The Art of Camembert
“Muftis and bishops should be like ripe camembert cheeses - a bit on the nose and not for the faint-hearted, but memorable!”
Michael Leunig
It was over half a century ago, 1966...
The Cardinal’s Slipper
Pantoufle du Cardinal
“Wine is the intellectual part of a meal while meat is the material.”
Alexandre Dumas
Dumas
The name Alexandre Dumas is writ large across French history through the late 18th and the 19th...
Il Mangera le Riche - Révolution and Food
Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.
Voltaire
Fête Nationale Française, (known as Bastille...
A Dinner with Destiny
10,000 Miles, 200 Years, 6 Generations
“Some food and wine dinners are all about the pairing, then there are those rare occasions, maybe only a handful of times in a...
All Dressed Up in a Sour Place
"Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course."
William Shakespeare
The taste of Place
The French term Choucroute Garni, means ‘dressed...
The Black Prince and a Hill of Beans
“Cassoulet, like life itself, is not so simple as it seems.”
-Paula Wolfert
The Black Prince
The prince was born Edward of Woodstock, into the House of Plantagenet and...
The Baron and the Jewel
In 1868, Baron James de Rothschild of what was to become known as the ‘French branch’ of the Rothschild family purchased the Medoc estate, Chateau Lafite. This was 15 years...
Wonder Wall
For many people, it is sometimes difficult to appreciate the mark-up on wines in restaurants, the significantly higher prices -often for the same wines- we are asked to pay when compared to...
