Current features, travel adventures, and whatever interesting stuff I find on the net or in life.
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
The Provençal Christmas season kicked off on Friday with the sowing of blé de la Sainte Barbe. We can’t plant ours until next week because we’re leaving today for Lyon (Fête des Lumières) followed by Strasbourg (marchés de Noël). More about all of that when we get home.
Grenoble is a city of superlatives. One of the largest cities in France, Grenoble is also one of the hottest in summer and coldest in winter, and had the world’s first urban cable-car.
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
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:
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:
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)
14 July is the French national holiday. Learn about the history behind the celebration of Bastille Day and make some French food to celebrate! 
