Join us on a photo journey of France, Europe and beyond on our photoblog. Click on the photo or go to: www.france-and-beyond-photoblog.com
Chambery App
If you have an IPhone or IPod and are planning a visit to Chambery, buy my ITunes App. It will walk you through the city of Chambery to each historic landmark with walking directions, history, a map, and narrative. It's just $2.99. Click on the above photo of the elephant fountain for the link to the app.
Travel Resources
Planning a trip to France ? Stay in a Paris apartment during your trip to the city of lights.
Get my Chambery, France Guide Book free with the purchase of my Cookbook: 'French Comfort Food: Recipes of Savoie and the French Alps.' Get both for only $7.99. Click the photo to get more information or to purchase your books now.
French Tutorial
A basic grammar and vocabulary review of the French language, as well as some informal & slang vocabulary and a special section on vocabulary for English-speaking expatriates living in France. Also included is an appendix on French pronunciation for English speakers as well as IPA transcriptions for most of the vocabulary lists and all of the verb conjugations.
Visit the Store to buy the e-book for $9.95 or paperback book for $24.95.
Join us on a small group tour of the French Alps June 9 - 16, 2012. I designed this tour to include the best of the region. Wander the Medieval town of Annecy, nicknamed the Venice of the French Alps, and take a boat ride on its crystal blue lake. Do you like pampering yourself on your vacations, then why not spend an afternoon at the Aix les Bains thermal baths inside your lakeside hotel? Are you the adventurous type? Then take a horseback ride in the Alps or fly through the trees at the High Ropes Adventure. Are you a foodie? Taste local chocolates, cheeses, wines and hazelnut oils. Are you a history buff? Then satisfy your curiosity at Lyon's Old Town or Vienne's Roman Temple and Forum. Or just enjoy watching the hang gliders and sunset while enjoying an outdoor aperitif on the top of a mountain overlooking Annecy's lake. See you in the French Alps! www.french-alps-tours.com
Alps Cookbook
Get my ECookbook: 'French Comfort Food: Recipes of Savoie and the French Alps.'
51 recipes of the region, collected from friends and local cookbooks. This is the only English language Savoie and French Alps cookbook in print. Only $7.99 and includes a bonus book: The Chambery Guide Book.
Click the photo to buy yours now or go to the Cookbook Page on the Navigation Bar!
French Comfort Food
Visit my French Comfort Food website for articles, recipes, videos, tips and products about French Food and Wine. Click on the photo or go to www.frenchcomfortfood.com
Videos, photos and posts can be used or posted noncommerically (this means you can't sell my films, photos or put them in or on anything you sell!), but everything must be linked back to this blog and must list me as the creator.
I’m in Alsace, France for my birthday which was a present from my husband, Bernard. His daughter joined us. The town we are staying in, Rosheim, is a Medieval village with wonderful timber-lined homes. We also visited a 1400′s castle and another Medieval town, Riguewihr, which was as cute as it could be. Today we spent roaming the streets of Strasbourg and visiting its stunning Cathedral. It’s all on video and camera and I’ll be putting videos of the trip on the blog in the coming weeks. It’s a very German-influenced area but don’t say that to an Alsacian because they don’t like the German comparisons. The dialect here is quite interesting too – I hear German, French with a touch of the Swedish inflection.
And for those of you who read my birthday reflections post, I wanted to update you. The inspection happened today and all went well. The house is in great shape but there is a lot of cleaning, painting, some repairs, three rooms that need flooring, plus a new refrigerator. But thanks to credit cards, it’s all within the realm of possibility. So thanks for your good wishes.
This is a classic French recipe which I ‘Savoyardized’ with local products. But if you can’t find the Savoie ingredients where you are, I gave you alternatives.
Ingredients for 4 – 6 persons:
- 1 pastry shell, homemade or store bought, or made from a pie sheet from your grocery’s refrigeration or freezer sections
- 1 cup of Savoie lardons (as seen in the video) or 10 slices of cooked, crumbled bacon
- 1/3 cup minced onion
- 5 eggs, beaten
- 2 cups of light cream (or half n half)
- 1 cup of shredded Beaufort or Gruyere cheese
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- 1 teaspoon of sugar
- 1/8 teaspoon of smoked paprika or cayenne pepper
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
If you’re using bacon, cook it in a frying pan until fully cooked. Pat the grease off with paper towels, and once cooled, crumble it. If you’re using lardons, you will also need to fry it until cooked and drain off the grease.
In a mixing bowl, stir or whisk together the eggs, bacon, cheese, onion, cream, salt, sugar and paprika or pepper (all ingredients). Pour the mixture into the pastry shell.
Bake 30 to 40 minutes in the oven, until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes, slice and serve.
Now that you’ve seen how we got to the top of the Auguille du Midi mountain, here’s what the views are like once you get there. It is truly a magnificent place with awe-inspiring beauty. It makes you feel very small. Thanks to my nephew, Jon, who took some of this video from the high platforms where my fear of heights wouldn’t let me go.
My husband, my family who was visiting, and I took a day to visit Chamonix, specifically to take cable car to the top of the Auguille du Midi. The last part of the first cable car was a bit scary. We thought the second cable car up to the summit would be worse but it was actually a smoother ride, albeit VERY high. The views were spectacular and I would definitely recommend doing this (as long as you don’t have a serious fear of heights). Be aware that the air is thin there and we found ourselves having difficulty breathing normally, especially after walking up the stairs to the observation platforms. We wanted to do the train ride to the Mer de Glace (cave under the glacier) but it was closed due to rock slides.
What astonished all of us was that towards the summit we saw numerous people hiking up the mountain and others with their hang gliders waiting for the right winds to jump. We also saw ski trails down the mountain. Keep in mind these are 85-90 grade slopes. Once you start skiing there’s no stopping and you can’t see that far in advance to know if you’re going off a cliff or not. When we got to the top, we also saw young men and women suiting up to scale down the cliffs. To me, it seemed like everyone had a death wish but I’m just an old woman with a fear of heights so what do I know!
Mont Blanc is the highest mountain in Europe, peaking at 15,782 feet. Chamonix was the site of the first Winter Olympics in 1924. You can take the Auguille du Midi to the top of the mountain (about 48 euros) or take a train to see the Mer de Glace (glacier cave). You can also take the train over the mountain into Italy for a quick visit of the local small town (without your passport). More information can be found at: http://www.chamonix.com/welcome,0,en.html
When I arrived in the French Alps two years ago I started looking for recipes and cookbooks from this region but I could not find a single cookbook about Savoyard or French Alps food in English. I found one out-of-print book about Savoie in English that had a few Savoyard recipes in it, but that’s where my luck ran out. So after months of searching, I decided I would just have to write one myself. I asked my French friends for recipes, searched the internet and went to the Savoie bookstores, and bought several cookbooks of Savoyard and French Alps recipes. Of course, they were all in French and used the metric measuring system so I had to start translating them into English, and changed them just enough to make them easier to cook or to find the ingredients. I cooked quite a few along the way and even took a few videos which are posted on this blog under the category: Recipes.
A year later I’m finished and I am offering the e-book on this blog and my new website: www.frenchcomfortfood.com, as an E-Cookbook download for $12.99. The E-Cookbook, entitled ‘French Comfort Food – Recipes of Savoie and the French Alps,’ includes 51 recipes from Savoie (Savoy) and the surrounding French Alps region. I chose the name ‘French Comfort Food’ because the cuisine of this region is exactly that: the main ingredients include potatoes, butter, cheeses, creams, hams and other wonderfully decadent things that Americans would consider in the category of comfort food.
As a bonus, you will also receive my E-Guidebook about Chambery, France. Chambery is the capital of Savoie and my home town. If you look in France guide books, you will rarely find more than a paragraph or two about the city. It is however a lovely Alpine city with a magical Old Town and an interesting history. Did you know that the Shroud of Turin was housed here for almost 100 years? If you plan to visit the region, this is a must-read guide book. If you just like to learn new things about France, you will find the history of Chambery fascinating. It’s yours free with the purchase of the French Alps E-Cookbook.Click here to buy the ECookbook and receive your free Chambery Guide Book.
Straight from my new ECookbook, French Comfort Food: Recipes of Savoie and the French Alps, is my Pumpkin Sage Polenta recipe. Get more great recipes from my book, which you can purchase on my websites: www.american-in-france.com and www.frenchcomfortfood.com this week. This is my personal (and favorite) version of a very Savoie dish: polenta. Polenta is traditionally an Italian dish but, given the Italian influence in the area, it is also a staple of the French Alpine region. This version is not particularly common to Savoie but it is by far the most delicious polenta I’ve ever eaten. You cannot buy canned pumpkin in France so I bring a couple of cans back with me every time I go to the U.S. I just don’t have the time to make the pumpkin puree from real pumpkin but if you have the time, give it a try.
Ingredients for 8 persons:
2 ½ cups of milk (lowfat or whole)
¾ cup of canned pumpkin
2 cups of water
1 cup of grated fresh Parmesan cheese
3 tablespoons of crème fraiche
1 ¼ cups boxed polenta
1 tablespoon of chopped fresh sage (I keep a pot of this growing on my window sill year round. It survives even through the French Alps’ winters.)
Salt and pepper
Bring the milk and water to a boil in a large saucepan. Add the pumpkin and salt. Stir rapidly. Reduce the heat to low and whisk in the polenta. Cook for a minute or two until it thickens, constantly stirring. Remove from the heat and add ¾ cup of Parmesan cheese, the crème fraiche, salt, pepper, and sage. Stir until the cheese and crème fraiche melt, placing over low heat, if needed. Just before serving, top with the last of the parmesan cheese.
My sister, her husband and their son and his family came to visit this summer for 6 days. The two days that I enjoyed the most included a trip to Mont Blanc and Chamonix, which involved a cable car ride up to the top of Mont Blanc; and a trip the mountain on the St Hilaire du Touvet funicular to watch the mountain climbers and the hang gliders. It was fascinating to watch these very brave people.
I’m in Alsace, France for my birthday which was a present from my husband, Bernard. His daughter joined us. The town we are staying in, Rosheim, is a Medieval village with wonderful timber-lined homes. We also visited a 1400′s castle and another Medieval town, Riguewihr, which was as cute as it could be. Today we spent roaming the streets of Strasbourg and visiting its stunning Cathedral. It’s all on video and camera and I’ll be putting videos of the trip on the blog in the coming weeks. It’s a very German-influenced area but don’t say that to an Alsacian because they don’t like the German comparisons. The dialect here is quite interesting too – I hear German, French with a touch of the Swedish inflection.
At long last, a one-year labor of love, I am releasing my new 
