french food | Ramblingrose

Welcome to my blog/journal/whatever

This is the real guts of this website. The old website and its archived posts is still available at its old url. Newcomers might like to dip into it every now and then.

Welcome to you all. Amazingly I still don't seem to be running out of ideas on what to write - well occasionally - but I have my writer's block strategies to turn to - see the text on the right. Check this page for the latest posts and if something interests you just click on it. It's easy to leave a comment and I love to read them. And now you can subscribe to the blog and get emailed notifications of new posts. And sorry I just don't understand Facebook.

"We are not here for long. So let's at least make ourselves something good to eat."

Nigel Slater

"I was born hungry, not a cook."

Julia Child

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well"

Virginia Woolf

Writer's block

Every now and then I can't think of a suitable topic and so I have devised a few strategies to get around this.

Lucky dip

The first strategy I devised is to go to one of my three cook book bookshelves, close my eyes and pick a book. Close my eyes again and pick a page. It's really quite an enlightening method of getting over writer's block.

'A word from'

My second strategy is to devote a post to the thoughts of one of my favourite cooks. Hopefully it will introduce them to you

Or

I shall choose a picture I have come across and extemporise on that.

A second kind of lucky dip

I have been thinking about first recipes in cook books - so I shall choose a book not quite randomly and then look at the first recipe for inspiration.

Comments I love reading your comments. Just add a name - any name - it needn't be yours, add an email, ditto, type in your comment and hit the Comment button. Done. Wix sends me an email to tell me what you said, so I can respond if needed. Mostly I just read and enjoy. If you would like to subscribe to this blog and get notifications of new posts then click here. It's free - just a way of knowing what I wrote about today.

enjoy

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Nice - a word and a place

"By 1926, nice was said to be "too great a favorite with the ladies, who have charmed out of it all its individuality and converted it into a mere diffuser of vague and mild agreeableness." [Fowler]/Etymonline I have no idea now where my inspiration for this post came from, but I think it began with the word rather than the place - very different things - and yet, maybe that quote is indeed apt. for both of them. We shall see. Above is my very last sight of la belle France,

May 27

A classic in so many ways

"Along the way I was reminded of a kind of cooking which, in the pursuit of the new, I had all but forgotten. And I fell in love with it all over again." Jay Rayner/The Guardian This is a lucky dip post. David picked out the large format revised copy of Robert Carrier's Great Dishes of the World and the page I randomly chose included a recipe for Coq au vin - accompanied by a short essay and this old-style arty photograph of the dish - well the ingredients. Although now th

May 15

Chasing culinary white whales

"It’s not until you come to make it yourself that you see what’s not written down.” Felicity Cloake This is my culinary white whale - and I apologise for it not being one of my mother's dishes. Which is not to say that I don't make things that my mother did, and that I don't remember those dishes with all those warm and cuddly feelings the cooking world would like us to have when we think of mum's cooking - or even better - grandma's cooking. And I will come to mum and gra

May 4

Memory rambles over lunch

"Nostalgia - the vice of the aged." Angela Carter Same old, same old. Another ramble about memory and nostalgia. I know, so apologies, but I couldn't really let our wonderful Friday lunch with our regular lunch friends go unacknowledged. I mean look at it - in spite of my awful photography. Not my cooking this time. In the last few years we have fallen into a pattern with two old friends, of entertaining each other - turn and turn about - with an invitation to lunch. Bo

May 3

Provençal garlic soup

"[one of the] most delicious meals ... eaten by the poorest people in the world." Jamie Oliver And then turned into food for the rich: "Soups made with chick-pea water or chestnut water, or even garlic and sage water, are found in country kitchens today, or are translated into glamorous clear consommés complete with saffron or rose petals in the leading hotels of the region." Robert Carrier This is my lucky dip of the moment. Garlic soup in Robert Carrier's wonderful ode

Mar 17

A quickie about a specific omelette

"the salty sharpness contrasts exquisitely with the rich fattiness of the eggs; against which too, the fresh hit of mint is positively exhilarating." Nigella Lawson Nigella is talking about what she (and lots of others) call a Corsican omelette - or Frittata incu a menta (e brocciu), as it's called in Corsica. Of course like those of us who live nowhere near Corsica, or even France and can therefore not obtain brocciu cheese, we will not be able to make the dish in an auth

Feb 14

Robert, Tessa or Rachel?

or maybe Elizabeth or Richard? What do they all have in common? Provence. Well every now and then not always. What do they not have in common? The years in between them all. The times. Why am I featuring them? Well this is another account of another potential meal, and how I decided on what to cook. On Friday we are entertaining friends for lunch together with my sister and her husband. Maybe, at least for some of the time my niece who is driving her mother to and fro

Feb 4

Vadouvan - will 2026 be its time?

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness." [not] Oscar Wilde I'll begin with an aside - the quote above. First I just used the first half of it which I had a feeling was by Oscar Wilde, then I found Terence Eden's Blog which first reminded me that there was a second part of it and then told me in great detail why it wasn't Oscar Wilde who said it - the conclusion being it might have been a now defunct magazine - My Family Magazine

Jan 30

Happy days

"Happy days roll onward leading up to golden years." Alfred Lord Tennyson Every now and then I change my computer desktop wallpaper - I think that's what they call it - from a photograph picked from my photo libraries - almost at random. This is what I chose the day before yesterday - such a happy picture - of a holiday in France 20 years ago, when I was a mere 62 years old. A baby, with many of those golden years still to come. The group consists of two sets of university

Jan 6

Coq au sauvignon blanc

“This popular dish may be called coq au Chambertin, coq au Riesling, or coq au whatever wine you use for its cooking.” Julia Child Based on, based on, probably ad infinitum is the story of tonight's proposed dinner. And for want of a better description I'm calling it Coq au sauvignon blanc - or 'sav blonk' as some would say.. But of course it's not coq at all, so let's begin there on this tiny ramble around a classic french dish. For every group of chickens that actually ha

Dec 17, 2025

Living the dream requires money - lots

"For mum, who taught me how to dream, and Pete, who makes my dreams come true." This is the Chateau de Bosguet in Normandy - otherwise known as The French Table - a gourmet getaway in a tiny village in Normandy where you can take cooking classes, or just simply relax. It is run by a Melburnian couple who, in 2003 began to dream of a life in France and a new business venture - a residential cooking and French village life focussed stay. And so in 2005 they bought this somewh

Dec 7, 2025

The mysterious invisible cake - France, Russia, Japan?

"It seems to me that invisibility is the required provision of elegance. Elegance ceases to exist when it is noticed." Jean Cocteau Tuesday is the day that Deb Perelman's Smitten Kitchen newsletter arrives in my inbox. Today - seeing as how it is autumn - well fall - over there in the US of A - she was focussed on apples, and amongst the many delectable recipes on offer was this Invisible apple cake, which she likened to Apple sharlotka - a Russian cake that she had wri

Oct 21, 2025