Mar 05
For Valentine’s Day 2025, we skipped the crowds at local restaurants. Instead, Julian and I stayed at home and joined forces to prepare a French-themed dinner. For several years, he had been wanting to try his hand at making cassoulet. We had even bought the imported dried tarbais beans (traditional for this dish), and they …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2025/03/05/bean-there-done-that/
Mar 17
Over the years we’ve done a lot of entertaining. Each event can teach valuable lessons, some of which we actually apply to future dinners. Here are three lessons we learned after last week’s French dinner. Don’t overextend yourself, especially when you’re hosting a crowd. Several of our dishes required last-minute preparation, which cut down the …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/03/17/lessons-learned-in-entertaining/
Jan 21
French icons seem to be dying of late. Last month it was Johnny Hallyday and a member of L’Académie Française. This month it was chef Paul Bocuse, the Lion of Lyon. Bocuse was named Chef of the 20th Century. He looked suspiciously like the chef in the Disney cartoon “Ratatouille“. (Coincidence? C’est possible.) This New York …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/01/21/france-in-mourning-again/
Jan 15
Some of our friends couldn’t make it to November’s French dinner, so we hosted a make-up session. This time, we made duck à l’orange and vegetarian cassoulet. The duck à l’orange recipe is one Julian’s used for many years, dating back to when he was the menu planner for his co-op in grad school. It’s …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/01/15/french-dinner-part-deux/
Sep 03
Our previous two visits to Lyon were only two days each. Now that we’re in the midst of spending five days here, we can start to compare and contrast Lyon with Paris. Here we go: Rivers. Paris has one, the Seine. Lyon has two, the Rhône and the Saône, which meet at the southern end …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2016/09/03/paris-vs-lyon-smackdown/
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