IMBB23 ~ Vive la France!

-----------------------------ADVERTISEMENT-------------------------------
Traveling to France and need a place to stay? Then try timeshares for sale. Have all the amenities of home in a time share while enjoying your vacation. Your vacation will pay for itself with timeshare resales. Check out this great book that reviews timeshares in Europe and the hospitality.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

a huge thanks to Tana for this banner!

Is my blog burning? Well as a matter of fact it was...during New Year's Eve dinner but that’s another story.... To the mission at hand...

Bonjour mes amis! Bonjour de Paris. Gros merci to Alberto for creating this fun forum. I really struggled with a topic for this IMBB for months.  Over a humm-dinger lunch with the fabulous Sam, I agonized: “WHAT am I going to do for this? I thought about choosing a French theme but that just seems so obvious and the other ideas I had are already taken.” The fabulous Sam replied, “Uh, you live in France right?” Yep. “Well then it only makes sens that you pick a French theme!”

So voila! For this IMBB23 ~ Vive la France!

Or more specifically...Vive la France Régionale avec un Verre du Vin! A fancy way of saying a regional French dish with a glass of wine. Take a traditional French recipe and do a little sleuthing (aka “google it”) to discover a bit more about it, what region it came from and why it was important to that region.


salad niçoise

For example, take Salad Niçoise. It’s from Nice, hence Niçoise, the Provençal region, but what is it about this salad that earns the Niçoise moniker or what about it is Provençal? Who invented it and why and why is it considered a traditional dish?  There's Beouf Bourguignon or Coq au Vin or Poulet Saute Chasseur or Tarte aux Poires à la Frangipane or Gratinee a l'Oignon or Croque Monsieur et Madame, etc.... Chacun à son goût, as they say here. To each his own taste.

Then....since we are in France, you can’t have a meal without a glass of wine, oh mon dieu non!, so pair a wine with your dish. If you’re near San Francisco or on the Peninsula, drop by K&L Wines, the most knowledgeable, friendly wine experts around and if you are in France, well just pop into your nearest Nicolas where they are always delighted to help you select the perfect wine for the meal at hand. If you have any questions about this, give a shout. Please post by Sunday, February 26th and drop me a note when you do.

I hope you have some fun at this as the aspect I find most interesting about cooking, especially here in France, is the regionality (is that a word?) of food. Learning where foods and recipes originate and why adds so much more excitement to a meal, like you are consuming a little piece of history along with it... If you are coming up with cookers block, I'm sure you could pick up an idea or two from la reine de la cuisine française herself, Julia Child.

I think I’m headed to the south of France for my sleuthing.... If nothing else it's warmer down there!  Bon appetite et à fin du mois, j’espère! ~ Happy eating and see you at the end of the month, I hope! Laura

PS: Here’s the technorati tag (thanks Sam!):

Tagged with: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/IMBB23" rel="tag">IMBB23</a> + <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/French" rel="tag">French</a>

PPS: In case you are struggling with this, here are a few traditional regional French dishes that we learned in cooking school including the one above. The pics are less that stellar since I used disposable cameras that kept falling out of my pocket into the frying pan every time I leaned over.  And to be honest, the food we made the first few months was pretty scary....


navarin printanier

goujonettes de sol au sauce tartare


blanquette de veau a l'ancienne


filet de sole bonne femme

Tagged with: IMBB23 + French

Comments

[sam]

it's not like I dont try and cook french food often, but I will certainly be making a special effort for this one. The list of french things I want to try an make is longer than my arm.

[Tana]

I sent you a little present via e-mail.

: D

[sha]

perhaps I should crank up my brain all the restaurants i have visited in CAnnes, Nice, Monaco,Mougins and Biot...feb 26th.. ah we still have time

and i would not mind a glass of rose svp....

[Meg]

Ooh, what fun! I'm going to be stuck into my Larousse for the next couple of weeks, I can see! Is this finally my excuse to buy a duck press at Dehillerin? Only time will tell...
:)

[cindym]

okay, i'm all over this one, mon amie! but no turned vegetables, that much I can promise you!

[patricia]

Bravo pour ces recettes françaises
a presto

[Nupur]

What a fun theme! I am vegetarian but I am sure I'll come up with something!

[Nicky]

I just found your website and the announcement for IMBB23 via Google - after vainly searching for the next IMBB event on the IMBB website, Foodblogscool and Sticky Date. Or have I overlooked it there?

[Dr. Biggles]

Hmmm, my copy of La Bonne Cuisine recently arrived. I wonder if that might have a little golden nugget in there, somewhere.

Biggles

[Anni]

I look forward to joining in! What a way to share my favorite French meals!

C'est Magnifique!

Anni

[ostwestwind]

Vive la France! Here's my contribution: Quiche Lorraine:
http://ostwestwind.twoday.net/stories/1587134/

[Ed]

I'm in and tagged here http://tinyurl.com/jhjtc. Although I'm a Brit living in Oz and love that Asian thing I always hark back to my roots eating French. Excellent.

[Tana]

My offering:
http://smallfarms.typepad.com/small_farms/2006/02/imbb_23_viva_la.html

(It seems that your comments don't accept HTML?)

I had great fun with this, so thank you for the opportunity to do a little cooking outside my normal realm. To be truthful, I can't wait to try some of the other recipes, like oyster soup with herbs, and coq au vin.

Merçi!

[deccanheffalump]

Darn it! Late as usual.
Must be the time difference.;)
If acceptable here's the link to my 'Quiche a la Poona'.
http://thecookscottage.typepad.com/curry/2006/03/quick_quiche_sp.html

[jackee]

thanks for telling about this book. i will read this book because may be i am going to france on my vaccation. so we now where we stay, what type of foods they are, and offcourse wine france wine is popular in the world.

[honda-radio]

Thx! :)