The Tomato Knife

In Bracieux, France, the same small village that inspired Alexandre Dumas to write about the fictive musketeer, Porthos, you’ll find a chocolate factory. Not far from Blois in the Loire Valley, chocolate-maker Max Vauché, has set up a chocolatier worth visiting. We took a tour of the contemporary facilities (where dried cacao beans stuffed into [...]

Amboise, a small town in the Loire Valley, is known primarily for its overbearing medieval castle- once home to some of France’s most famous rulers, as well as to Catherine of Medici’s ten children! Amboise is also renowned for Clos-Lucé, the stately home where Leonardo da Vinci (invited by the French King Francois I) spent [...]

Our thoroughly amusing find at the farmers’ market this week: a bouquet of cabbage flowers. On the sign, it was simply marked “choux” (the French word for cabbage), but a quick Internet search revealed a couple other potential names in English: flowering kale and ornamental cabbage. I’m still a bit confused about these guys, for [...]

We didn’t really know if we were supposed to eat the heads or not! Looking back at our most-recent two days in the Loire Valley, I’m still proud of myself for trying the tiny fish you see in the photo.  Friture de petits poissons was listed as an appetizer on La Croisette’s menu.  We were [...]