Photo Taken By: Manqu Wonders By Mistake

We understand that this is one of the craziest times of the year, so we thought of  5 things to do before January 1st to simplify & close out 2009. I mean you know pretty clearly what shopping you have left to do,  what family obligations you have to handle, and all the fabulous parties you will attend or host.  But these 5 things are really just about you.

1. Take 20-30 minutes to count your blessings. If you haven’t already stop sit and drink a cup of hot chocolate or tea and relax, thinking of all the things that made this year worthwhile.  Focus on the positive and leave the challenges behind, as 2010 will surely bring its own batch of fires to extinguish.

2. One night this week, pop the family in the car for a winter wonderland tour of the neighborhood lights with a round of hot chocolate or warm cider for everyone.

3. Instead of gift exchange with friends, get together for a lunch somewhere to laugh and catch up.  Your time these days is valuable enough, and the memories you’ll share are precious. Just be sure to do it before the kids get out of school this week, or it probably won’t happen (and don’t try to do it with the kids, it’s not the same).

4. Clean out the clutter now. I know everyone thinks of starting their clean up for the New Year BUT if you start some of it now, the easy stuff like drawers or closets, you will feel so much better going into 2010.

5. Make a list of what you want to accomplish in 2010, but focus on your wishes and not tasks.  Avoiding the specific details gives you time to work out how to accomplish them, and avoids setting yourself up for failure because you didn’t hop right to some specific task on January 2nd.  Keep to a high level and you’ll be ready for them on January 1st!

We have so much to share with you in the New Year and we can’t wait! Until then have a peaceful & blessed holiday ~ Carrie & Marla

Take, par exemple, the picnic.  Next time you head out to the neighborhood pool or for a walk in the woods, how about breaking out of your sandwich and chips routine?  Wander down a new aisle at the store, spend just a few extra minutes preparing a cold salad or branching out with a simple dessert, and you will find your whole outlook is perked up.  Inject that joie de vivre in everything you do, and there you will discover something new.

One of the most memorable experiences I ever had during the time I lived in Provence was a picnic in an olive grove. Les quiches, les huîtres (oysters), the wine, the scratched up fingers and aching arms from a morning spent picking olives off the peaceful branches.  Oh mon dieu, it was paradise.   The past few months in Houston have been too hot to sport a picnic outside, unless you’re by the pool.  But back in June when we traveled to Emerald Isle, North Carolina for our annual Shearer Family week at the beach, we celebrated our first night with a picnic party spread worthy of an afternoon on the Seine.

 Our sightline was not the Eiffel Tower, but the Atlantic Ocean.  And we stayed indoors because, although it was a beautiful night at the seaside, sometimes when you have five cousins under the age of nine, the idea of a sandy, water-logged baguette just isn’t that appealing.   So while we listened to a custom-made “Frenchified” radio station on pandora.com , we sipped on chilled rosé, passed the French bread, creamy brie, saumon fumé (smoked salmon), and salty olives, and topped off our delicious, light repast with fresh, homemade blueberry pie.  (Okay, I know.  That is where we digressed; the French would have gone with a tarte aux cerises, but the blueberry sour cream pie is a Waters/ Shearer Family favorite.)  See the recipe: Blueberry Sour Cream Pie

For a fresh new twist on your own classic French picnic, forgo the turkey sandwich and the bag of chips.   Make sure you have plenty of olives, the saltier and brinier the better.  Same goes for cold, raw oysters, if you can get them.  A thin slice of bread, toasted like a cracker, spread with boursin and topped with Lox makes an excellent amuse-bouche, as does a good salami or jambon cru from your deli.   As for wine, I recommend a Sancerre from the south of France.  It’s light and refreshing, just right on a hot day and a wonderful complement to fresh melons and berries for dessert.  Or of course, there’s always that pie. . .

Whether your backdrop is the French countryside, a park bench in Paris, East Coast, West Coast, or your own backyard, bon appétit!

After the invasion of the Barbarians, the city began to expand. It became the perfect crossroads between North, South, and East. The Dukes of Burgundy chose Beaune as their site for both the Palace and Parliament.  Today Beaune is considered the capital of Burgundy wines. The Côte de Beaune and the Hautes Côtes de Beaune produce harmonious wines like Meursault, Pommard, Montrachet, Corton-Charlemagne to name a few.  To take a break from the wine tours we ventured around the city discovering little winding roads that lead us to adorable cafes and shops.

We also toured the famous Hotel-Dieu, a hospice founded in 1443 by Nicolas Rolin and his wife. It was inspired by the architecture of Northern French hospitals. I loved the geometric multi-colored Burgundian roof tiles that you see below in the picture.

The building is arranged around a central courtyard.  The Kitchen has a Gothic fireplace that immediately gets your attention along with the collection of period copper cookware. In the kitchen there is a mechanical spit designed by watchmaker De Fresne in 1698, which automatically turned meat over the fire. In the pharmacy there were all kinds of unusual potions that were stored in jars and pots. They would mix up concoctions and grind them in a bronze mortar to prepare the remedies for the sick.

We also found two religious masterpieces housed there. The Christ-de-Pitié statue that is carved from wood and the Last Judgment Polyptych by Rogier Van der Weyden.

We really enjoyed our day trip in Beaune. It is a a great place to visit while you are exploring the wine country!

Burgundy has some of the greatest wines in the world as well as one of the most complex classification systems. These vinyards were split into tiny fractions after the French Revolution resulting in a number of appellations.  So we set up wine tastings for the next 3 days.  The only thing I found hard was getting in the mood for a 10:00 a.m. wine tasting. I will say that tasting wine at 10:00 a.m. was interesting but after a few, you kinda start to get the hang of it.

We ate & drank our way through countless amazing dishes: Pastries, Escargots De Bourgogne, Langosustine, Blanc De Volaille Au Foie Gras, Oeufs en Meurette, Boeuf Bourguignon, and the cheeses  – dear god the cheeses - are seriously out of this world. At the La Montrachet’s in-house restaurant (of the same name), the cheese cart at the end of your meal included St. Nectaire, Cantal, Blue de Bresse and some that were handcrafted by French monks. Every meal at Le Montrachet was amazing, to say the least. The neat thing about it was I still felt right at home. The rooms were nice and comfortable. They always had food and drinks available during different points of the day to try. 

One night we decided to venture out and eat at a place where the locals go. The proprietors of Le Montrachet pointed us to a little town called Remigny. We ended up is the cutest place called Auberge L’Escale . This is where I had my favorite version of Oeufs en meurette.  The dinner was homey, the ultimate in French comfort food and a great way to spend an evening in Burgundy.

It is true what they say, but to me, the romance wasn’t sickening at all.  Lovers entwined on park benches, tongues down each other’s cafe cremes,  melting into each other on the subway; it all just added to the allure that is Paris. 

The sunset light where it doesn’t even get dark until after 9, the lacy lingerie shops, the music floating in the air from sexy Argentinian street musicians set the stage for love.  If my husband had been there with me, I’m sure we barely would have come up for air long enough to take in the view.

And what a view it was.  No, I never made it to the top of the Eiffel Tower, but it doesn’t matter.  I saw it lit up on a late-night in the city, under a no-kidding full moon.   A hefty portion of the French g.d.p. goes towards illuminating the Tower in a light show every hour on the hour after dark.  In a post-five-course dinner that included oysters, duck and creme brulee, we dragged ourselves over to the esplanade and waited, our tired feet and legs growing weary from jet-lag and several carafes of red wine. 

We waited some more.  And then,  Bam! the iron monument to modern spectacle and history in the making, began to glimmer like a million diamonds in the clear Parisian sky.  Wow!  Merveilleux!  Formidable! It was worth the wait.  What a way to showcase a week that would be full of Eiffel Tower moments.  There may have been kissing everywhere else, but none for me.  Maybe next time.  It was still romantic quand meme, all the same.