And There Was Light

When was the last time you attended a light show?  You can dig out your old love beads right now, because have I ever got one for you!
We just got home from  a light-filled weekend in Geneva, where not only was there an exhibition of Light and Trees, but I was entranced by the light [...]

Old Number Eights

Today’s post is brought to you by Guest Blogger Shel, who is sharing his favorite Thanksgiving treat for the first time in print.  As he tells the story…
Rich’s department store was a downtown Atlanta institution from Reconstruction until it closed in 1991, and during most of its history its top-floor Magnolia Room restaurant could be [...]

Thanksgiving Sorghum Walnut Tart

We’re not actually having Thanksgiving this year, that’s fact number one.  Fact number two is that I hauled a jar of sorghum syrup back to France with me in my already overweight luggage.  Heaven only knows what I was thinking.  I could pretend that I was planning ahead for Thanksgiving, but honestly, it was just [...]

A French Candlelight Dinner

Let me just start by stating the obvious: French cooking is all about the stock.  I’ve made stock for years, but now, cooking mainly French dishes, I’ve always got chicken bones or duck bones in my fridge, along with scraps of fennel and celery leaves.  And so when I decided I needed a dish that [...]

Hand Made In The Ardèche

It’s a hard rock life in the Ardèche, always has been, always will be. 
But whereas now it’s an underpopulated and underappreciated little corner of France, at one time it was the bustling hub of the silk trade.  It was to the Ardèche that silk cocoons, raised in the nearby Cévennes, came to be spun, before [...]

Good Intentions Gone Astray

Vaison La Romaine.  They call it that because it was a Roman town, now the site of some of the most important Roman ruins in the area.  We went there with every intention of visiting them, learning abut the history of the place, steeping in the ancient atmosphere.  Instead, food and wine captured our attention [...]

A Day For The Dead

Once again a crowd gathered to hear the names of the dead read aloud. For 81 years the town has remembered those who died in the First World War, known here as la Grande Guerre, the great war.  It was great only in the sense of enormous, in that 1,400,000 French citizens lost their lives, [...]

Into The Wilds

We’re constantly amazed by what a wild county France is, our formative image having been one of terrifically chic ladies lunching at an outdoor café next to a table of scruffy artists somewhere near the Tour Eiffel, one of the tamest sights in the world. Actually, hardly any of France is like that.
Take these denizens [...]

The Deep Heart Of The Ardèche

“Bienvenue au fin fond de l’Ardèche” our hostess said, as we straggled in bleary-eyed and trembling.  Welcome to the deepest most remote corner of the Ardèche, a region already known for its wild and rugged isolation.  This was actually not her bathtub, rest assured.  This is her neighbor’s bathtub.
We weren’t immediately thrilled by it all, [...]

Flowers For Kimberly

Somewhere in the vastness that is Aetna there is Kimberly.  With over 35,000 Aetna employees, it’s a miracle that we found her.  Actually, she found us, last year, right after I wrote to Aetna CEO Ron Williams for the first time.  Perhaps we might have found her anyway, but by the time I wrote to [...]