Bon Appetit!

Hi everyone! It's the final rest day at the Tour de France today. Since the boys aren't riding their bikes, I thought today's post would feature another thing I love about France - la cuisine! Yum!!

I dug out another one of my favorite retired MFT sets for this one - Flappers in the Kitchen. With her sassy bobbed hair and serious face, she just looks like a little French cook to me. No doubt she's whipping up something sinfully fantastic! The papers are all from the Lost & Found paper collection from My Mind's Eye, and those adorable little spoon & spatula embellies are from TPC Studio and have been in my stash for a while now. If you squint really hard, you'd see that I added some fleur de lis and bicycle stamping to the background paper, to Frenchify this up even more. And I played along with last week's Mojo Monday sketch.

This month I've been a nearly as obsessed with French cooking as I've been with the bikes. This is what I've been reading on my Kindle:

It's funny - of course I'm fully aware of what Julia Child looked like, but as I'm reading this book I always seem to picture Meryl Streep instead. Hmm. Speaking of which, I feel another viewing of Julie & Julia coming on!! Julia was a really inspiring woman. She didn't even begin to start becoming the Julia Child we all know and love until in her late-30's - when she discovered French food and began learning to cook. In her late-30's!! That's so cool. It gives this early-40's-year-old some hope that I can still figure out what I want to be when I grow up. HA!

I've had a couple of "French" meals here during le Tour. Or at least my version of French...! On the first day of the Tour, I made some chocolate croissants for the family.

I looked up how to make croissants from scratch. And then I promptly gave up on that idea!! Holy million steps, Batman! It made me appreciate the French and their pastries even more! Instead I went with this super easy cheater version from Nigella, using premade puff pastry instead! Lame I know, but it made us happy!

I also prepared my favorite "French" lunch on the first day of the Tour - this is the sort of thing my hubs and I would gather from the markets back when we'd travel through Europe - local cheeses, fruits, olives - all combined with a fresh baguette for a yummy picnic lunch.

Last weekend we tried a new-to-us nearby restaurant, The Crepe Cafe! The owners are European, but not French. The crepes were delish! I had a veggie crepe for dinner, and we split a stawberry & nutella crepe for dessert. Yum!

Every year during the Tour I long to travel to Europe again. Sometimes I just have to bring a little bit of Europe to us. :-)

Thanks for stopping by,


Stamps: Flappers in the Kitchen from My Favorite Things, my old Karen Foster snap stamps
Paper: Stampin' Up (gray), My Mind's Eye (Lost & Found - Portobello Rd 6x6)
Ink: Tsukineko (Memento Tuxedo Black), Copic markers
Other: Hero Arts (die, gems), TPC Studio (So Delish metal accents), Stickles, seam binding ribbon