Marion Godart jewellery

When I was in Paris, I bought a giant multicoloured disc necklace and a big red plastic rooster brooch from a cute little boutique. They were both by French designer Marion Godart. I love these two pieces a lot at the moment. My next task is to find out where I can buy more online!

Masterfoods commercial

Julie from MasterChef is starring in a couple of TV ads for Fountain Sauces and Masterfoods Australia. Is it just me, or are they both deeply tragic and embarrassing to watch? In the one where she tells her boys to take the bins out, one of her sons gives her this look. You know he's thinking, "OMG Mum. This is so lame. You have totally sold out and gone mad with power. I'm just doing this because the bribery money I'm getting will pay for a new PS and Grand Theft Auto 4".
And in the other ad, where she pretends to have a deep and meaningful convo with herself in the pantry, assigning various Masterfoods sauces to various future meals while pretending to be a wholesome family mum who mysteriously wears ridiculously raccoony black eye makeup while whipping up saucy chicken for lunch with Margaret Fulton. And again to you, Margaret, WTF? Haven't you got enough dough stashed away from your life of fabulous cuisine contributions? Surely you don't NEED whatever Masterfoods is throwing at you to smile at Julie Goodwin and pretend to take a bite of a pre-prepared packet sauce chicken. As if. You probably spat it into your napkin as soon as the shot was over. You wouldn't be caught dead with a packet.
Shame!

Lunch feast at La Ferme de Mont St. Michel

We visited Mont St. Michel. It was lovely, but crowded, hot and full of tourists. I learned during this little expedition that the Mont is the second most-visited tourist site in France, after Paris. Not surprising then that basically the whole lower half of the island and the 2 km of road leading to it is full of mostly-dodgy tourist restaurants and lame souvenir shops.
We discovered this gem of a restaurant tucked away where the tourist restos stop. It's called La Ferme de Mont St. Michel and was recommended to us by a local. It's in an old stone farm building with a pen of goats in the back yard. We turned up starving at about 1pm and didn't leave till after 3- not really your traditional four-hour French lunch, but close enough. They had a 19-euro (so cheap!) menu that we didn't expect to be as delicious as it was.
Originally we were hunting the agneau pré-salé (salt-marsh-fed lamb) that the region is famous for, but they had run out. Moules marinieres more than made up for it.

Cidre Pommeau and home-made crisps
Selection of four local terrines
Apple and pork pastry terrine
Moules Marinieres with potatoes and vegetables
Far Breton
Local cheese platter

Crunky chocolate

They brought this back for me from Shanghai.

Cool name, slightly less awesome chocolate.

Whitegoods challenge

Buying a new fridge or washer in Paris is usually a stress-free process, except when you need to actually get it into your flat.

Paris supermarket

Curious about what those fancy-pants Parisians have in their shopping trolley? Some of it ain't that fancy.

Frozen paella, mini-pizzas, frozen vegetable medleys

Teissiere fruit syrups, to be added to mineral water

Green mint, grenadine, glacial mint, lime, passionfruit, strawberry, blackcurrant, grapefruit

A treasure-trove of chocolatey malty milky additives.

Chicory (the French are totally into this, I think they had to have it during the war to stretch their coffee), and lots and lots of sweet hot chocolate mix (including the famous Banania)

Boudin blanc (with wine) and boudin noir (with onions).

They love chocolatey cereals. LOVE them.

Dairy goodness. No pasteurisation here, just raw-milk cheeses, varied, fragrant, cheap and calorific-terrific.

Normandy camemberts, Bridel, Lepetit, President, raclette, coulommiers, Fauquet






More fromages, and butter. Caprice des Dieux, Cremeux, Cabecou de Perigord,
Charentes-Poitoux, Chaource, Boursault, Brin de Paille, Rouy, Le Vieux Pane

The flavoured yoghurt and dairy dessert section. Enormous. Chocolate rules supreme, of course.

Fruit dairy desserts and breakfast yoghurts.

Reese Witherspoon looks terrible

Seen the new Avon perfume ad starring Reese Witherspoon?

She looks nothing like her usual fresh glowing self. Her face seems to be a whole new puffy shape and she totters over the bridge like a 19-year-old slapper wearing her first pair of race-day heels. The shot where she looks back over her shoulder at the camera is deeply tragic. She appears to have no neck. Stumpy McGee. Check out the dark circles under the eyes in the final shot.
What happened, Reese? Did they CGI you? Do you really look like that? I know you didn't create the ad, but surely you checked it, right?
I do like the camellia tree, though. That would be nice to have in your front yard.

Roast chicken and vegetables with apricot clafoutis

A family summer lunch in the Champagne region.

There was home-made olive and thyme bread, roast chicken, peas and carrots from the garden and waxy potatoes. The vegetables were boiled in that French way so that they were very soft but retaining a tangy flavour.

The apricots were from the neighbour. My friend uses soy milk and almond meal in her clafoutis batter so that it is light and not soggy. This was a memorable lunch.

French Special K

Harrumph. Even though I am meh about cereal and especially Special K at the best of times, I still don't see why the US and Europe gets all the specialty flavours and varieties while Australia gets bugger-all.

Yes, we have the Red Fruits type, but we certainly don't have Dark Chocolate, Almond or Apple Crumble varieties.

Then again, do I really want apple-crumble-flavoured cereal?

Jelly Belly rotten flavours

So it looks like Jelly Belly aren't content with chocolate pudding, butterscotch and (my favourite) watermelon flavours. The latest lineup is called Beanboozled and it comes in a Russian roulette-style game box: will you get Buttered Popcorn, or Rotten Egg? Coconut, or Baby Wipes? Juicy Pear, or Booger?

I really want to buy this and try it out. What's even more creepy than the concept is that some poor work experience guy at Jelly Belly had to sit there and taste-test all those rotten flavours. Imagine that guy's day at work.

Natural Harvest recipes

I have seen this cookbook with my own eyes.

10pm picnic on the bank of the Seine

After hours and hours of shopping and walking, we picked up a few things from the supermarket, stopped into the bakery just before they closed, and found a spot on the very crowded bank of the west end of Ile de la Cite. It was the most fun you could have sitting on concrete, throwing bread scraps to mouldy pigeons, sipping strong cider, eating dry ham, cheese and tabouli and watching the glorious Parisian sunset at about 10.30pm.

Strawberry picking in Champagne

We drove out to the pick-your-own vegetables place, not far from Chalons. They give you a plastic tub, and then you follow the signs to your chosen fruit or vegetable. I really wanted to pick apples, but they weren't ready yet. The strawberries were almost finished, but we managed to find a few rows tucked away down the back. When you've filled your tub, you take it into the shop and it gets weighed.

My friend Claudie used these strawberries to make a light jam: she washed them and trimmed them, but didn't hull them. She put them into a saucepan with almost an equal weight in sugar, and then simmered for about half an hour. The result was a bright-red, light, barely-set jelly with huge globes of translucent strawberry suspended within. So beautiful. Doesn't keep long, she said, but who needs it to?

Lindt sea salt chocolate

My friend Jem brought this rare Lindt chocolate back for me from Los Angeles. I wish it was available easily in Australia: it is to die for. The usual creamy Lindt mouthfeel, sparked off and contrasted by flakes of crunchy sea salt. Surprisingly, they don't detract from the sweetness at all. The salt enhances the flavour.

I think I will start adding chocolate to my savoury dishes, like the Spanish do.

Bushwalking at Mt Barney