Xynthia storm anniversary

Today is the very sad anniversary of devastation caused by Xynthia storm as it crashed on western coast of France during the night leaving 47 dead in France out of 65 across Europe.

Atlantic storm 'Xynthia" leaves dozens dead in France

envoyé par MathieuFleck. - Regardez les dernières vidéos d'actu.

Xynthia storm: questions raised about how disaster happened

envoyé par France_24english. - L'actualité du moment en vidéo.

Chocolate Moelleux..

My daughter made the most delicious Chocolate Moelleux I ever tasted. For her birthday we gave her a kit composed of a book for moelleux recipes and 4 entremet rings. Well she made her own crème anglaise (light custard sauce) and black chocolate moelleux and it was fabulous... see for yourself.

The chocolate was liquid in the center, just like we wanted it to be...

 

My fault, we had no baking parchment left, so we just greased the tray...

Children of the World Sculptures by Rashid Khimoune

Friday we went to Bercy Park (which I will talk about in another post). I'll only mention here the Children of the World Sculptures by Rashid Khimoune. As you leave Bercy Park, leaving behind you the Cinématheque Française and the Palais Omnisports of Paris-Bercy, you will come across the Simone de Beauvoir Bridge. Before going on the bridge (passerelle) we were pleasantly surprised to see these beautiful statues by Rashid Khimoune.
Here are a few photos and below a map showing where it's situated.

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Cheese...

We came back home with some cheese today... some French Gruyère and Tomme Noire des Pyrénées (there's a facebook page for this cheese). The Tomme Noire has a neutral taste and funnily it has a black envelope. Strange at first sight, no particular smell (I'm sure!!!) but tastes good. Here's a few photos...

A must for dinner: our French baguette

This requires a post in itself, the element that's always on dinner table: our baguette. There's rarely a meal where we do not have a baguette. In our family we have two favorite boulangeries where we usually buy bread and their baguettes do not look alike or have the same crunchy feeling when you break a piece of the baguette... yes imagine going out of the boulangerie with this hot baguette and you can't stop yourself from having a piece since it smell so wonderful!
Anyway we currently pay 90 cents (euro) for a baguette, which is the average price. However if you buy them at the supermarket - no, you should never do that! - you would get industrial bread for half that price. It will taste and look industrial too even though they have various cereal baguettes, there's nothing as good as a traditional boulangerie made baguette just out of the oven!!

"Le vrai gout du pain"... the genuine taste of bread

Eucalytus and Pine Sweets from Les Vosges

One great place we like to visit when we go to the Vosges region is the Confiserie des Hautes Vosges. It's located in Plainfaing and produces handmade sweets - eucalyptus and pine sap sweets are our favorites, they are great if you have a cold or a sore throat... We usually go for the free visit of the confectionery - here are a few photos. If you are there while they are making eucalyptus sweets, I can assure you that you go out breathing perfectly well!

Blueberry sweets

Eucalyptus and pine sap sweets

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Cracotte for breakfast

Do you like Cracottes? They are light biscottes... When you eat them, you do get the crunchy sound "crac"... My kids love them. Here they  had them with Quetsche (plum) jam and Reines Claudes (yellow plum) jam and a cup of hot chocolate! My daughter eats them without butter... light and crunchy!
Cracottes are  produced since 1978 by LU, a branch of Kraft Foods which also produces Oreo... don't we love these Oreo biscuits too?

Winter holidays, go!

Our kids are on holidays, yes in France it comes every six weeks or so. Anyway they are on "winter holidays" until February 28. France is divided in three zones for school holidays and we in Paris and Ile de France are in zone 3. Here's a map with the zones...
Having my transcription and translation business and working at home is very convenient when holidays come by... even when your kids are older (mine 16 and 19), they do appreciate to have someone to take care of them. So during my break, we took a little walk in our town... and found some new street art paintings...

A bit further we found a real cat on a wall...

Happy Valentine's Day!

Christmas at Piazza Di Spagna, Italy

Here are some photos from our 2008 Christmas trip with all four grandparents to Rome. That's Piazza Di Spagna taken during the day and at night.The Christmas tree is somewhat blurry, it kept changing colors and was  beautiful. At night the place was packed up with people. It was nice to walk around, the weather was good and we had a wonderful time there.

Pretzels or doughnuts anyone?

Good variety of pretzels and doughnuts at the Marché de Noël - Christmas Market at La Défense, Paris. This outdoor market was open from November 24 to December 27 and around 350 chalets - shops were present. We even saw a canadian gentleman selling the multi position Canadian Hood which seems a wonderful head cover...  Maybe I should have bought one since it was really cold in December but normally we really don't need it in Paris. Anyway there was sausages, cheese, warm wine and all sorts of food... Open every year during the same period, it's easy to  reach the market at La Défense train station.

Blueberry Muffins

My daughter made these blueberry muffins and they tasted so delicious!!! She used frozen blueberries from our Picard shop.

Sega at Casuarina Hotel, Mauritius

I'm still looking at my photos from our trip to Mauritius and these are from an after dinner show at Casuarina Hotel in Mauritius. There was a sega performance and after the show the dancers went around and showed everyone how to dance the sega. We had a great time on the occasion of my 15th daughter's birthday.

Pamplemousses Garden, Mauritius

Here's a few photos of Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Pamplemousses Botanical Garden in Mauritius. It was created by Pierre Poivre a French horticulturalist. An interesting article on Pamplemousses garden can be found here.