The South of France in July - Why not find out more!

Just a quick reminder to book your place now for our annual trip to Lodève for the "Les voix de la Méditerranée" festival in July.

The festival runs for a week or so from 17th -25th July 2010. For the first (long) weekend, we will be giving French tuition and accompanied tours to local residents who have recently moved from other parts of Europe to this beautiful part of France. We will also be sharing insights into the local culture and delicacies as well as enjoying the ambiance and the odd glass of the local wines! Email us now for more information. It's not too late to join our group!

A Taste of Provence Workshop - book now for June!

A Taste of Provence Workshop on the 22nd of April 2010 was a huge success. So much so that we are already preparing for the next workshop on the 24th June at Cooks Barn near Cambridge, but don't take our word for it, here's one of the many testimonials we received from participants!

"That was truly amazing. This variation of “French on your plate” in association with “Made in Provence” was definitely a brilliant idea!"

We had, until now, enjoyed discovering and preparing various regional dishes. We even had had a Provençal Christmas dinner last year and had all agreed how interesting it was to get to know more about the culture and the language as well as have a go at cooking French specialities.

Francine Rouanet-Démocrate met Christine Vidal of "Made in Provence" at the France Show last January and sampled some of her delicious handmade Provençal products - free from any artificial additives - and also enjoyed smelling handcrafted soaps and enchanting house perfumes. It soon became obvious that if we invited her to our workshops and people had a taste too, we could take them on the way to Provence; for real…

By adding blind tastings (in the form of a friendly competition) to our existing workshop format of mixing language tuition with cooking sessions, we enhanced the whole experience for participants.

The workshop “A taste of Provence” offered a similar approach to that of the usual “French on your plate”. However the changes gave the workshop a whole new dimension.

Starting the evening with an apéritif first. Not everyone was familiar with the taste of aniseed in the “pastis” or the taste of gentian in the “Suze”. Both such
typical drinks for an apéritif in the South of France. Some loved it, some didn’t (the “Marmite” principle). Everyone enjoyed the “tapenades” especially the ones without anchovies….
We shortened the tuition to move rapidly onto the cookery demonstration. While the meal for 12 was cooking, we had fun doing the "blind tasting" competition, that was won by Ross, a young Scotsman with a good nose.

Last but not least, we all sat down to dinner complete with Rosé de Provence, “liqueur de violette”, nougats and “calissons “.

All agreed that this must be the best way to learn French in this country!!!!
Make a note of Thursday 24th of June. We’ll be back! Book your place now.

Marathon de Paris

Back from the Paris Marathon… totally exhausted, took two weeks to get over it…. and I didn’t run it! Roz and Linda from Cambridge and Newmarket did and a whole bunch of us were there to support them.
We walked all over the place, crossed bridges and caught the metro here and there, simply to keep up with them and be in the right place at the right time to hand out drinks, pieces of fruit and cheer them on. The group was split into two: those who really had something to do with the marathon, the brave ones, and the “tourists”.


As well as dashing around the
city, people in my company, supporting the runners, had to speak French only or else pay a fine of one euro per sentence uttered in English…. to be spent wisely on some celebratory drinks later on, was the plan!

The others let us get on with it and enjoyed Paris in their own way: cycling along the avenues on a Velib, stopping for a drink or a bite at a café en route…. their own version of the marathon (!), shopping, sightseeing meeting up with the rest of the group in the evening.

After a few chilly days, the weather at the week-end turned out to be lovely, sunny but cool, perfect for the runners … and their supporters, all on foot and pressed for time…

The ambience was amazing. I am told that, unlike London and New York, the Paris Marathon is “quiet”. There was a bit of Jazz or drum playing here and there at a street corner or on a bridge, but on the whole it was more the colourful crowds, the odd friendly chat with perfect strangers and the sweet smells of the parks and gardens that prevail in the Spring.

The 30,000 plus participants ran softly and quietly, cheered gently by the public, along the circuit. Whilst Roz and Linda went on jogging, as fresh as daisies, we rested our feet on the metro and went to watch their arrival the Arc de Triomphe (also where it had all started at 8 in the morning). Our two stars made it in good time (4h40) and were hugged and congratulated for their performance. That way of seeing Paris was definitely different! Another Paris one might say!