de foudre – “bolt or flash of lightning” – love at first sight
• Être sur son 31 – “to be on your 31” – that you are wearing your most beautiful clothes, that you are elegant

  
How cute are those idioms? But even cuter are French culinary idioms. One of my favorite food blogs in France is called Chocolate and Zucchini. The author, Clotilde Dusoulier, has written a new book called Edible French. It is a compilation of charming French culinary idioms. Here are some examples…

 

 

•       Papa gâteau – “cake daddy” – an affectionate doting father. Not to be confused with “sugar daddy.”

•       Changer de crémerie – “changing creameries” – means taking your business elsewhere

•        Ne pas manger de ce pain-là – “not eating that kind of bread” – Means refusing to act in a way that goes against your values

•        Couper la poire en deux – “cutting the pear in two” – to reach a compromise, to settle a dispute
•        Cœur d’artichaut – “artichoke heart” – describes someone who falls in love easily and frequently, possibly with several people at the same time  

 

Clotilde's book, Edible French, comes out in October, but you can preorder it HERE.

(This would be a great gift for those obnoxious Francophile friends)

That’s all for today, because I am knee-deep into a book that came out last year called The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. It is no wonder she won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction. There is an interesting review in Vanity Fair regarding the book. Apparently, there’s a little controversy… You can read it HERE.

A toute!