Bienvenue au sud ouest

Hamburgers have even made it down here! Lou burger - lou means le (the) in the Occitan dialect. They pride themselves on serving fresh and quality burgers. And for 19€ per menu- including burger, fries and drink- it better be good! Bread made in montauban, tome du ramier from the local farm and beef from the south west. and all this under the arches of the beautiful place nationale in e heart of montauban. 

The meat was excellent , but the rest was overpriced and under taste. For 46€ we got two burger menus and a salads de magret (not worth the 13€!). 

And what gets me the most is WHY anyone down here would even want to make burgers. They have the best food in the world! Between wine, duck, nectarines, melons, yellow zucchinis, rocamadour cheese, fresh cabecou, delicious walnut tarts...why hamburgers? 

Speaking of local products, here is the picture of the mirabelle (little yellow plums) tree growing outside the house we're staying in for another 2 weeks. We're anxiously awaiting them to turn deep yellow-orange so we can pick them. 

French fried me. Frenchified me.

I'm American. I'm (kind of) French. I'm a mother. I'm a wife.  And above everything, I'm a foodie. I like to eat. I like to cook.

Cooking has always been a sort of therapeutic and emotional experience for me. I cook therefore I am. My mother, although she claims not to be a good cook, makes good food. I guess I learned from her. When I was in high school, my friends and I would bake on Friday nights because we were kind of uncool and were never invited to the parties.
When I came to France in 1996 and I wanted to share with people, I discovered cooking. The first dish I made on a regular basis was apple crumble, which I've changed, tweaked and experimented with over the years. Since then, I've acquired many many cookbooks in both French and English and countless amounts of random grease splattered pieces of  papers. But I'm always faced with the same problems: how do I make food like back home when the base products are either not the same or unavailable?

If you are an American expat in France trying to make the perfect chocolate chip cookie but just can't get it right, or if you can't figure out where the heck to buy buttermilk for those pancakes or how to make chili without pinto beans...or if you're French and have a love of American cuisine (yes it does exist!) or if you're just looking for some good eats and a bottomless cup of coffee...Welcome to my blog.