Category: Normandy

  • Dear Friends of French Affaires, As usual, we have the heat and humidity challenge during the US summers. Pretty much everywhere. So, it was pleasant to enjoy open windows at night, upper 50s, maybe 80F during the day, on my recent trip to Normandy. France has not, of course, been immune from the summer heat…

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  • It’s easy to think that France has always been one big ‘happy hexagon’ (referring to its current six-sided geographical shape), a uniform cultural entity that was and always has been FRANCE. But this is far from the case. France’s official borders have expanded and contracted over the centuries like an accordian, and various French regions…

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  • Not long ago, I promised myself no more books. As a former French professor and a book lover in general, I have way too many books and can’t seem to edit my collection. But this past spring, a fabulous new French volume appeared that I just couldn’t pass up. Jacques Garcia, Twenty Years of Passion: The Château…

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  • Historically speaking, 2014 is a big year in France. June 6th marks the 70th – hard to believe – anniversary of D-Day and the beginning of the liberation of Europe by the Allies in World War II. And this year also observes the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I. A propos, the French are…

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  • This week’s article features Susan Herrmann Loomis of On Rue Tatin cooking school in France. Susan moved to France from the U.S. more than twenty years ago and currently teaches the art of French cooking in Paris and in Normandy. She has also authored multiple cookbooks and regularly writes food articles for major publications. There’s…

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  • In keeping with last week’s posting about dessert, it seemed fitting to continue with a variation on the sweet theme…though this time with a decidedly artistic tangent! Recently, I was dining with friends at one of Paris’ oldest bistrots, La Fontaine de Mars, in the Rue St. Dominique and ended a classically French meal—steak frites—with an…

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  • Years ago, I did the Normandy ‘grand tour.’ My mother and I had rented a car and we took in the major sights in this rich corner of northern France: le Mont St. Michel, la Tâpisserie de Bayeux (the Bayeux Tapestry), les plages de débarquement (World War II landing beaches), the beachside towns of Deauville…

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