December 2023 Gazette

Welcome to the 3rd edition of my monthly newsletter! Each month, I intend to share a personal round up of the past weeks to give you a glimpse into my French life. I also share links I love, seasonal recipe inspirations and try to answer some of the questions I’ve received through social media as well.

Feel free to let me know in the comments if you enjoy this monthly gazette, and perhaps what you would like to read about next month!

The month of November started scarily, with Storm Ciaran sweeping through Normandy and Brittany the night of November 1^st. The region was on red alert with heavy rain and winds up to 170km/h in Northern Brittany. My town in Southern Brittany experienced 150km/h gusts of wind in the thick of the storm, which hit around 3am. I couldn’t sleep all night because of the noises outside (and lots of anxiety too!). I looked through the windows many times during the night and frankly can’t remember witnessing such crazy scenes in Brittany since I was born.

The next morning felt a bit chaotic, with an eerie feeling that time had stopped: trees crashed on the roads, lots of damage to buildings/homes, no internet, no phone lines nor electricity across most of Brittany… Which of course left many people unable to give news to others. In my hometown, cars weren’t allowed to circulate for most of the day after, because of leftover strong winds and roads being too dangerous and uncleared.

We were very lucky to not suffer any damage to our home. We also had no electricity outages, but had to wait three days to get our phone line back up. It took about one week for things to get back to normal around town – although we can still today see lots of broken trees in parks and on roadsides.

The little harbor of Kernével

The days following the storm came the rain, and lots of it! The French news said that between October 16th and November 18th, France hit an all-time historical record in terms of the amount of cumulative rain in the country, along with another record of 32 consecutive days of rain. The North of France experienced impressive floods, but Brittany remained in an overall good condition. That said, all this rain made for days better spent inside, reading books, cooking and baking.

Our dog Sophie enjoying days spent inside (she’s a couch potato!)

And speaking of cooking, I recently purchased a manual pasta maker – which has been a lot of fun so far. My husband and I started to experiment with different pasta recipes and shapes. For the dough recipe, we are using this one which has been working great for us. Just this weekend we made our first lasagna, from scratch, which was quite a success! Fresh pasta really tastes delicious, doesn’t it? It also feels incredibly light and enjoyable to be exploring new subjects and techniques in cooking – and it being just for fun, not necessarily for work.

During the middle of the month, I also had the chance to do a photo shoot in a fabulous villa near my hometown – and can’t help but share a few photos with you here. The house is facing the ocean and has the most amazing view from every single room. If you’re ever in my area, know that it is available as a vacation rental, and I highly recommend it.

The view from the living room of Villa St Anne

Finally, just like last year, we ordered a cheese advent calendar from our local cheese monger for the month of December – which we can’t wait to dig into on the first! Every day, we’ll be unwrapping and tasting a different cheese/dairy product – how fun! As I’ve done previously, I will be sharing the unwrapping every day on my Instagram if you’re ever interested in seeing which product we’ll be enjoying each day.

For December, we planned a weekend getaway in the Loire Valley, to visit castles and the beautiful city of Blois. So, you can expect castle photos along with Christmas stories in next month’s newsletter.

Have a great December, be well and enjoy!

An afternoon spent boating in the roadstead of Lorient.

New articles added to the blog in November:

• Smoked Salmon Cream Cheese Tarte Soleil
• French recipes for Thanksgiving
• Parisian Hot Chocolate
• French-Style Fruit Cake (Cake aux Fruits Confits)

10 seasonal recipes for December: 

• Classic French Salmon Rillettes
• Brie en croûte with cranberries and nuts
• Gruyère Cheese Twists
• Creamy Chestnut Soup
• Clementine Roast Chicken with Fennel
• Classic French Hunter’s Chicken Stew
• Classic French Gratin Dauphinois
• Classic Chocolate Bûche de Noël
• Classic French Spiced Bread
• Chestnut Cream Cake

Testing and developing recipes for Christmas.

5 Links I’m Liking:

• Are you a blue cheese lover like I am? This video from France 24 takes you to Aveyron, the French region worldly famous for producing the iconic Roquefort blue cheese.
• I recently purchased The Flavour Thesaurus: More Flavours by Niki Segnit, which is the sequel to her bestselling book “The Flavour Thesaurus”, published in 2010, that became a reference book for recipe developers around the world. In this follow-up, Segnit explores plant-led flavors and explains the tasting notes and suggests food pairings for essential ingredients like garlic, almond, oats, honey, beans, mushrooms, corn, orange, leek, etc. It truly is a fascinating piece of work that mixes science, history and recipe inspiration too. I am sure I will use this book on a weekly basis to create meals, new recipes and explore what fruit pairs well with dark chocolate, or how to use leftover prunes. I highly recommend it!
• Do you know what “Tyromancy” is? Well, I didn’t know either before I stumbled onto this article! A friend offered to read my fortune last week with tarot cards, which piqued my curiosity and led me to read more about this know-how online – which in turn led me to this intriguing article… Tyromancy – telling someone’s fortune by reading cheese! It is a real and ancient practice that is today only done by a small handful of people. Although I am unsure if I believe in this art or not, I know I would be very curious to experience a session of Tyromancy. What about you?
• Like every third Thursday in November, the Beaujolais Nouveau wines arrived! This is a big celebration in France, marked by many bars and restaurants throwing parties to taste and review the famous wines. This article gives you a quick explanation of what a Beaujolais Nouveau is and even reviews some of this year’s Beaujolais nouveau wines from a few French vineyards. Have you tasted Beaujolais nouveau this year?
• If you are reading this blog, chances are you are a lover of France and French culture, correct? Conde Nast has very well curated gift ideas for “The Friend Who’s Always Talking About France”, which I feel could assist your Christmas wish list.

Moody weather doesn’t stop us for enjoying walks on the beach.

5 favorite questions of the month: 

What is your favorite kitchen tool?

Particularly for baking, my favorite tool is a food scale! If you are looking at improving your skills in the kitchen, stop using cups/spoons and invest in a food scale. This is the best advice I can give you. Precision is crucial in baking. Small variations can affect the final product and a food scale is the best way to be accurate and efficient. Picture scooping a cup of flour: if you tap it on the counter or level it with the back of a knife, the volume will vary due to factors like the scooping method, the humidity in the air, the way you leveled it, etc. However, 125 grams of flour will always remain 125g, no matter how you scoop or level your flour.

A food scale is such a valuable tool in baking for ensuring accuracy, consistency, and successful recipes – which should in turn make you more confident.

The famous shallots and pink onions from Brittany.

What is a traditional Christmas dinner menu?

I wrote an entire blog post on this subject which you can find here. I hope you’ll enjoy it!

Do French people enjoy other desserts than the traditional Bûche de Noël for Christmas?

The Bûche de Noël is truly the dessert of choice for the French at Christmas. A Christmas without a Bûche is a bit like Thanksgiving without a turkey.

That said, in my opinion, I think you can go for another festive desserts if you really aren’t a fan of a Bûche. Merveilleux pastries, a Saint Honoré Cake or a Success Cake make great festive desserts for the Holidays! And if you’re not into big desserts, you can opt for serving a tray of Christmas cookies, which the French are really fond of as well. See my French Christmas cookies roundup here.

Is Black Friday a thing in France?

Today, yes – but it didn’t used to be that way. The first time I heard about Black Friday was when I moved to Canada years ago, as it didn’t yet exist in France. But as with many other American influences, Europe adopted Black Friday a few years ago and it has been growing every year since – especially in the past two years, as Europe has been hit with inflation and people are looking more and more for discounts. However, I would say the biggest difference with North America is that Black Friday in France has a very, very negative image. Most people criticize this day, as they say it promotes over-consumption. But many of us can’t resist a good deal either…

Every morning, I bring our dog to say hi to the roasters at the end of our street.

Best advice for someone trying to learn French?

Make it fun and entertaining! If the learning process feels too strict and laborious, you’ll likely won’t improve as much as you would if it feels enjoyable. The best way I learned English wasn’t in the classroom, but by chatting with new English-speaking friends, watching films and TV series in English, reading the US news, etc… This is the best way to “absorb” and memorize new words, while not feeling like you’re working too hard. There are so many ways to make learning French fun: watch French series on Netflix, with subtitles on (I recommend Lupin or Call my agent!). Try making a recipe written in French (Régal and Elle à Table are great French websites for recipes) or you can even follow instagrammers who help teach French (I recommend Cécilia Jourdan from @hellyfrenchnyc).

Local, colorful “Côtes de Blettes” (Swiss Chards)