Du pain sur la planche 'Terres du Sud' Thursday October 7th from 6-10pm at Cooks Barn, Cambridgeshire

Learn French through a taste of the South of France

As a perfect follow up to the summer festival of “Les Voix de la Méditerranée” here’s a brand new event to celebrate the southern regions of France. A variation on our popular themed "French on your plate" workshops, this time we thought we’d try and put a little French into your glass too! Francine, in collaboration with Christine of Made in Provence, has devised a brand new event aiming to initiate guests to the best fine food & wine from the South of France. Francine & Christine invited Martin Straus of House of Strauss to join this upcoming workshop so you can sample some of his fine wines.

The event will include up to 4 hours of interactive cookery demonstrations, wine tasting and French conversation for all to enjoy. This is a unique combination of French language & culture presented by Francine in partnership with Christine who will share more mouth watering Provençal food and in combination with Martin's in-depth wine knowledge (including food matching); an experience not to be missed.

Date & Time:
Thursday 7th October 2010 from 6:00pm to 10:00pm.

Location:
The beautiful surroundings of Cooks Barn, The Stone Yard, Bottisham, near Cambridge, CB25 9BD. Places are strictly limited to 20 guests.

Prices:

• £50 per head including a three course meal with aperitif & fine wines from France, language tuition and recipes to take away
• Early bird rate £45 (if booked by 25/09/10)
• An additional 5% discount for 2 tickets booked together

To find out more and to obtain a booking form, email or call 01223 46 14 45. You can also visit our website for more general information on these courses.

Workshop Overview:

1. Apéritif & Provençal nibbles
2. Presentation of the South of France and study of recipes French spoken
3. “Hands-on” cookery demonstration and “blind tasting” using authentic handmade French specialities sourced from small artisans in the striking countryside of Provence. Guests will gather round the cooking range - a sumptuous handmade Lacanche made by a 200 year old Burgundian family business. French spoken throughout.
4. Wine tasting (wines from Provence & the Languedoc) and brief introduction to wine & food matching. Presentation in English.
5. Meal with appropriate matching wines from the region. Franglais or English spoken!
6. Final conversation and questions in French, though both French & English will be spoken. 

And a quick reminder that the last Du pain sur la plance workshop will take place on Thursday the 9th December with a Provençal Christmas theme. Register your interest early.

"My dearest dream is for an internationality of poems and poets binding the lands of the earth closer than all treaties and diplomacy" Walt Whitman

Les Voix de la Méditerranée 17 – 25 July 2010

Steeped in balmy, sun drenched July in the Languedoc, the 13th festival of “Les Voix de la Méditerranée” transformed Lodève into a vast stage where music and poetry reading resounded all day long. For 10 whole days this little medieval town, nestled at the feet of the Massif Central, hosted a mix of 80; poets, musicians, dancers, mimes and publishers from over 20 countries from around the Mediterranean Sea.

The shade of its narrow streets offered coolness at cafés terraces, by the cloister of the medieval cathedral or near a disused 'Four à pain'. More respite from the heat was to be found in the shallow waters of the Soulondre River, as well as in deckchairs and hammocks under the scented trees of La Mégisserie Garden. Wherever one turned, hundreds of visitors sat dreaming, dozing, picnicking, all transported into another world by the voices of poets, actors & the sound of musical instruments.

Musicians, dancers, mimes and jugglers adorned every street corner, while streets were lined with stalls where local publishers sold books. Poems written by famous poets and ordinary people alike were used to decorate doors. Some were even written by local children. The town’s museum ‘Musée Fleury’, launched a stunning exhibition of paintings by the group of Post-Impressionist avant-garde artists known as “Les Nabis”... who set the pace for fine arts and graphic arts in France in the 1890s.

Poetry readings were interpreted by their authors in their mother tongue: Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Occitan, Maltese or French to name but a few. Then, actors would read the translation into French either before or afterward the original version. At the end of each performance, the public was invited to ask questions or share their feelings with the performers.

With the programme in hand and the help of a map, we could choose day after day to attend a series of events while ambling slowly from one spot to the other. Each day followed a similar pattern. The first event in the day took place outside a café with “Petit-déjeuner au café” at 10am. We listened to two or three poets being interviewed and questioned by a presenter and the public in between the readings.

Later in the morning people gathered in the cloister to listen to Bernard Noël the renowned 80 years-old French poet. The latter read different extracts of his works every day. The place was always full and the public sat everywhere in the stairs or on the floor. Many even stood for the whole hour.

Around lunch time there was another presentation in the stunning building of O Marches du Palais exhibiting the works of local artists. The readings accompanied by music were followed by tastings of local wines and specialties in a very convivial atmosphere. We would then walk back to the main square to enjoy a salad or a sandwich at the “Saveurs du Sud”, a little restaurant under the trees, while watching the pigeons bathe in the fountain and listening to the soft familiar noise of the cicadas.

The afternoon offered a well attended “Sieste musicale” where the participants relaxed in a deckchair or a hammock in the shade to the sounds of soothing music; an ideal opportunity to gather a little energy away from the scorching heat, ready for more activities into the night.

The next popular venue was the river for a “Lecture au gré de l’onde” where rows of chairs were aligned and people could listen to the poets sitting on the bank, while wriggling their toes blissfully in the clear cold water… The rest of the day went on in a similar fashion until the evening.

After a couple of days, people’s faces became familiar and there were easy, friendly exchanges between the participants. We began to feel close to some poets that we had met several times and listening to them became an amazing insightful experience. Hearing so many languages and discovering so many cultures in such a gentle, enjoyable fashion, brought us all together.

The fact that all this was available to all ages and for free, with such generosity and human warmth, was quite simply overwhelming.

Our thanks and gratitude go to the people of Lodève who supported the festival with such kindness and simplicity.

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!

A “pinch” of linguistics

The French vocabulary is numerically more limited than the English one. There are different ways of overcoming this shortage of words. It is usually done through some grammatical artifice. One of these consists in adding a group of words to the noun to clarify its meaning, where the English language usually has just one word. For example we say “le bouton de la chemise” (button), “le bouton de rose” (rosebud), “le bouton de porte” (doorknob) and to cut quite a long list of “boutons” short “le bouton sur le nez” which is a pimple on the nose! There are many other words requiring a little supplement to be correctly understood.

Another way of getting more meaning from a word through a grammatical device: changing the gender of a given word. For example:

• “le” or “la” livre, one you read (book) the other you spend or weigh items with(pound)
• “le” or “la tour”, one on your bike around France the other may be called Eiffel!
• “le voile” which is worn over the head by a nun or a bride whereas “la voile” will enable you to sail your boat
• a bunch of flowers goes into “le vase”, but the slimy stuff at the bottom of the river is “la vase”

You also have “le mousse”, the youngest sailor onboard a ship or “la mousse”. You can also have yet more choices by adding the first grammatical artifice of adding words, with the second of a different gender:

• “la mousse au chocolat” (chocolate mousse)
• “la mousse de la bière”, the white stuff on your pint
• “la mousse” you create when you wash with a piece of soap

to name but a few.

 

As if that wasn’t confusing enough, there is more to using the masculine and feminine in French! Many masculine nouns also have also a feminine form. Some are pretty straightforward: “un coiffeur” becomes “une coiffeuse” in the feminine form, where both mean hairdresser (a man or woman). Unfortunately there are cases where the meaning varies a little and doesn’t sound very flattering to a woman’s ear. To name a couple: “un homme léger” is charming and witty man, “une femme légère” implies a fallen woman. “Un petit gars” is a cute young lad, whereas “une petite garce” is a husband’s nightmare. One might speculate that this could due to the fact that French grammar was originally devised by male scholars… Luckily we are here to help you sort out the subtleties of our intriguing language!

Eternal France

From quaint villages in the Cévennes or Brittany, to the dazzling white slopes of the Alps, or even the opal green seascapes of Normandy, it is true that France is a beautiful and varied country. Plentiful are the hidden parts of “la France profonde” which are real gems. Some have hardly changed through the ages. These images are magnified in our memories as being basked in glorious sunshine, yet only a small part of France enjoys blue skies all year round. If you are thinking to move to France, we would advise you visit your chosen area in all seasons. It is true that the climate of France is considered on the whole to be rather clement. There are however at least four major zones corresponding to a more specific sub-climate:

• “Oceanic” in Western France from Normandy to the Basque country via the Bordeaux area. From North to South there are variations. However Normandy and Brittany greatly resemble Devon and Cornwall in landscape, vegetation and weather.
• “Continental” in Eastern parts such as Champagne, Burgundy and the Rhône Valley. Those regions enjoy the extremes, from scorching summers to violent storms and sub-zero temperatures in winter.
• “Mountain climate” in the Jura, the Alps, The Massif Central or the Pyrénées. Life and weather are similar to other European high altitude regions such as Switzerland or Austria.
• “Mediterranean” by far the smallest zone of all, along the Riviera and Southern Languedoc. Ironically, this is typically the image most people have of France as a whole. Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security as while a city like Montpellier can enjoy on average over 250 days of annual sunshine, the average rainfall there is the same as in Cambridge.

These four climate zones along with approximately 600 micro-climates account for the rich and varied regional delicacies and wines. Remember, like most parts of the UK, France has varied weather depending on the time of year. If you love it in all seasons, rain or shine, then you are ready for the big move!