Recette du Jour for you budding Chefs

C'est moi qui l'ai fait !

Really great blog with easy to follow recipes. This blog also contains great pics and video demonstrations of certain recipes. Bon Appétit

C'est moi qui l'ai fait !

Recette du Jour for you Bloggers

Take one blog, add a widget and after 5 seconds you have baked a Blidget!!

"Underground, overground, Wombling free The Wombles of Wimbledon Common are we..."

I wonder what cultural icons most Brits have bought with them to France? Well my son is in the process of teaching all his friends in Maternelle about The Wombles.

During their outings to the park, forest etc all the children are taught to have a respect for the countryside and its animal inhabitants and that includes not dropping litter. My son is now very keen on playing spot the litter and thanks to a DVD that my Mum sent over from the UK he thinks that the Wombles are needed over here.

After a visit to a local charity shop Grandma has managed to procure one of these elusive creatures and my son is taking him to school after the hols. Apparently all his copaines et copines remain a little confused. Can't imagine why. All descriptions of exactly what a Womble is, en Francais, would be very welcome!

Click on this link to watch the Wombles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ2mJPSccvo

Wombling facts from: http://www.toonhound.com/wombles.htm

The Wombles first emerged from their burrow on Wimbledon Common in 1968. These litter-loving little folk were created by author Elisabeth Beresford who was inspired whilst walking on the common with her young children, Kate and Marcus. One joyful mispronunciation later (Wombledon Common) and we had Great Uncle Bulgaria and his young charges Orinoco, Tomsk, Bungo, and Wellington and his not-so-young associates Madame Cholet and Tobermory. The Wombles scour the common looking for litter to recycle into very useful things and generally cleaning up the mess that we mucky humans always leave behind us. FilmFair's stop-motion series reached our screens in 1973. It featured fabulous puppet designs from Ivor Wood, cockle-warming narration from Bernard Cribbins and a totally-hummable title track from Mike Batt. Orinoco quickly emerged as the star Womble, with his ceaseless appetite for cakes and sandwiches and forty winks. Wombling can be such hard work, you know...

Deep in the Merde – and only the best will do!

During the last couple of weeks there has been the smell of bonfires in the air as everyone in our voisinage has been burning the last of their garden debris. This week the air has a completely different smell, poo! Literally. All preparations are under way for the potager. For anyone not familiar with the potager please see below.

According to my neighbour Henri not any old poo will do – take it from someone who has one of the best potagers I have ever seen – the secret is to use sheep poo. Now as readers of this blog know, this is a delicacy for my weimaraner Oliver, he has been in seventh heaven this week eating and rolling in it! I have had to hose him down after nearly every walk this week, that is of course after I can catch him as he runs around the garden on a herbal high.

We really are deep in the merde here and only the best will do – sheep poo!

Potager – Defined by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potager_garden:
A potager garden is a French method of creating ornamental vegetable or kitchen gardens. Often flowers (edible and non-edible) and herbs are planted with the vegetables to enhance the beauty. The goal is to make the function of providing food aesthetically pleasing.
Plants are chosen as much for their functionality as for their color and form. Many are trained to grow upward. A well-designed potager can provide food, cut flowers and herbs for the home with very little maintenance. Potagers can disguise their function of providing for a home in a wide array of forms--from the carefree style of the cottage garden to the formality of a knot garden.