Autumn food.

We had a scrumptious autumnal meal tonight after an exhausting day of flat hunting:

1. artichoke dipped in vinaigrette sauce
2. butternut & sweet potato soup with avocado on toast
3. apple crumble
4. tea & biscuits (my weakness before bedtime!)

Thank you Em, Kellie and Cass for the recipe ideas. You can read more after the jump.

ps: Smallesthings reached 200 followers this week... and there's a little surprise in store to celebrate!

pps: trying to learn Photoshop and this is my first collage attempt... it only took me two hours to do (patience is a virtue, n'est-ce pas?).

First birthday - partie 1

At long last, I have found a minute to share some photos of L.'s birthday with you. It was exactly two weeks ago today that our baby boy turned one. His grandparents (all four) and uncle (one out of three) came to Paris to celebrate this special day with us.

We went for lunch at Sizin, one of our favourite restaurants in the neighbourhood. It serves delicious Turkish food and contrary to many restaurants in Paris which stop serving at 2pm, here the kitchen stays open until 3pm so we were lucky to avoid the midday rush and have a relaxed lunch en famille. The restaurant staff is also always so friendly. The first time we ate at Sizin, I must have been about eight months pregnant and the sweet waitress brought me extra food saying "c'est pour le bébé, de la part du chef"*! I thought that was so cute.



I love the photo series below taken over lunch. L. was so happy and smiley on his birthday - I think he loved being the centre of attention :-).



I've mentioned before that Paris is not a very baby-friendly city. Ever since L. became more mobile we found it hard to eat out as there were never any highchairs available or there was simply no room for us to enter places with a pushchair so we recently decided to buy a travel highchair, by Totseat. We used it for the first time on L.'s birthday and it worked great: real easy to set up and put away. L. sat at the table with us on his own chair during the entire lunch - it was so enjoyable.

After filling our bellies with scrumptious Turkish food, we went for a walk in hilly Montmartre...



...it was such a gorgeous day.





Later, we came back home to open cards, presents and blow out THE candle. My mum made a delicious chocolate cake which she brought over in seperate pieces, whipped together and voilà: an amazing duck cake! We were all so impressed.







Happy Anniversaire again to the sweetest, most amazing baby boy. And thank you to our families for making his first birthday one to remember. xx

Next up: the birthday party with our friends. Stay tuned!

* "this is for your little baby, on behalf of the chef"!

Le chef d'oeuvre.

My master piece(s)! They didn't taste as good as they looked, but it was a good start to many more hours of baking to come. Do you have any tasty recipes to share?

Balloons for Sunday breakie.

Here's what we cooked for breakfast today (minus the balloons). Little big L's godmother is visiting from London this weekend and we've been loving the yummy English treats she brought over for us. If only Paris and London could become one - it'd be my perfect home!

{image David Sykes}

Homemade Nutella.

Just when you thought you had absorbed enough calories during the holidays, here's a delicious recipe for homemade Nutella, miam! I think I am going to give it a try when we get home to Paris later this week.

Hope you are all enjoying the end of year festivities. I am finding it so relaxing to be off work and spend time en famille, albeit the fact the three of us had an awful flu last week (good thing L. won't remember his first Christmas in the end!) and are only now feeling better.

A bientôt.

{via Unstitched}

Dinner in the sky.

Ever wondered how to turn an ordinary meal into a culinary adventure? Try dinner in the sky.com.



Pretty dreamy, eh? If I could choose, I would have dinner in the Brazilian skies overlooking Rio de Janeiro.

Where would you have your table with a view?

London?


Italy?


Toronto?


South Africa?


Monaco?


Istanbul?


All of the above (eh, why not? we're allowed to dream!)?

Weekend fun in Paris.

Friends of ours are visiting from London this weekend and as usual, the Franglais household is totally unorganised, but aren't improvised weekends always the best? Last night we felt a bit like students again, eating take-away pizza, drinking bear and playing The Beatles Rock Band late into the night. Today, we ate Japanese "fast-food" on rue Saint Anne, took pictures on the colonnes de Buren, went window-shopping chez Colette, and drooled over hundreds of bottle of wine at Lavinia.

And while someone made a naughty purchase at 21 rue Cambon to mark her big 3-0...

...someone else spent the entire day sleeping because he was up all night teething!

Mon quartier.

Learning to eat.

Last Thursday was a big day in the life of baby L. Not only was it his first time at the nanny's, it was also his first time eating non-milk food. And the spoon is always way more fun than the actual purée.

Culinary flags.

Can you identify these flags?

Le Poussette Café.

I had been meaning to check it out for a while, so when my friend alienorbd suggested we meet this afternoon with our boys at Le Poussette Café I was ever so intrigued. And what a great place!

It is much smaller than I imagined but has everything you ever dreamed of in a café for you and your bub: a large door at the entrance which is easy to open, a dedicated room to 'park' your pram, a spacious coffee area with a corner full of toys for toddlers to play, a WC with a changing table (including wipes, nappies, talcum powder, etc.), high chairs, rocking chairs, books & magazines, and most importantly...other customers who are parents so it's OK to make a noise! The café serves food and drinks (organic) for babies, toddlers, and grown ups and there is a shop with the cutest items (Jelly Cat soft toys, Flensted mobiles, Blanca Gómes illustrations, clothes and many other children items).

And as if all of the above wasn't already enough, Le Poussette Café offers various workshops for expectant mothers and new parents like baby massages, relaxation therapy, breastfeeding advice, new mum discussion groups and even French as a Foreign Language classes. It's just so convenient.

Le Poussette Café
6 rue Pierre Sémard
Paris 9ème

Selling like cupcakes.

©Berko

A brand new bakery has opened in Montmartre. But if you are looking for your classic pâtisseries you will be highly disapointed, as there are none. Berko is a French-owned bakery selling American cupcakes and they are going like hotcakes! Every time I walk pass the shop, there are dozens of people staring at, but mostly drooling over the fabulous display of cakes. And you can find 20 different flavours. Just that! From your classic chocolate, vanilla, lemon and carrot to more original flavours (varying each week) like M&M's, Oreo, Nutella, or Mousse au Chocolat (the last time I was there they even had a Smurf cupcake!) . Berko also offers a selection of mini-tarts and real New-York style cheesecakes. Delicious!

Berko - 31 rue Lepic, 75018 or 23 rue Rambuteau, 75004.

Pregnancy food aversions.

photo ©LaFranglaise

I love my food, and the day I would get pregnant I thought I would have so many cravings. But as it turned out, just the opposite happened. No cravings whatsoever but oh so many food aversions. One of many things I went off was Swiss chard, a veggie I used to eat weekly in the winter yet I couldn't touch it the whole time I was pregnant. Probably because before I even knew I had a little beanie growing inside me, I had Swiss chard food poisoning during my holiday in Croatia last year (at the time, I couldn't understand why it made me so ill!). Just like that, it was the end of my delicious "gratin de blettes" until baby L was born. Yesterday, I finally ate it again and I must say, it is still as good as it was 'pre-preggo me'. Here is my very simple but tasty recipe for cooking Swiss chard gratin:

1 kg of Swiss chard
2 table spoons of crème fraiche (cream)
40g of Comté or Gruyère cheesenutmeg
salt & pepper

Wash the Swiss chard and cut off the tips. Boil in a saucepan for approximately 20min (until the stems have softened) and drain. Chop the chards and transfer in an ceramic oven dish, spreading them evenly. Mix in the crème fraiche, nutmeg, and salt & pepper to taste. Sprinkle the grated cheese over the top and bake at 200ºC for 25min or until the gratin is brown and bubbly. You can also replace the crème fraiche with olive oil and garlic.
Bon appétit!