Buche de Noel

With Thanksgiving out of the way, 

we are now full on into the holiday season. 

And if there's one thing I love,

it's Christmas in Paris.

When you love Christmas AND Paris,

put the two together and it becomes heaven on earth! 

I love the traditions, the sparkly lights,

the colors and dressed up windows and of course, the food. 

I just read an author who described Europe as the color gray.

They certainly make up for it with all the lights and storefront ribbons and boughs. 

And Buche de Noel!

These little beauties are known as Yule logs, 

traditionally made from a Genoise or other yellow sponge cake

with a frosting and filling of chocolate buttercream,

 a fork raked across to resemble bark,

and powdered sugar to look like snow. 

With my French nephew now living with us, 

I might even attempt to make one this year. 

I'll post the recipe when I find the right one. 

Wish me luck! 

Wherever you are, 

I hope this season brings you 

everything you love about the holidays. 

(Photos copyright: Kirsten Steen)

ALP Presents: Rosemary Flannery~ Angels of Paris

(Photo courtesy of ALP: Scenes from the Library. Credits: David Bacher, Kate McLean)

Next Wednesday, November 28th, 2012 at 19:30, The American Library in Paris presents Evenings with an Author featuring Rosemary Flannery, author of 'Angels of Paris'. 

Being two of my favorite subjects, I'm deeply sorry to miss this. Rosemary Flannery is an American living in Paris since 1989 and a member of the Paris Writers Group. She has contributed articles to France Today and other publications and serves as a tour guide of museums, monuments and neighborhoods with Passport to Paris. She co-produced and hosted, French Encounters, a Public TV program on French Culture and created The Art Beat, a weekly cultural magazine for Paris Live Radio. Her first book, Angels of Paris, has been released this month by The Little Bookroom, NYC and distributed by Random House.

Book review by Popcorn Paris: 

"They're hovering everywhere, hiding in plain sight, each telling their own stories about the city--of romance and royalty, war and revolution, miracles and pilgrimages, art and architecture. Angels of Paris features beautiful photos taken from dawn to dusk, in all seasons, accompanied by text explaining the story behind the creation of each angel and of the location in which it is found. Readers will learn about Paris's history, buildings and pivotal figures (monks, pirates Crusaders, duchesses, saints, sinners and more) through the abundant, beautiful and surprising depictions of angels from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century. Rosemary Flannery has found angels on friezes and plaques, on fountains and facades, clocks and sundials, monuments and mansions, rooftops and door-knockers. On an enchanting shop sign above a turn-of-the-century patisserie, she's even found a pair of angels tossing chocolate and vanilla macarons to the entering patrons..." 

For more about Flannery and her tour schedule, go to Angelsofparis.com.
And don't miss her at the American Library in Paris.


American Library in Paris  is located at:
10, rue du General Camou
(Just off the Champs de Mars and the Eiffel Tower)
75007 Paris, France
• Tel. +33 (0)1 53 59 12 60
http://www.americanlibraryinparis.org/ 

Flower of Remembrance

Photo via Pinterest

The red poppy symbolizes many things: eternal sleep (think Wizard of Oz), peace and death. In Greek and Roman times, they were considered offerings to the dead. Today they are given in remembrance of those who have died in wartime. On this Veterans holiday, a little remembrance flower for those who have fought and died for us.

ALP Presents: Elyane Dezon-Jones~ Author of 'Murder chez Proust'

(Photo courtesy of ALP: Scenes from the Library. Credits: David Bacher, Kate McLean)

This Tuesday November 6th, 2012 at 19:30, the American Library in Paris presents Evenings with an Author, featuring Elyane Dezon-Jones, author of the 1994 novel: "Murder chez Proust" (French title: Meurtre chez Tante Leonie).

Working under the Nom de Plume Estelle Monbrun, she has published several sequels: Meurtre a Petite Plaisance, Meurtre chez Colette (with Anais Coste), Meurtre a Isla Negra. 

Review from Google Books: 
"When Adeline Bertrand-Verdon, the self-appointed directress of the Marcel Proust Association, is found murdered on the eve of the society's annual convention, Inspector Jean-Pierre Foucheroux is called in from Paris to investigate. He soon discovers that the victim was as ruthlessly ambitious as the pretentious highbrows on his list of suspects, and that almost everyone who knew her has a motive to kill. There's a famous Proust scholar whose prolific research is based on plagiarisms of his students' work; an Ivy League professor who is more interested in sex than in literature; a world-famous Parisian critic whose celebrated fits of existential angst are really just tantrums caused by the loss of his latest lover; and a viscount from one of France's oldest families, as arrogant as he is gullible. But there's also Gisčle Dambert, the amiable and unassuming assistant to the victim who dazzles Inspector Foucheroux with her startling royal blue eyes. Could she have had a motive as well? When Foucheroux learns that a much-coveted Proust manuscript, long thought to have been destroyed, has been unearthed and then mysteriously lost again, the trail of clues seems to lead in the direction of his most charming suspect.

Already the subject of an international scandal for its merciless treatment of some of the world's most sensitive egos, Murder chez Proust combines a withering satire of the literary, publishing, and academic elite with the Old World charm of a deftly crafted Agatha Christie-style whodunit." 

Dezon-Jones has been Associate Professor of French at Washington University in St. Louis and has taught and published in both America and her native France. 

Find more information about her at Proust-Ink.com.

The American Library in Paris  is located at:
10, rue du General Camou
(Just off the Champs de Mars and the Eiffel Tower)
75007 Paris, France
• Tel. +33 (0)1 53 59 12 60
http://www.americanlibraryinparis.org/