I'll admit that my love affair with France is due to me seeing the country through rose-tint- ed glasses - and by judiciously timing my visits so that I've always been there when the weather is good. My friends who live there tell me that daily life is not nearly as idyllic - it's not endless meals at top restaurants (something you tend to do when on holiday) and window shopping with friends while deciding which patisserie to visit next. The reality, my friends say, is trying to work your way around the seemingly endless industrial strikes, waiting in long queues at stores with rude and inefficient staff, constantly side-stepping dog poo on the pavements and month after month of dreary weather.
Lunch in Paris (elizabethbard.com) isn't going to dampen my enthusiasm for France. The American writer, Elizabeth Bard, married a Frenchman; they lived together first in Paris, and now they reside in Provence, with their young son.
Even her post about a recent cold snap sounds lovely: she parked herself on a chaise longue by a roaring fire, only getting up to make soup. There was one blip on her perfect existence, however, when, before going on holiday, Bard accidentally turned off the power supply to the deep-freezer (rather than hit the light switch). On top of all the lost ice cream and home-made stocks, in her absence, the house's water pipes froze. But, it seems, the good times outweigh the bad: another post reveals how, one lovely autumn day, she joined a saffron flower (top left) harvest, gaining insight as to why the spice is so expensive. She picks potatoes (which she planted), walnuts and plums, and cooks the bounty of her adopted country into tempting dishes such as roasted tomato pasta with shrimp and eggplant; cherry marmalade; plums roasted with red wine, cinnamon and vanilla (top centre); and chickpea and whole-grain salad with parsley and preserved lemon zest (top right).
