LKL’s Blog

Here are some links to help you celebrate with your beloved.

French love language
French terms of endearment
Spanish love language
Vegetarian aphrodisiacs

Good-bye 2009 and the unnamed first decade of the new millenium! Hello 2010 and another difficult to name decade! I spent nearly the entire year in France, other than my three weeks in Italy, and I’ll likely be in France for all of the new year as well. Best wishes to all!

Here’s some reading material and ideas for New Year’s Resolutions for you:

New Year’s in France
French New Year’s Resolutions
Veggie Table New Year’s Resolutions

I hope you and your families are happy, safe, and warm this holiday season. Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all!

Vegetarian Christmas Menu
Christmas in France
French Christmas Vocabulary
Spanish Christmas Vocabulary

It’s the third Thursday in November, which means that the year’s Beaujolais Nouveau is being drunk in France and all over the world. Learn a bit about this annual wine fest: Beaujolais Nouveau

I spent my third and final week in Italy taking private cooking classes at Apicius Culinary Institute. I had spent a long time looking for another group class but just couldn’t find something that appealed to me yet didn’t cost a small fortune, and then I discovered that private classes were fairly competitively priced. For €1,060 I received

• 4 private cooking classes (2-2½ hours) followed by lunch
• 1 private and 1 group wine appreciation class (1 hour each)
• Private gastronomic walking tour (2 hours)
• 1 group cooking class (2 hours) followed by meal
• Recipes before each lesson
• Apron

(more…)

The second Italian cooking program I attended in September was Convivio Rome. While it’s not a vegetarian program, I contacted the school ahead of time and they assured me that I would have something vegetarian to cook while the other students cooked meat. For €999, the program included the following:

• 6 nights accommodation in a local cottage
• Daily breakfast in the local café
• 3 cooking sessions (2 hours each) followed by lunch
• 2 dinners, including one with wine tasting
• Guided tour of Rome
• Visits to nearby villages
• Olive oil tour and tasting session
• Transportation to/from train station
• Recipes before each lesson
• Welcome gift (a lovely kitchen towel from a nearby village)

(more…)

The first of the three Italian cooking programs I attended this past September was Organic Tuscany. While the school is not vegetarian, it offers week-long vegetarian programs a few times a year. For €1,300 (the price has since gone up), the program included the following:

• 7 nights accommodation in a 19th-century villa
• 4 cooking sessions (2-3 hours each) followed by meals
• 5 additional meals
• Baskets of breakfast items to be shared among the group
• Guided walking tours of Florence and Siena
• Visits to two local farms and a potter
• Olive oil tasting session
• Wine tasting session
• Apron
• Recipe e-book (after departure)

Participants are required to rent a car to get to the offsite visits, so that is another charge to keep in mind. The director helps arrange car sharing. (more…)

Six months ago, my husband and I decided to spend most of September in Italy, though for the most part not together. He wanted to take some intensive Italian language classes, and I wanted to add to my Italian cuisine repertoire – specifically, fresh pasta and gnocchi. After a great deal of research, I found three programs that sounded like they would meet my needs (more or less) and that cost no more than 1,300 euros for the week, including lodging. There were a number of other great-sounding programs that cost upwards of €2,000 – and one that was nearly €5,000! Even staying in a 5-star villa, I can’t see how a week of cooking could be worth the better part of a year’s rent. So I chose from the cheaper end of the scale and, for the most part, I was fairly happy with my classes. I’ve written detailed reviews of the three cooking programs to help out anyone else who is considering a culinary vacation. There were some problems and disappointments, but overall, I loved it.

Program 1: Organic Tuscany (Certaldo)
Program 2: Convivio Rome (Toffia)
Program 3: Apicius Culinary Institute (Florence)

I know this photo looks totally staged, but it wasn’t. I had a bunch of not-quite-ripe cherry tomatoes, so I set them out on the marble table in a strip of sunshine. Then when I glanced at them a few minutes later, I saw this lovely reflection.

I’ve always known that I have something akin to an allergy to caffeine. If I drink one cup of coffee today but not tomorrow, I will get a pounding headache. Lots of people get headaches when they’re used to drinking coffee and then miss a day, but mine is immediate – coffee yesterday but not today = headache. And it’s the kind that doesn’t go away with aspirin – it lasts for at least 24 hours, unless I give in and have coffee. Another problem is that if I have the slightest bit of caffeine within 5 or 6 hours of bedtime, I won’t be able to sleep until 2am finally rolls around.

I can live without coffee, but I’ve now confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that chocolate has the same effect on me. If I eat a couple of chocolate almond clusters, the headache is waiting for me right around the corner. So the question is, should I just give up coffee and live headache free? Or should I continue to enjoy this wonderful treat and just make sure to have some every single day? The latter seems very appealing, but I’m not wild about the idea of consuming something that my body has made it so clear I shouldn’t. Too bad it can’t seem to get the message across to my tastebuds.