It is 12 degrees outside as I write this post. The wind is howling and the ground is covered with several inches of snow. Portsmouth, New Hampshire is not in the Alps, the place from which this Swiss dish hails, but the blustery weather makes me long for a roaring fire and one of Switzerland’s storied and traditional meals. Hint: it has a French name. Not fondue…the other Swiss meal with the French name—raclette. In the United States, nearly everyone is familiar with cheese fondue, but very few people know about raclette. And yet, it is said to be more popular in its native country…

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View of Le Vieux Port in Marseille       Photo: David Scott Allen MARSEILLE: “EUROPEAN CAPITAL OF CULTURE” IN 2013 One of my scariest walks was to the Gare-de-Marseille-Saint-Charles. It was just as dawn was breaking and, having made a couple of wrong turns, the clock was moving uncomfortably close to the departure time of our train. Weighing the remaining minutes and the long distance to the Europcar office, my husband dropped my daughter and me off—along with a lot of luggage—so we could walk just a few blocks to the station while he deposited the rental car and ran the numerous blocks back to the station.…

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All across France today, on January 6th, parents are asking the youngest member of the family to sit under the table as dessert is being served. Pourquoi? Because it is the Day of the Epiphany and the Galette des Rois (the Cake of Kings) is being served. “Je ne comprend pas,” you say. In France, the Day of the Epiphany–the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas–marks the day that the Three Kings brought their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the manger in Bethlehem where the little Lord Jesus was asleep on the hay. The word epiphany comes from the Greek word epiphaneia…

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It doesn’t matter where you were when 2012 rolled into 2013 or how you welcomed the New Year–quietly or with great fanfare—if you are lucky enough to be alive as another year begins, embrace it. It is a gift. I prefer a quiet New Year’s Eve. Even a little solitude. It gives me a chance to reflect on the past year and plan for another. What worked well? What do I wish I had done differently? How shall I approach the New Year to make the most of it? Inevitably, I put pen to paper and record my New Year’s resolutions, thereby breathing life into…

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The Modern Trobador is back at the keyboard after a brief hiatus to work on a photography exhibition in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I have managed to weave together a post about photographs of Africa in New Hampshire, photographs of Africans in France, French Presidential trips to Africa, and the bestowing of France’s most prestigious award to Liberia’s President, all of which I hope you find interesting (and impressive that I wove it all together, coherently, I hope!). Africa is on my radar these days because I am part of an organization, the Seacoast African American Cultural Center (SAACC), which organized and just opened a photography…

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A glass of Pastis next to a scoring tool for pétanque We played pétanque, drank pastis, and spoke a little French last weekend. The only sign that we were in Portsmouth, New Hampshire was the Norwegian Maple tree—a poor substitute for the stately Plane tree that is rarely far from any game of pétanque in Provence—but, it didn’t matter. Palm trees could have framed the terrain where the games took place. All eyes were on the players and their boules….well, unless they were on the pastis. C’etait formidable! Portsmouth, New Hampshire I have watched the game for many years in France, but I’ve never had the…

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Superfluous piece of information for the benefit of readers who stumbled upon this blog in a completely unrelated search: Bastille Day, also known as La Fête Nationale or Le Quatorze Juillet, is a French national holiday that marks the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille (prison) in 1789 and the symbolic birth of modern France. It is celebrated on July 14th with fantastic pomp and circumstance in France, in many cities around the U.S., and in our home.  Yesterday was Bastille Day. I know I should have been thinking red, white and blue—thick swaths of each color—as I arranged our small French Tricolors around…

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Blue Nude: Memory of Biskra by Henri Matisse This post coincides with David Scott Allen’s current post (5/26/12) on Cocoa & Lavender.  Entitled “When A Brownie Isn’t A Brownie,” David writes about two desserts that may well have been served on Saturday evenings at 27 rue de Fleurus in Paris in the early years of the last century. We had dinner with friends in Manhattan a few weeks ago.  The discussion naturally gravitated to what we were doing for the weekend.  Somewhere between the antipasti platter and my ragu alla Bolognese with fresh tagliatelle, I mentioned that we were going to see the New American…

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May 1st is La Fêtedu Travail in France. As in many other countries, it is “the worker’s holiday.” It is a very important day, a public holiday in which public offices, post offices, banks, and many private businesses are closed and some public transportation schedules may follow a holiday schedule. Parades and demonstrations to champion workers’ rights typically cause congestion and delays in traffic in metropolitan areas. This May Day will be no exception: demonstrators around the world, including France, will take to the streets in support of workers’ rights and other social justice causes. Le Muguet  Art: Alex Manfull, Age 9 In Paris, congestion will…

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This post coincides with David Scott Allen’s current Cocoa & Lavender post entitled “The Other French Laundry” French laundry conjures up all sorts of images. For my friend and fellow-blogger, David Scott Allen, visions of delectable meals from Thomas Keller’s famous restaurant surface…things like Creamy Maine Lobster Broth and English Pea Soup with White Truffle Oil and Parmesan Crisps. For my friend, Betsy Tabor with whom I have been exchanging gifts, poems, and postcards about laundry for years now —both French and American and, come to think of it, Burkina Fasoian, too—I thought she would say it’s about that crisp fresh smell that emanates from clothes left…

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