Camembert...mmm

This post outlines some of our adventures on our Spring Trip in April/May 2012.

Here we are, still galavanting through the green, rain-soaked hills of Normandy - this time in the wee town of Camembert.

This village was a 'must see' for us given we're all cheese lovers and this is the birthplace of the famous camembert variety.

Why the cows are so happy in Normandy

There's not much in Camembert any more, just a Maire (town hall), a church, a few houses and the cheese museum.

The Mairie

At the start of the museum tour you get to watch a short film that tells you all about the history of the cheese and how they make it.

Then you can walk through the small museum which does a great job of showing all the processes involved, from cow:

to milk truck:

to the factory:

These aren't real, BTW  (although they would've fooled me after a few sherbets) 

Here is Marie Harel, the lady given credit for the creation of camembert after talking to a priest from Brie.

Camembert was invented in the late 1700s and remained very much a regional cheese for over a hundred years.

Still not real

During the First World War the producers decided to donate one day's production a week to the French troops as their contribution to the war effort. As a result hundreds of thousands of Frenchmen discovered the divine gooeyness that is camembert and the cheese became a national sensation.

That's what I'm talking about

There was a taste test at the end. We were all pretty excited.

The main differences between the three are (from left to right):
1. Made with hot, pasteurised milk
2. Made with not-so-hot, pasteurised milk
3. Made with hot, raw milk.

Regarding the commercial use of the name 'camembert' for a cheese - many of you would have seen local non-French camembert in your supermarkets and might have wondered how that is possible. (Given that you can't call your sparkling white wine 'champagne' or your blue cheese 'roquefort' unless it's made in that region to the required standards.)

Lucky this gorgeous vintage cheese box was behind glass, otherwise I would've swiped it.

So if you want the 'real deal' AOC camembert you want to look out for 'Camembert de Normandie' - this will be made according to strict quality regulations from delicious unpasterised Normandy cow's milk. All the others are just posers (but yummy posers).

La mooooo

It will be 38% fat or higher and it will blow your mind.  We bought a wheel to have for dinner that night with baguette and a Normandy apple cider. Heaven.

That was Camembert (well, most of it) and we loved it. A great half-day visit if you are in the Normandy area.

In other news - remember this day? Well, that was exactly a year ago. I can't believe he's one already! You'll find a much more recent photo of him over on my Facebook page.

Welcome to Friday, clink (that's my glass touching yours). I think we need another French pop video to lead us into the weekend.

This single, Je veux le monde (I want the world) has been released in the lead up to the musical play 1789: Les Amants de La Bastille, which opens in Paris in September. Honestly, I didn't pay that much attention to the music as I was too busy squeeing over the fact it's filmed at Versailles in costume.



What are my chances of getting the mister in a powdered wig? Phwoar.

Have a great weekend!

With Love from Finland

Hey bloggers! Do you remember when someone left the very first comment on your blog? Wasn't it just amazing and weird and awesome all rolled into one?

I had no idea how fantastic the interaction through blogging could be, and for me it all started with a comment from the lovely Eva at Eisblumen.  She sure made me happy that day.

Eva is German, living in Finland, blogging in English. Got that? She is not only an all-round sweetheart, she's also a wicked seamstress. Look at what she sent for the baby:

A gorgeous flannel hooded jacket - perfect for the fall season here in southern France.

I absolutely adore the Anna Maria Horner flannel on the inside:

And how it ties in with the button loops and topstitching.

Sure he looks grumpy. He's just realised he's not old enough to eat any of this:

Check it out, Finnish sweets. So far I am close to polishing off the blue/purple block: teeny crunchy balls of liquorice in milk chocolate. Finland has been holding out on us all.

Aren't these lollies so pretty? They are also almost gone, between me and occasionally using them to bribe my children.

Best of all, Eva sent this book which is telling me everything I need to know about Finland. (Oh, and the kids too).

I have to share this TV advert from home which shows why Australians need to read this book.

Dear Finland. Sorry about that. Love Australia. x x  

The kids are loving the nicky-nar-nu cartoons about saunas:

I'm dreaming about Scandinavian men who apparently can all cook like this:



But best of all I am loving the Finnish sense of humour:

I think Finns and Australians would get along just fine. Thank you, Eva!

Little Projects

We're enjoying gorgeous warm weather here in Provence this final week of holidays before the kids head back to school.

Plenty to see around the garden. 

No idea what this is, but I love the colour. 

Sadly, these will go to waste. I'm having enough trouble preserving my sanity, let alone my olives. 

I've been working on some little projects, perfect for those small pockets of spare time I find every now and then. 

These newborn pants are about 30 minutes to sew. My 30 minutes had to be spaced throughout a whole day, but I got them done in the end. You can find the tutorial here at Made by Rae.  

Then I decided to make my darling daughter some skirts. This first one I actually made before the baby came, but it's a fab little tutorial which you can find here at Two Little Banshees.

I asked my daughter to wear this for me today and she tried to bribe me into letting her watch more television in exchange for modelling services. She gets a high-five for creativity but like the US, I don't negotiate with terrorists, so I took this photo when she wasn't paying attention.

Sewn with an on-sale pillowcase, should've run the stripes vertically and made the skirt shorter. Not my best effort. 

Next skirt - I tried this great little tutorial over at Dana's blog, Made. Thoroughly recommended.

The bias binding adds such a nice touch. 

The elephant came first - I made him about two years ago. I bought the pattern for it at Two Little Banshees; you can find it here.



Some behind-the-scenes photos that show my brilliant mothering skills.


The skirt had to be pinned on the shutters three times as my little assistant kept taking it down for me.

So I convinced my assistant to pick some lavender instead. Turns out the lavender can pull back. 

Bad mother. I took the photo first, rescued the child second. But I promise he wasn't crying, just surprised. 

Ahem. So back to the sewing. I made another one of Dana's skirts, this time with the double layers.

My model was more agreeable this time round. 

I also managed to finish the baby's quilt. The top and back were pieced before he was born, quilting was very simple - a single line on all the white sashing. Scrappy binding of the darker (blue and green) fabrics only.


The back was pieced so that the white sashing corresponded with sashing on the front.



I had every intention of taking some nice arty-farty photos after this, but the baby started yelling and my little helper reappeared.



Soon after taking this one I detected they'd both crapped themselves. Sigh, photo shoot over.

"You think this is bad, wait 'til you start eating solids." 

One day at a time, Kirsty. One day at a time.

Breaking News: Hard to get things done with a newborn in the house.

Just stating the obvious in case anyone is wondering why I've been such a terrible blogger so far this month.

But one of the (many) benefits of a newborn is:

PRESENTS!

Divine hand crocheted blanket (thank you Maaike) 

Finest Italian fashion (bisous Blandina)

Moda the dog; the newest addition to the family (merci Sarah)

Wise words (relatives) and a little something just for me, me, me (the Texan connection: Aidan and Sara Louise)

A little bit of sewing to machine quilt the baby's blanket. 

It's not going to bind itself, kid, hop to it.

Plenty of Patty Young's Sanctuary line, with a bit of Joel Dewberry's Modern Meadow and a navy Essex Linen/Cotton blend. Sashed with Kona White.

Hope you've all had a great weekend. Will continue to post when I can, but only if I have something interesting to say!

Oh Sleep, Sleep, Wherefore Art Thou Sleep?

Firstly, thank you so much for all your well wishes on the arrival of the baby - you guys are the greatest!

We are slowly getting ourselves into a bit of a routine; a very low key one that involves a lot of catnaps (and I'm talking about me here, not the baby).

Here he is chilling out on the pixelated quilt because I still haven't finished his yet, poor fourth child. It should be finished soon enough as I found a little time to work on it this weekend (visiting relatives took the bigger kids off our hands).

Otherwise, we have been enjoying some luverly flowers (courtesy of my parents):

And the whole clan took the baby on his first tour of the vineyard down the road from our house:

The vines were well into producing this year's harvest:

And there were plenty of other things for the kids to explore.

I love this view over our village from the end of our road:

Hope you've all had a great weekend with lots of lovely long sleeps. Bonne semaine!