As promised, here is the video of the Flag Thowers at the Italian Festival in Bourget. The tradition goes back centuries and originates in Siena, Italy. While I call them Italian Flag Throwers, I actually don’t know if they were Italian or French. It’s possible that there is a French Association here that teaches the tradition and performs around France. We are near the Italian border so it’s hard to know exactly where they are from. Either way, they were fantastic to watch. While I’ve seen flag throwing before in Italy, I have never seen the ‘foot work’ of these talented young men.

If you read my blog regularly you know I’m a lover of Italy and all things Italian, so when an Italian Festival came to our area, I made a point of going. It was held at the small town of Bourget, which sits on the Bourget Lake, about 30 minutes from Chambery.  I took two videos of the event. This one is an overview video showing the yummy food and wine they were selling as well as some of the entertainment and demonstrations.  The next video will show you the amazing talents of the Flag Throwers.

Here’s a recipe from my new cookbook, French Comfort Food: Recipes of Savoie and the French Alps. Buy it here on my site or on my French Comfort Food site: www.frenchcomfortfood.com .

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.

For conversions from U.S. measurements to the Metric System, see:  http://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/cooking

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At long last, a one-year labor of love, I am releasing my new ECookbook, ‘French Comfort Food: Recipes of Savoie and the French Alps.‘

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.

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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.

For conversions from U.S. measurements to the Metric System, see: http://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/cooking

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Here’s another recipe out of my French Alps Cookbook (coming this summer). There are so many variations of this recipe in books and on the internet but the French like things simple with limited ingredients, so here’s one of the French versions. This is perfect for summertime when the cherries are fresh. You can also do it with flash frozen cherries if they are out of season.

This is one of 50 recipes you’ll find in my new ECookbook being released this week: ‘French Comfort Food: Recipes of Savoie and the French Alps.’

Ingredients for one pie:

2 cups of pitted fresh cherries, washed, and cut in half
1/2 cup sugar
1 packet of Sucre Vanilline (if you can’t find it, you can just add 2 teaspoons of vanilla mixed with 2 tablespoons of sugar; or you can make your own Sucre Vanilline by putting a vanilla bean in a jar of sugar for a few days)
4 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons of melted butter
1/4 cup of flour
1 1/4 cups of milk (or you can do half milk and half cream for a richer clafoutis)
Dash of salt and, if you want, a teaspoon of nutmeg

Butter and flour your pie dish and preheat the oven to 350 degress F.

Combine your eggs and flour. Add the Sucre Vanilla, sugar, butter, salt, nutmeg, and then gradually add your milk (and cream, if you’re using it). Pour the mixture into the pie dish and place the cherries on top. Alternatively, you can put the cherries in the pie dish and pour the mixture on top.

Put it in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes or until firm and slightly brown on top. Enjoy hot.

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My French husband likes to make his own confiture (preserves) every summer.  Since we have a raspberry bush and a cherry tree, he uses these primarily.  But come September we also take walks in the countryside and pick blackberries for another batch of preserves.   In October we also pick wild walnuts and eat lots of delicious apples and pears from our trees in the garden, but we don’t make preserves from those.

Here’s the recipe for the raspberry or cherry confiture (for the cherry confiture, be sure to remove the pits).  It’s basically the same recipe, using different fruits.  It is an estimate since my husband does things by ‘feel,’ so I had to do my best to duplicate it.  This recipe, among another 50, is in my French Alps Cookbook: ‘French Comfort Food’, which will be available in early August on this site and www.frenchcomfortfood.com  (my new site).

Ingredients for 4-5 small food jars:
- 1 – 1/4 lbs of raspberries or blackberries or cherries
- 2 ¼ cups sugar
- Juice of one lemon (optional)
Delicately rinse and pick over the raspberries (or cherries or blackberries), discarding any that look mushy or moldy.  In a preserving pan (ours is copper), combine fruit, sugar and lemon juice. Bring to a boil, stirring gently.

Continue cooking on high heat for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Return to a boil. Skim the surface, if necessary. Cook another 5 to 10 minutes. For the raspberry confiture, use a seed remover grind (see the video) to remove as many seeds as possible before canning.

Put the jam into sterilized jars immediately and seal. Mark the jars with the contents and date.  Turn upside down to set which will also seal the joint.  Refrigerate the jars you will be using soon, once they are cooled.  Store the others in a cool place.

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