Kim

Just thought you Brits might like to hear this.  We had the best strawberries of the year for breakfast this morning.  I was happily thinking that apparently the crop of a different variety of strawberries was coming into season in France and I looked on the lid.  There from England!  Truly delicious guys.  Kim

Lorna - 5 Element is right - if you look at the ingredient list on most ice creams, it's enough to make you not want to buy it.  And when you consider the price they are charging for it!  The first ingredient is often water and it goes downhill from there.  All vanilla ice cream should have in it is cream, sugar, and vanilla.  French vanilla ice cream has eggs too (at least that's the designation we use in the US).   Thought of making it yourself?  Otherwise you can just go by the ingredient list - but expect to pay a lot! Kim

Hey everyone, Just wanted to say thanks for your input on my little project.  Claire that link was perfect, it summed up the situation about the origin of the dish.  And Dick, I can see you are very reasoned man, just like your photo shows you.  You are quite right that one can always argue about these things, but let just eat dessert, eh? I found the inexpensive blow torch did the job just great.  I can now enjoy crème brûlée with all of its accents whenever I wish. Kind Regards to All, Kim

Hey John, I don't mean to be a pest or anything, but when I check out Wikipedia I find an article that says that although the origin of crème brûlée is unknown, the earliest reference to it is in a French cookbook from 1691.  Did you find a different source?  My website isn't supposed to be a culinary authority, but I don't want to say crème brùlée is a French invention if it isn't.  Perhaps I will just mention that several countries have their own version of this delicious dessert.  By the way, I had no idea that England had it's own burnt cream. Kim

Bonsoir, Thanks for the spelling correction Dick and Claire.  Do I still have to put that little hat on the u Claire?  For some reason I thought the French we're doing away with those. Hey John, I bet I have a lot of funny words for you.  I had an English friend in Corsica for a while and we always enjoyed discovering we had different words for things.  And I though crème brulée was straight up French food!  Guess I got to get out more.  How do you find out such things? Osie - Thanks for the recipe offer.  the one I've come to like has both milk and cream in equal portions and not too much sugar.  Lots of egg yolks.  I'm hesitant to use crème fraiche in any recipe, although I'd love to, because I'm aiming my site at North American cooks and as far as I know crème fraiche is difficult to find in the grocery store there.  I wonder if the same is true in the UK?  The only thing I'm a bit shaky on is the cooking time.  I've seen it baked on low heat for a long time and on high heat for a short time.  Low heat seems to be working best, but I don't know ifeveryone will have the patience (or time) for that.  'Fraid I've already bought the cheap model blow torch! And Catalpa - That's a great idea.  I'm mixing up another batch tomorrow and I'm trying your idea on a couple and my new blow torch on some others. Thanks everyone;  Have a good sleep! Kim

Hi Everyone, I'm doing a page on my website about crème brulé.  It's one of my favorite French desserts but I'm having problems duplicating the results of a good resto crème brulé at home.  I've got the crème part down - it's the brulé that is getting to me.  I have now bought a small blow tourch and am giving that a try in the next couple of days.  In the meantime I was wondering if any of you had had success using the oven broiler to get a hard shell finish to your cream brulé.  I'm starting to think it just depends on what kind of oven one has, or perhaps this method never works?  Anybody have success making crème brulé at home? Thanks for your time. Kim

Boy Pads you must be cooking up a storm at your house!  Maybe something papilloté or it must be a pastry shell with those dried beans hanging about, eh?  I've been sticking the pastry shell in the freezer for 15 minutes before baking and it seems to take care of the puffing up problem (without having to add the beans.)  Let us know how dinner comes out.  I usually have to do French recipes twice, once to do it their way and once to get it right.   

I just read this expression in a cookbook and thought maybe one could use it to convey the watching paint dry notion: Je préfere manger des pissenlits par la racine que de faire whatever. It means I'd rather eat dandelion roots than do whatever.  Basically saying you'd rather be dead.  Not quite the same as watching paint dry, but I thought it was clever.  

I could only find references to mistelle so I went with that spelling.  Guess I'm just going to have to wait until someone offers me a glass or make my own if I want to taste this.  Thanks for your responses!  

Hi everyone, I'm doing a webpage on French liqueurs and have come across mistelle which is a French liqueur made from eau-de-vie, sugar and non-fermented grape juice.  Supposedly, these are hard to come by.  I've never drank one myself and I'm wondering if any of you might have and can tell me about your experience. Thanks! Kim

Hmmm.  Never had a need for that myself.  Is it to make beer?  I think you can find it here called malt d'orge.  Don't know if it's available in stores, but I did see it avaialable by mail order on the web. 

My husband, who continues to this day to have a incredible accent, was once brought a plate of butter when all he wanted was a beer (he had to insist several times to get the butter). 

Well that makes me feel better.  My sons couldn't come up with anything that was fit to print!  Combing a giraffe, that's a good image!

Oh, I'm glad you asked this.  My kids are always asking at the end of dinner "What are we going to do tonight?" They're hoping we're going to say watch TV, but one of us says "Watch the paint dry" and than the other "Watch the grass grow" and sometimes we go on from there.  Now I have a topic for the dinner table.  I bet my bilingual teenagers will have something for us. Kim

Hi, It seems to me you would say: Nous résidons en France depuis . . .

Hi - Any French person worth their reputation as a foodie would probably know what to do with lemon curd.  They might put it on crepes or use it to make a tart.  Even in France it is sometimes called lemon curd, rather than the French crème de citron.  The one thing I've heard them complain about though is if it's too sour (trop acide they'll say).  So maybe a bit more sugar and a little less lemon for them.  Seems like a nice gift to me. Kim

Anny, My initial advice to you is to tred very, very carefully.  Take a vacation in Corsica and see how it feels to you.  The locals have an oft-deserved reputation for running strangers out of town (and they aren't nice about it).  Bars, restaurants, and real estate are how a lot of Corsicans are making their money and they don't necessarily like to share. I lived there with my family for more than 10 years and never had any serious problem because we were from other parts.  However, we always paid the utmost respect to the natives, who are truly attached to their piece of the earth.  We bought a house, but we didn't buy one on the shore (these are frequently targets for bombing).  We turned the other cheek when the "bergers" helped themselves to our land to graze their flock.  I have seen the effects when you don't play the game according to their rules.  They'll make things extremely difficult in ways you can't imagine. I have seen English people make a business work on Corsican soil, but it has been because they are doing something the Corsicans aren't (running an art gallery is one example I saw) or they have married into the island.  I don't mean to discourage you in any way.  I just want to alert you to some of the realities of Corsica.  If you keep going with this idea, you'll soon find that I'm not the only one who will tell you these things.  Corsica is a gorgeous place and I can totally understand that you would like to be able to move there and set up a business.  If you have any specific questions, I'm ready to answer. Oh by the way, you asked about speaking French.  My experience in all of France has always been that if you make an effort, people will try to uderstand you.  If they don't, you might not want to be speaking with them anyway.  In Corsica, they speak both French and Corse (which is a so-called dialect - mixture of Italian and French). Kind Regards, Kim

Tampon applicateur.  I saw them for sale on Castorama.  Have fun!

Hi, Are you talking about those little furry flat things that you dip in the paint?  When I was painting the interior of my house about five years ago in Corsica, I was able to buy those at the local hardware store, so I imagine you could find them at any fair sized hardware store.  I never really liked them myself, but my dad, who does a lot of house renovation, thought they were good for getting a smooth finish on woodwork.  I found a variety of roller sizes and materials worked better for me.  Boy I'm starting to get worked up just talking about it.  We're renting an apartment right now so I have to curb all of my mad bricolage tendancies. Kind Regards, Kim

Hey Aaron, I think Gluestick was aiming that spam comment at me.  Splat!  Sorry dude! Anyway I certainly wasn't trying to spread spam.  I just quickly clicked on Google to give you a few links to get started.  Thought it was a simple minded sort of search, but guess I was wrong!  I'll be more careful about recommending sources next time.  The Quid link is solid anyway.  Bon chance! Kim

Hi Aaron, Not sure exactly what you are getting at.  It's very easy to find a list of the regions of France and the departments that make up each region.  Try; http://www.quid.fr/regions.html Or here's a map: http://www.yourfrenchconnexion.com/map-regions-france.htm I would think either one of these gives you enough to get started with for a travel site.  Good luck! Kind Regards, Kim

Hi, I just joined the forums and saw your post which has gone unanswered for a while.  I don't know if you are still interested, but I could help you out with a lot of information.  I lived in Corsica for more than 10 years, bought and sold a house there, had three kids, etc. I'll tell you stright away that there are a lot of properties available in Corsica that are sold by word of mouth.  You have to go into a bar or restaurant and just dare to start talking with the locals.  If they take a shine to you, you may find something quickly.  Be prepared for the prices.  Wow, have they ever gone up in recent years!  There are literally thousands of unoccupied flats in the villages of Corsica.  If you go just 10 minutes up into the mountains you will see lots and lots of buildings that are unoccupied.  Many times these flats are left unsold because a lot of different family members have inherited the property and can't come to an agreement about selling. Anyway, I don't know if you're still connecting to these forums so I'll stop there.  But if you see this and have some questions, I'll be hapy to spend some time answering. Kind Regards, Kim

Hi Jeanne, This is my first time posting to this forum.  I've been living in France for 17 years and have learned everything the hard way - never thought to connect with other English speakers.  Maybe this has actually helped me some, because when one learns from one's mistakes, it really sinks in. Your affair is definitely a bbq and not a picnic.  The French people will know what you are talking about and won't be surprised to find that it is not a sit-down together meal (imagine trying to time that!)  However, I would make sure they had a place to sit down, especially the ladies.  I've been to events at my husbands work where everyone was asked to bring a salad or dessert and the hosts provided the drinks and the meat for the bbq.  So asking people to bring something should get a good response I imagine. I heard a French man recently moaning about the terrible bbq he went to in the States.  I think the French expect something a little different from a bbq than what I grew up with.  They usually have skewered meats and vegetables, merguez and other sausages, and perhaps some steaks.  I haven't seen them do hamburgers and hotdogs. Whatver you do, don't forget the baguettes!  And I'm sure they wouldn't say no to cheese, but than you have to worry about not letting that sit out for too long. One thing I've seen people do here that is very effective is to get a huge ice chest (my husband can get these at work) and fill it with sodas, beer, and even wine.  Everyone serves themselves as needed. I've never had 40 people to entertain at once.  You are very brave.  It would be fun to hear how your event comes out and what you learned. Kind Regards, Kim