Posts tagged ‘Southern France’
Aug 1

Jul 25
No. 317: Relax, Max!
Are you ready, Freddy?
Tomorrow is the (unofficial) start to the French summer vacances…meaning if you hang around Paris for another week or so, everything will be closed down. (Well, not everything, but a lot of things.) The French are extremely good at holiday-making and turning off their phones and professional life for the last weeks of July and all of August. Many will head to their vacation homes, some to Corsica and the overseas departments, like Martinique. A lot will head down South.
We will be joining that madness in the late morning. Fingers, toes, and eyes crossed that the circulation will be circulating. I am looking forward to a break from my sweet, but overworked Korean students, and my final obligations to my daughters’ alma mater.
It is time to chill, Will. Or as the French say, “Tranquille, Emile” or how about “à l’aise, Blaise”. Let’s be cool, Raoul!
1-2-3, c’est parti!
For more great French sayings with names, take a look at the always lovely Geraldine from Comme une Française.
No. 28: Les petites villes provençales: Cassis
This sweet, low-key town in coastal Provence with soft-hued houses built at funky angles along the seashore is the perfect place to spend an uncrowded and uncharacteristically warm October day. After a trip to the lively Friday market (filled with the French sweets made best in southern France: calissons, navettes, nougats, candied fruit and sugared almonds), we picnicked on a small-coved beach surrounded by dramatic walls of white limestone. The warm sun, gentle breeze and cooling sea mist were the perfect remedy for our grey-weathered Parisians souls.
Vocabulaire
les petites villes provençales: small Provençale towns
une navette: shuttle service, commute; also a Provençale cookie shaped like a rowboat and flavored with orange blossom, lemon, anise, almonds, chocolate chips and even lavender. For the recipe for these “sugar shuttles”, please click here.