France's favorite village of the year - St Vaast La Hougue - Normandy

Every year viewers of the French TV show - Beautiful Villages vote for their favorite French Village. This year the tiny village on the stunning coastal area in Normandy known as the Cotentin Peninsula won the votes. This area is in fact one of my favorites in Normandy. 

Its described as a land  of sailors and at low tide, the oyster beds provide a link between the French mainland and another jewel: the island of Tatihou, a unique point of view for painters for more than 200 years. The harbor and the picturesque narrow street make this a wondrous place to visit. 
I love the many charming and 'knock-your-socks-off' villages on this peninsula. 
Here is a video ( sorry its in French) but you'l get the idea of the winner.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf_tN6GIDe0
Above is a click-on to a youtube better view of the video without advertising.

Remembering Anthony Bourdain..

Its been a year since we lovers of real food lost Anthony Bourdain..I can't believe it..
He expressed for me and my chef brother, so many things we thought true, but could not articulate in so many words.

Here is something he wrote, that I totally believe in..

" I knew already that the best meal in the world, the perfect meal, is very rarely the most sophisticated or expensive one.
I knew how important factors other than technique or rare ingredients can be in the real business of making magic happen at the dinner table.
Context and memory play powerful roles in all the truly great meals in one's life' "

Paris and France heat wave...

Yesterday it was 104 degrees ( 40 Celsius) in Paris...wow!!!!
The hottest since 1947 ... WOW!
Most French do NOT have AC, and those that do and upmarket hotels, it is not the US type that you can turn up to STUN! Electricity is very very expensive in France, so most AC is cool, but not freezing cold as here in the good ole USA.
This is what it looked like this morning in Paris ( very unusual cloud formation) 

This is sunrise, NOT sunset...

Monaco - France's tiny neighbor and one of my favorite places to indulgent in one of life great pleasures

It's Friday morning in sunny Beverly Hills and yet, my thoughts go to the second smallest country in the world - Monaco. Within its mere 200 hectares is to be found extravagant sights that allure and inspires me. Yes, there is certainly enough glitz and glamour at every turn, a country filled to the brim with luxurious places to stay and fabulous restaurants abound. and YET!!!

And yet For me, one of life's great pleasures is to stay at the Hotel Hermitage ( home of the most opulence place to have breakfast in its Gustave Eiffel dome restaurant), but also to spend the entire day in the Thermes Spa ( located next door and a private tunnel from the hotel to the spa) and then to have lunch atop the spa in the L'Hirondelle Spa restaurant. Life can get no better than this. 
It's magic, I can tell you.

Lunch, dressed up in your fluffy white Spa robe and eating and drinking the best of wine and food in the world, NO SPA SALADS HERE ( hurrah) , but food and drink as it should be. Its a dream...

French rules of dining etiquette - what another one?

"Where do I out my cell phone, the left or right side?"

Yes, Being in France, there is a strict code of rules on how to behave; it makes life here so much more pleasant..

Please remember, When you are offered something ( like a fill up of your wine glass, more bread, a minor treat) simply saying 'Merci' indicated a refusal, as in "No, thank you". This is quiet different from the American practice, were saying a simple 'Thank you; implies acceptance, as in 'Yes, thank you.'
SO - in France, if you want your wine glass filled or more bread, don't say 'Merci' 
    SAY - 'oui, s'il vous plait"

Tired of the overtouristed, overdone French Riviera? then...

...head to the Ile de Re, on the Atlantic coast..( one of my all-time favorite places in France) , its a haven for foodies (I hate that term), cyclists and beach lovers. 

Here you will find over 100 KM of bike paths, 10 beautifully preserved villages with boutique hotels and glorious food markets. While you may think it's a cross between the Hampton's and Martha's Vineyard, it's nothing of the sort. Zoning laws here are very very strict and the people who count in France ( movie and TV stars, government big wigs etc,  and your truly) come here to get away from it all. Easy to reach by car or train, but hard to leave.

France cooking - Silly food vs real food - guess which is which? Nuf said!

It's Over - The days of Metro individual tickets is going away after 119 years...

For nearly 119 years from the first opening of the Paris metro in 1900, the little rectangles of thick white paper with a black line on the back have been with Parisians. 

550 million single-trip tickets are sold every year. BUT..times must change ( I'm not happy...) and by this coming September ( 2019) a new digital systems will be set up with a plastic top-up card called Navigo Easy. Just add money to  it and tap the card at the station entrance. The fares will remain the same Euro 1.90 for a single-trip and Euro 14.90 for ten trips.

Gratitude - It comes in Two Kinds

First, there is the gratitude which we should all feel for what France has given the world.

The language, the hardest by far of the Romance languages to learn ( at least for me) and yet!, and yet what a beautiful language.  The writers, then the painters; here again the debt is immense, especially the Impressionists. Going onto the world of music, my own personal list would include Ravel, Debussy. Ibert and Legrand, OH! the architecture; The Vaux-le-Vicomte and the chateaux of the Loire are my favorites. The vast formal gardens that dot the landscape, the cuisine ( don't get me started), the great fashion houses and don't forget the larger than life personalities like Jacques Tati, Maurice Chevalier and Stephen Grappelli and to the  host of hoteliers who have made all my stays so memorable, I have not the words to thank them for all their generosity and kindness..

I could go on and on...

The essence of France, however is a thousand times more than all of this, it seems sometimes to be the very air I breathe. And that brings me to the second kind of gratitude - MY OWN.

For the France that I have known for more than 70 years, looking back, the memories come crowding in. For all these memories, I am grateful and for many thousands more. And that sort of gratitude is more than gratitude:
                      IT IS...... LOVE.

The Megaliths of Carnac - The largest gathering of standing Stones in the world

In Brittany ( my favorite part of France) stands 7000 years old megalithic alignments and one of the most important European prehistory centers in existence. 
The two main sites, Menec and Kermario)  ( out of many more in the wide area) alone account for almost 3000 menhirs ( stones) and run well over 4 miles.

The stones are to this day surrounded by mystery, to what they were actually used for.