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Jill<br><br>Jill (99)

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Everything posted by Jill<br><br>Jill (99)

  1. I took my cross stitch on with me last time, so I had scissors out on the table.  Mind you, I do also carry a rather evil looking knife - but it is in the thermos rucksac we take onboard and on picnics, for cutting bread.  Baguettes pull apart OK, but bigger loaves need a good knife.  So I carry a steak knife.  With 4 of us also armed with pen-knives, we could massacre everyone on board!  I understand, actually that it is all to do with the length of the blade.  I believe that it is legal if less than 5 inches.  I don't know how it appears though, if it is clearly part of your picnic kit!  Anyway, what if people are going camping.  They might be carrying a few different knives for food preparation.  Surely that is allowed.  I mean people going back packing of course.
  2. Interesting idea - the aniseed.  I quite like caraway seeds in bread.  Thanks for the suggestions, both of you.  If I can find a supermarket open, I'll see what I can find.  Failing that, I'm hoping my daughter will find things we never have time to look at while she is living in France.
  3. Can you buy the flour that is use for the greyer and other off-white types of bread in France?  If so, what is it called.  Can you get bread mix in France?  Only we've just started using our bread machine again, but when we are in France we are usually camping, so we've never considered looking for bread flour.  When in France, we usually get to a boulangerie twice a day.  But in England, we can't get fresh bread every day, and I can't bear the plastic stuff in the local shop.  Even the bakery in the next village sells tasteless fluff!  Whilst I prefer it when we make granary or seedy bread, my husband prefers ordinary white, which I find a bit tasteless.  So, I thought if we could find the flour which is used for pain artisinale, we might get a tastier "white" loaf.  We're popping over in a fortnight for a day - not a shopping trip, but to deliver my daughter and her belongings for her year abroad.  It will be a brief trip, but hopefully we'll find a small supermarket open - even though we are having to fit it in on a Sunday.  Has anyone ever asked a baker if he would sell flour?
  4. I also find French cakes rather sweet and sickly.  I'm not a big cake fan anyway - I just go for things that are really dark chocolate such as moelleux.  I look at the cakes in the Patisserie and wonder who on earth can afford to buy those things.  A lot of people must be buying cakes on a regular basis to warrant so many shops selling these, yet I've never been served them in a French household - just things like eclairs etc.  I look at the cakes sometimes and think they look nice, but never feel I can justify paying so much for so little. Apple cake and tart is a bit of a worry with one of my French friends.  The first time we went to stay with her, she had made apple cake, but had forgotten it in the oven.  For two days, we politely ate it saying we couldn't tell it was burnt!  The next time we went to stay, she had made a tarte aux pommes and once again, she had burnt it.  I would never choose to eat it, but do eat it when offered.  The next time we went, apple tart was not offered with lunch.  We went out for the afternoon, and thought we had escaped.  When we returned to her home, she invited us in for gouter.................yes, and it was burnt!  Otherwise she is a very good cook!
  5. We liked St Malo, as my husband and I find beaches really boring, so one of us could sit on the beach with the children for a while while the other went round the town.  In general though, we used to have a base and travel out from there, so we did that with other campsites in Brittany and Vendee too and would go to a different beach each day so that the one not sitting on the beach had something else to do.  Later on, we went to places at least an hour from a beach as we found they were more attractive places to be and there would be a greater variety of other things to do.  I've found that a lot of seaside resorts consist of concrete holiday complexes.  Luckily for us, the children soon got bored with beaches too, so after a couple of hours, they would moan and we'd go to visit a castle or something. We also used to go to places with lakes.  We are campers though.  We used to like to camp by lakes, as I was always nervous about the children being in the sea having had a bad experience when the sea suddenly got rough in Frejus and waves were knocking us under as we tried to get back to the beach.  Lakes often have several areas cordoned off - a play beach for young children and another section for swimmers.  They often have diving platforms and slides too.  Plus, there is more likely to be a play area nearby as well.  There is also the addition that there may be boats available for hire or you can use inflatables more safely.  The scenery is often much more attractive too.  Annecy or Aix les Bains for example - lakes surrounded by mountains.  I realise you have probably been and come back again now, but it may give you ideas for another year, or ideas for someone else.
  6. I've never come across a campsite that said no gas barbecues, but quite a lot, especially in Provence, that said no barbecues, but we found out that gas would have been OK.  One summer, we ended up doing all our cooking on a single low camping gaz stove, because it was too hot to use the proper cooker in our trailer tent.  As a result of that, I bought a Cadac.  It's a bit bulky, admitedly, but we do have a trailer tent so can find room for it on there.  We bought all the attachments and although we do use the barbecue part for merguez, we now use the griddle or ribbed grill for steaks, fish etc.  One campsite this summer was several miles from the boulangerie and the bread van wasn't due until 9 and was usually late, so we actually made pancakes on the griddle for breakfast.  It has a paella pan too - although we haven't made paella or risotto - only a fried rice dish, which stuck.  The gas bottle stands on the ground and the barbecue/grill section is high off the ground connected by a tube.  They are expensive, but they are a lot cleaner than a charcoal barbecue and very versatile too, if you want to cook outside but don't want to barbecue all the time. On a campsite in the Dordogne last month, one family had a wood fire in a sort of metal thing holding it off the ground.  I think for the benefit of future campers, they will be saying NO to fires in the future.  Apparently the people didn't ask, just assumed and once it was done, the site owner dare not say - especially as her English wasn't up to it and they were English.  I wish I'd mentioned it to her earlier, I'd have happily told them on her behalf.  They were straight opposite us and it smelt foul.  I had to go and sit at the back of the tent and we had to keep all the doors shut to stop the smell getting in - luckily our tent is not fabric, but PVC impregnated plastic so the smell doesn't get through. Whilst I know most like to barbecue while camping, I'd like to recommend a Remoska if you have electrics.  I use mine to roast 6 or 8 quails with garlic, or a jointed rabbit, potatoes, tartiflette (if the weather is a bit cool), stuffed peppers, paupiettes, roasts.  It's 240v and sits in our awning on the table.  It is like a large cake tin on a chrome stand with a lid which has a heating element.  It came in really useful the year we couldn't barbecue!  In any case, it does enable us to have more variety on our 3 weeks camping trips.
  7. [quote user="Frenchie"] " potée"    How lovely that sounds JR !! [:D] But you made it up, .. [;-)] Ok, my perception of things.. As a woman , if I say a person is " un copain" , he is a good mate,  " un ami " is a close friend, someone I can really rely on, you know, the kind of relationship you know will never let you down. Now , I could say " Mon copain " , or " mon petit ami " ( a bit teenage years) .. then both would mean my boyfriend .. There's a BIG difference between " un copain "   et " Mon copain" .. Are yu with me ? [/quote] A few years ago, we were camping in France and invited one of my penfriends to a barbecue at our campsite and she asked if she could bring her copain with her.  They spent the evening with us and we spent the next few weeks wondering whether he was her copain or her copain!  So, are you saying that if it was platonic, she would asked if she could bring un copain with her.  I don't honestly know which she said now, but I doubt if I would have noticed.  But a few months later we received a wedding invitation, so that confirmed it.  They gave no indication that they were "together" when they were with us.  The only thing is now, I'm wondering what my penfriends think is going off with my children when I say my daughter went somewhere with sa copine or my son with son copain.  So, if I say they have gone somewhere with ses copains, should I really be saying avec des copains.  Also, if I talk about, say my daughter and sa copine and son copain, does it sound as though she is two timing? (Yes I know copains would be plural, but I'm talking about if I was saying one thing about her and another about him.) Also, I'm a bit hesitant to say my daughter is somewhere with her petit ami as - as you say- it is a bit teenage-ish.  What do you consider is most appropriate for more mature people with a boyfriend/girlfriend? My friend is German and talks about her girlfriends.  I expect she tells people I'm her girlfriend too.  It always sounds odd to me, but I think Americans do it too.  For me, girlfriend is definitely a petite amie and not a friend who is female.  
  8. On the route de Boulogne between Coquelles and Calais, there are quite a lot of horse butchers, so perhaps that is a big area for eating it.  We usually have some horse steaks when we are in France.  It doesn't really taste any different to steak.  As far as I'm concerned, meat is meat and I'm quite happy to eat horse meat - but then I eat rabbit and duck too and a lot of English people won't eat those on the basis that rabbits are regarded as pets in England and ducks are what you feed on the local pond.  I must admit though, I have never seen horse on a restaurant menu.  My understanding of the English not eating horse is that during the war they had to eat old tough horses and that put the generation who lived through the war off it.  That's what my Mum said, anyway.  I do have French friends though, who will not eat horse, but the family used to keep a pig, chickens and rabbits and would just go out and kill a few rabbits or chickents for a barbecue.  I've also seen them catch starlings and save them for a meal (which I luckily wasn't there for), but they won't eat horse!
  9. Surely stage musicals belong on the stage though.    Yes, but only in the same way as football supporters prefer to see a match live.  It is too expensive for most people to go to see a stage musical, so making it available on television would introduce more people to this form of entertainment.  It would also encourage more people to go to the theatre if they got a taste for it.  Personally, I'd love to see more stage shows live, but the nature of my work prevents me from going to the theatre as often as I would like.
  10. woolybanana'sbrother  Re: Are you excited?   Did you watch Carmen late last night? No - but I assume you mean the opera - and I'm not into Opera - but anyway, I'd gone on holiday at the time of your posting and hadn't much internet access.  But to be honest, I watch so little television that I forget to check what is on television then find I miss things I am actually interested in.      Report     23/07/2008, 0:57 dr orloff Joined on 13/04/2008 Posts 70 Re: Are you excited? I think that if you added up all the televised sport it would actually constitute a small proportion of total free broadcasting.  Surely stage musicals belong on the stage though.   
  11. [quote user="Meg "][quote user="Jill"]An English woman spoke to me in a supermarket in the Dordogne today.  She said they had retired to France and bought a house here, to which they moved 4 days ago.  She said they are vegetarian and speak no French and all they had eaten in the last 4 days was cheese, cheese and more cheese.  She was clearly fed up of cheese!  I suggested they might cook something with chick peas.  I'm not vegetarian, but I could certainly think of plenty of vegetarian things to eat that don't involve cheese or Quorn.  They said the only cooking they had done was to heat up a tin of vegetable soup.  I didn't think to ask her whether they had ever visited France previously or whether they knew anything about French cuisine.  We just can't understand why anyone in their circumstances would move to France.  I mean, if they had visited France, then surely they should know what to expect foodwise (although I expect that given time they will find food for vegetarians - if they can learn some French).  But then, surely, as vegetarians, they should know something about vegetarian cuisine and be able to sort themselves out foodwise regardless.  I find it difficult to believe that anyone could move to France and know so little.  They might as well have moved to the Moon.  I realise all people have different reasons for wanting to move to France and I certainly have many reasons for wanting to have a home in France - even though it will probably never happen.  But even though I have spent a lot of time in France, with French families, in gites and camping, I do feel there is still a lot more research to be done.  I daresay I will come in for some flac from people who have moved to France knowing nothing about France, but - oh well, we were just astonished.[/quote] Poor woman!!! She only arrived 4 days ago (maybe she doesn't even have a kitchen) and is now the subject of a 'brits in france' debate!!  We moved over here after never holidaying here and with very limited language, and it took a few weeks to find our feet and work out what to buy, from where and what it was called in french etc, but who cares, it was our choice to do it that way. Research is all well and good, but for some folks they rather just say let's just do it, and dive in at the deep end, otherwise they never get any further than research and talking about it. Depends on your circumstances/character etc, doesn't make one right and one wrong. Some sink some swim, that's life. Good on anyone prepared to take the odd risk in life to achieve their goals. Wonder if she's reading this?! Can't be many British retired ladies in the dordogne, that were talking to a lady in a supermarket yesterday, and who only moved over 4 days ago...........[Www] Either that or she was after a free meal from you Jill! [:)] [/quote] I think that if she had ever read this forum, she would have known that France is not geared up for vegetarians who don't know how to cook vegetarian food from raw ingredients.  The woman was clearly ignorant of French food and Vegetarian cooking of all nationalities, otherwise she would have known the problems she would be presented with.  France does seem to have a lot of ready made food these days, but still not much for vegetarians - and I suspect that the vegetable soup she had contained meat stock, in any case.  Ready-made veggie food is restrictive anyway.  As someone who eats all meat - including horse, rabbit etc, I still cook a fair amount of vegetarian food.  I have no problem finding something to cook for vegetarian guests without relying on cheese - the last vegetarian who ate chez nous was lactose intolerant. This woman was above retirement age with her daughter in her 30's and it's a bit sad that it was clear that neither of them knew how to cook vegetarian food from basic ingredients such as - vegetables!!!!! Plus the help of cheese, eggs, pulses, nuts etc for protein.  I just hope they haven't died of starvation or cheese excess in the meantime.
  12. An English woman spoke to me in a supermarket in the Dordogne today.  She said they had retired to France and bought a house here, to which they moved 4 days ago.  She said they are vegetarian and speak no French and all they had eaten in the last 4 days was cheese, cheese and more cheese.  She was clearly fed up of cheese!  I suggested they might cook something with chick peas.  I'm not vegetarian, but I could certainly think of plenty of vegetarian things to eat that don't involve cheese or Quorn.  They said the only cooking they had done was to heat up a tin of vegetable soup.  I didn't think to ask her whether they had ever visited France previously or whether they knew anything about French cuisine.  We just can't understand why anyone in their circumstances would move to France.  I mean, if they had visited France, then surely they should know what to expect foodwise (although I expect that given time they will find food for vegetarians - if they can learn some French).  But then, surely, as vegetarians, they should know something about vegetarian cuisine and be able to sort themselves out foodwise regardless.  I find it difficult to believe that anyone could move to France and know so little.  They might as well have moved to the Moon.  I realise all people have different reasons for wanting to move to France and I certainly have many reasons for wanting to have a home in France - even though it will probably never happen.  But even though I have spent a lot of time in France, with French families, in gites and camping, I do feel there is still a lot more research to be done.  I daresay I will come in for some flac from people who have moved to France knowing nothing about France, but - oh well, we were just astonished.
  13. [quote user="dr orloff"]Given that complete rubbish like Eastenders and Coronation Street occupies virtually every night of the TV schedules why do people moan when a bit of sport comes on?[/quote] I don't watch trash like East Enders or Coronation Street - in fact I do watch very little television.  But the fact it that there is far too much sport on television and it isn't balanced out between sport, trash and better quality stuff.  I'd like to see stage musicals televised, more ballet televised and more quality films earlier in the evening.  I'm  on holiday in France at the moment and I had hoped that the Olympics would have been on while we are away, but not being clued up on sporting matters, I don't know when the Olympics are on, so wasn't able to arrange to be out of England when they are taking place.  There are sports channels.  Well wouldn't it be better to have sports on sports channels, soaps on soap channels and other category channels too.  Unfortunately the sports channels are pay channels and my family doesn't watch enough television to make it worth paying for any channels at all.  My view is that if you take the ratio of people taking part in various sports compared to those taking part in dance, amateur dramatics etc and compare it to the ratio of programmes of those types of programmes on television, it is completely out of balance.  I know more people who have an interest in dance than play golf , snooker, tennis etc and that is not counting people who dance within my own organisation.  People such as myself are just not catered for on television, whereas there is ample for those interested in sport.
  14. I haven't travelled by train in France for years (except the RER) and wondered whether there are still left luggage lockers in French railway stations - in particular at Avranches?  Thanks.
  15. Not birthday parties, but in the last couple of years, we have been invited to two weddings in France.  We never received an official invitation, but were told in letters and e.mails in general correspondence that they hoped we would be there for the wedding.  However, on both occasions I ended up having to phone up and ask where the wedding was going to be and at what time.  I did wonder if they hadn't really intended inviting us after all, but they had mentioned it plenty of times, so it seemed a genuine invitation, if not official.  We only received a thank you letter for our gift from one of the couples.  It probably is a manners thing and that people are not always used to official procedures - perhaps the same with birthday parties.  But in England it is the same with parties.  My nephew only had a few attend his party.  Party bags seem to be newish even in England.  We certainly didn't have them when I was a child.  I don't know when it sprung up, but it seemed to be expected when my children were small, but I don't think I knew that for their first few parties.
  16. [quote user="Just Katie"] [quote user="odile"]what is/are your favourite/s? For moi - Gruyere and Stilton! [/quote] Dairylea.  Anthea Turner did a nice little apero recipe the other day.  Take a few slices of Mothers Pride and cut out little circles with a glass.  Toast them then take a tube of Primula and apply a swirl then garnish with a prawn and a teeny triangle of cucumber. Do you think the French would fall for that? [/quote] Well I wouldn't. but since there is such a range of apericubes in France, which are just flavoured la vache qui rit, perhaps the French would!  It surprises me sometimes that with their exacting ideas about good cuisine (which I fully support) they will eat apericubes and that awful surimi stuff.  But then, the French students I used to deal with used to return home with a couple of loaves of Mother's Pride, simply because then, it was probably better than French pain de mie.  Personally, I think there is no substitute for real cheese, real bread and real seafood.  Gosh, the last time I had la vache qui rit, it was with stale bread and vodka for breakfast, as it was all we had available having got an early morning train to go to Dracula's castle in Romania - 1985!
  17. [quote user="odile"]I once travelled by place with a ripe Reblochon - grease paper x2, cling film x 2, foil x 2, plastic bag all sealed - you should have seen the faces other when the overhead locker was opened! Once bought a lovely cheese in the market at Trouville called  Coup de pied au  *** - the name was better than the cheese. Post edited by the moderators. Please do not post messages which contain explicit language or vulgarities (whether written in French, English or any other language. [/quote]    My brother-in-law used to send us Vacherin from Switzerland so we could make fondue the Swiss way.  It was before the days of vacuum packing and it would have been bought loose and wrapped in foil, plastic etc, but the postman would turn up at the door and I would know straight away what he was delivering! Would the obliterated word be the beginning of the French word for shorts?  Or the English word for a pantajupe?
  18. Just a few general comments on things all the way through this topic: In the Wikipedia info about table manners, it talks of saying please and thankyou.  The comment which was always made by English host families (when I ran the English end of a Sejour Linquistique operation) was that the French teenagers never said please and thank you, and I've even heard that comment about French adults too.  I've always excused this (rightly or wrongly) by saying that perhaps the French feel that if they have asked for something using the conditional tense, it is more polite - the difference between "may I" and "can I".  Another thing about "merci" is the confusion it causes.  If someone comes to you with a bottle of wine and starts pouring into your glass, it is a natural English tendancy to say thank you.  The French tend to interpret this is that you want them to stop pouring at the moment you say "merci", so if you like you wine, hold back on the manners until the glass is full! Another thing is about the positioning of knives and forks.  When we had lunch with one of my friends a few years ago she had some really attractive "Pose Couvert" which were like little ornaments placed each side of the plate, at about 10 to 2 position, so that you could rest your knife and fork there between courses.  She said they had belonged to her Grandmother.  Has anyone seen any of these?  They were in pairs i.e. each guest would have a different matching set, but they were all from one set following a theme.  I can't remember what it was now.  It may have been animals, but that sounds a bit childish. Regarding knives, everyone used knives before forks came to this part of Europe.  I've forgotten when the fork did actually come but I expect it was an upper class thing for a long time, anyway.  Quite a lot of our French friends use their knife to put cheese or fruit to their mouths.    
  19. Hard cheeses - Beaufort, Comte, some cheddar, Wensleydale, Caerphilly, Cheshire French cheeses - Pont l'Eveque, Boursin plus Reblochon as Tartiflette and Raclette Pecorino, Cacciacavalo, Provalone, Parmesan, Grano Padano Feta - especially with olives and garlic in herby oil With hard cheeses, they are fine as sandwiches or on crackers.  I find that French cheeses only work for me at the end of a meal with French bread and a glass of red wine.  I couldn't eat them as a sandwich.  I can tolerate some other French cheeses as a cheese course, but I'm mostly not keen.        
  20. I've been able to find out about trains between Avranches and the ferry ports, but wondered if there was anything like National Express in Normandy which might pass through Avranches in a more direct way than the changes necessary by train.  St Malo is nearest to Avranches, but train connections to there are the worst.  I thought there might be more likely to be a bus service between St Malo and Avranches for tourists than for Cherbourg and Caen. Thanks.
  21. [quote user="Dick Smith"]I think you could very safely say that it is a French specialty, or even a signature dish of French cuisine. Someone can always find an objection to 'invention'. [/quote] I seem to remember reading or seeing that Creme Brulee isn't French, but I think the reason given was that it isn't in the Larousse Gastronomique.  I haven't got it so I can't confirm that.  It's the dessert I always fall back on in restaurants in France, as I don't find French desserts very interesting - too many fruit tarts.  But I suppose if someone has found a 17th century reference to it in France, it must be French.    
  22. [quote user="Cathy"] Keeping your UK house will give you an exit strategy of things go wrong.  What about having a year's trial, to include a winter, in France?  Personally, I like winters in France because they are shorter and, correspondingly, springs and autumns are longer.  Make sure that you have a wood burning stove.     [/quote]  I'm just wondering why you put such importance on a wood burning stove.  When I stay with French friends who have wood burning stoves, I always get asthma and I only get it from red setters in England.  Also, wood burners make everything stink of smoke.  I know that electricity is said to be more expensive in France than in England, but of course we have gas central heating in England, but is there no cheaper way of getting warmth in France other than using smelly wood burners?  I would like to buy a house in France, but would really prefer to have something more instantaneous, less work and less smelly.
  23. Do you get those accents because you are using a French computer?  I know I can do something (I forget what) plus 130 and various other things on my desktop to get accents but can't find a way to do it on the laptop.  Anyone know?
  24. [quote user="Callie"]"On" usually means "we" in the general sense, and not "one" as in English. Yes, learning any language has its plateaux - you feel you just aren't making any progress[:(], then one day, you find you are improving.  But just keep at it and it will come ! ![:D] [/quote] I've often said that it would make learning French far easier if "on" was taught right from the beginning.  I have French friends all over France and most of them say ON when they mean we.  So little French is actually taught in school these days, but if ON was taught earlier, young people would have a much simpler way of having access to a wider way of saying things.  I'm still struggling to understand what is taught in French lessons these days.  I teach ballet and find it very difficult to believe that words like devant, derriere, a cote, sous, sur, dans, dehors, en face, ouvert, ferme', saute, jete, pied, jambe, bras haven't been learnt in the first three years of learning French.  I'm sure we had done those words in the first year of a secondary modern school in the 70's.  You know - le chat est derriere l'arbre.  La vase est sur la table. Le chien est sous la chaise.  La charcuterie est en face de la boucherie etc.  I despair that they don't know these words - but most children still maintain that wherever you go, everyone speaks English.  Not when I visit France.  Yes, there are a few places where you get people speaking English, but it's not a general thing as teenagers seem to think.  
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