Great, Healthy Idea for Pasta

Okay, I have to say right away that this wasn’t Mike’s own incredible idea – we got it from the TV show The Biggest Loser.

• Replace half of the pasta in any pasta recipe with shredded zucchini.
  
• Serve the pasta as normal.

Note: Mike has been adding the shredded zuch to the pasta for the last one minute of cooking, and that is perfect.

It saves a ton of calories, it adds healthy veggies to a meal, and the zucchini holds the flavor of the sauce much better than pasta.

You’ve gotta try it!

Love to all!

A Very European Hors D'oeuvres

Sandra served a delectable hors d'oeuvres last Sunday: fromage de chevre avec des tomates seche & l'huile de olive et de ali. Translation: Goat cheese with dried tomatoes, olive oil, and garlic.

Not only was this delicious, it was also ridiculously easy, pretty and very European. Try it for your next party!

Sharlene . . . sorry this post was a few days late for Nancy's b'day celebration.

The recipe is simple. The only difficult part may be finding the right cheese in America. If you find it, please email me.

Ingredients:
Small rounds of goat cheese - about 1 inch in diameter - at room temperature
Sun-dried tomatoes
Olive oil (go for the good stuff!)
Garlic
Any other spices you may want to add
Good bread or crackers

Mix the sun-dried tomatoes with a liberal amount of olive oil and the garlic/spices. Let sit for an hour or so (until the tomatoes are somewhat re-hydrated).

Pour the tomato/olive oil mixture into a pretty serving dish and place the goat cheese rounds into the mixture.

Serve with the bread or crackers. Et voila!

Love to all!!

Biarritz

Regarding Biarritz:

Wow . . . That’s all I could say. Wow!

The sign above and the pictures of the waves (and surfers, which may just look like black specks on the blog) below says it all.

A real ocean, beaches with real sand, waves, sunshine, no wind – that is how I would describe our time in Biarritz. Yes, we were incredibly lucky to have warm, sunny weather at the end of October, and yes, we were lucky (or Mike was lucky) to have great swell and waves.

We spent all the time we could on the beach, so there really isn’t much to tell you.

It goes much like this: We found good surf spots for Dado (Parlementia was by far the best!), and the kids and I played on the beach while he surfed.


There's Dado getting dressed for surfing (I'm sure he was singing "Mambo Number 5" to himself!), and there he is in the water. Woohoo!!

We did eat occasionally, too, and we did a little bit of shopping – but that was all secondary.

One super highlight! We visited L’Atelier du Chocolat in Bayonne, which is a company that makes chocolate bonbons. Ohhhh, yummy. We got to take a tour of the chocolate museum and watch them make the chocolates. Then – we got to do a chocolate tasting. Awesome! Of course, we bought a ton, too. Well, not a ton exactly, but a lot! The kids also got to dress up as chocolatiers and paint a white chocolate fish.

I'll have pictures of that visit in another post because I left my camera in the car (obviously, I was too distracted by the idea of all that chocolate!). All the pictures are on Dado's iPhone.

We also visited San Sebastian, Spain and Bordeaux, France. Unfortunately, they were both so unexciting that we didn’t even break out the camera. They were both very, very large cities. If we had time to explore more, maybe we would have found them to be more entertaining.

I’m sure it was the call of the ocean that pulled us away from anywhere besides Biarritz. I mean . . . Just look at that picture of Biarritz from the shore of Parlementia. Again - Wow!



Love to all!

Halloween!

We packed in a ton of Halloween fun since arriving home from Biarritz - a mere 48 hours before it was time to Trick or Treat.

Sophie joined us with her cousin, Marjorie, and Marjorie’s two daughters to decorate Halloween spider cupcakes. We had to improvise, since they don’t sell Betty Crocker in France: we homemade the cupcakes and frosting.

To make the spiders, we mixed Nutella with cocoa krispy-type cereal for the bodies, and we used red licorice and black licorice for the legs. According to all reports, the results were delicious.

We carved the pumpkins on Halloween day, and they were great! We were the only people in the entire village to have pumpkins, too. Some people actually commented as they walked by, “Are those real?” (in French, of course)

Trick or treating was great! “Les bonbons ou les farces!” There was lots of blood considering that Josey was a vampire and Sandra, Noah, and Victoria were all zombies. Can you find Max?

Like last year, we had a great time going through the village. About ¼ of the villagers were home and giving out candy, which is awesome considering this holiday is relatively new here in France.

Love to all!

Un Apres-Midi Parfait!

Yes, today we had a perfect afternoon! After lunch, our friends Franck & Sabrina invited us on a boat ride with their family.Jordan and Logan played perfectly with Max and Josey - both on the boat and off!

And Sabrina even brought edible, homemade gifts for the kids - les doigtes des sorcieres!

Here are Franck & Sabrina . . .

Look - there is even a picture of me with the Dado!!

And there's our house!! You can see it from the water. Well, I hope you can see it on the blog. If you look to the right of the church, that's our terrace with the open glass door. The highest glass door you can see.

And here are some amazing views of Bouzigues from the water and the oyster fields.

We motored through the canals of Sete. Including going under some bridges that were so low, we had to duck inside the boat!

Thank you very much, Franck & Sabrina, for an absolutely wonderful afternoon.

Love to all!!

Holy Moly

That title was Mike’s idea. Considering that he never contributes to the blog (literally - seriously, he doesn't even read my blog!), I figured I should use his one and only suggestion.

We just returned from a vacation in Biarritz where we greatly enjoyed the ocean. Wow! Waves, sea breeze, fog . . . we have missed the ocean. We love, love, love the ocean. My next blogs will tell all about Biarritz.

And, drumroll please . . . there is SURFING. For those of you who don’t know Mike, he loves to surf the way I love to knit. If only knitting burned as many calories as surfing.

We went to Lourdes on our way to Biarritz (thus the title of this blog), and we were all fascinated. The entire village of Lourdes has a good vibe, and the religious center was amazing.

The highlights . . .

First you see the gardens leading to the amazingly beautiful church (at the bottom) and chapel (at the top) with the stairs leading up to the chapel on either side of the church.

As we walked through the tiny village and down the path to the church, we were impressed by all the religious people we passed – nuns, priests, monks . . . it was quite amazing. And many of the “normal” visitors were incredibly religious (naturally). Read on for more details on that.

We passed by the church and found the holy water and the cave where St. Bernadette saw the Virgin Mary.

There were literally spigots from which you can fill your holy water containers. Many people were drinking directly from the spigots and splashing the holy water on themselves.

There was a line to see the cave, and the people in the line were fascinating. We heard many languages. Most of those voices were praying. People were running their hands along the walls of the cave, kissing the surfaces, leaving flowers and candles as offering, wiping their handkerchiefs and rosaries in the dripping water, etc. We were all touched by the display of faith.

We also saw the area where you can light a candle and the baths. You can literally bathe in the water of Lourdes.

The church was breathtaking. Inside was an amazing dome and some of the most stunning mosaic work I’ve ever seen (even better than what we saw in Barcelona!). Here are some photos for you . . . I only wish the photos were as impressive as the real thing was!

Here are some of my favorite mosaic pieces . . .

Notice my final zoom into the bottom right corner of the angel mosaic! Those are cleaning tools.

Here are some more photos of the church: the dome from outside with the courtyard in the background (where people were gathering for mass), the view of the church from the holy water baths, and the statue of Mary in the courtyard (notice the flowers in the foreground).

A very, very interesting place. We were very glad that we made a visit!

Grom & Dude - be prepared to answer lots of questions and tell lots of stories about Jesus & Mary at Christmas!

Love to all!