The Tomato Knife

The much-awaited kitchen countertop! Side note: as we were setting it up, someone (I promised Sébastien I wouldn’t mention any names) accidentally burnt a hole through the instructions (yes, right through the middle where the words and diagrams are).  Result: a bit of intuitive creativity was needed- combined with a morning of hammering, this was [...]

Official move-out day has finally arrived. Tonight we’ll be doing what they call the Etat des Lieux and giving the keys back to the owner at our old apartment.  When you rent in France you have two important pieces of paper: Contrat de Location and Etat des Lieux. The first is easy- it’s your contract.  [...]

There’s a chocolate dessert in France called a mi-cuit, which literally means “half-cooked.” When you cut into the small round cake, it oozes with dark, rich chocolate. Mi-cuit is also the nickname I’ve given our new kitchen. That doesn’t mean it’s oozing with warm dessert- far from it. In fact, for the last couple weeks [...]

Here’s one last post in my series on the Loire Valley. Now that we’ve seen where we stayed and what we saw, this one’s about what we ate. Part 4: Asparagus Invasion A primeur is a young fruit or vegetable that starts off the season. This is what we were eating during our trip in [...]