From looking at the list of riders, it looks like there are only 2 Brits participating this year, Mark Cavendish with Team Columbia and David Millar with Garmin Chipotle. Best of luck to both of them! I’m not sure if any Brit has ever won the Tour de France, so if you know of any, I’d be interested to know, particularly as we’ve some great cyclists in this country (such as Chris Boardman, one of the best known cyclists) and often do well in other international events such as the Olympics.

I doubt if I’ll follow the event closely, but usually manage to watch a few stages here and there and read snippets of news as I get them.

French Laundry at Home is an excellent account of one lady’s efforts to reproduce the dishes made at the exclusive French Laundry Restaurant in California, which has received many food awards globally and in the top 10 best restaurants in the world. Evidence on the blog shows that she must be a great cook to be able to successfully make what look like quite complicated recipes.

Whisk: A Food Blog is a well written account of the author wishing she had followed a cookery school course, so has set up her own cookery school at home and teaching herself from a variety of sources including Le Cordon Bleu.

La Tartine Gourmande is a food blog written in French and English, so each recipe is in both languages. Some of the recipes are a little bit different, and with great photography, makes the food look very appetising!

I’m going to be looking out for French language food blogs too, so will do a food blog update in another post!

However, Sarkozy wants to boost the French economy, and one of the ways he’s doing this is to give businesses the option of extending the working week. France has one of the lowest working hours in Europe and with an ageing population (as with many countries), the state benefits have to be paid one way or another. Many workers take long weekends, especially when a public holiday falls on a week day (which I’ve mentioned in a previous post) which is a problem for many businesses.

The other side of the coin however is that the French value family time and aren’t driven by money as much as other nations, such as the British and Americans (I don’t think the ‘work hard play hard’ mentality exists much in France, which isn’t a bad thing in my mind). Also many self employed people in France end up working very long hours to keep their business going because of the high amount of taxes they have to pay, which doesn’t encourage people to set up their own businesses.

I’m going to be keeping an interest in this debate to see how successful Sarkozy is in shaking up the French economy!

You can listen to the interview with Christine Lagarde again on the BBC website, although I’m not sure how long it’ll be online for.

I’m not sure that Lewis Hamilton will do terribly well either as although qualifying well, he has a penalty for driving up the back of Kimi Raikkonen in the pit lane at the Canadian Grand Prix which means he has to start 10 places behind wherever he qualifies. It’s unlikely to be a particularly spectacular event!

Interestingly the only person ever to win Le Mans in a car bearing his own name was Jean Rondeau, who lived in Le Mans and won there in 1980.  Jean used to test drive his car around the streets late at night, the gendarmes often turning a blind eye to his activities. 

If you’re going to Le Mans this weekend, lucky you and have a great time. Please let us know about the race, we’d love to hear your comments!

To remind you of the atmosphere of the occasion, I’ve found a clip on YouTube which you may find interesting from the 1999 Season. It’s about 7 minutes long.

It’s a story about 5 generations of an Italian family living in Puglia from 19th century up to the 1980s and how each generation copes with living in one of the poorest parts of Italy. It’s not a fast paced novel and probably not the sort of novel I’d normally read (I like a good thriller, something I can escape into), but I enjoyed the story nonetheless, more so because I read it in French!

The novel won the Prix Goncourt in 2004 (a French literary prize), so was written quite recently.

After finding out the French word for ’slug’ (limace), I did a bit of research and found a recipe for ‘Limaces à la suçarelle‘! This is a bit misleading though. The recipe is a Provençale dish, and it seems that in Provence, a snail is called a ‘limace’ rather than ‘escargot’ which is the usual word used for a snail. So in short the French don’t eat slugs (only perhaps if it was a matter of survival), and snails remain a popular dish. For those of you who rather like snails in garlic butter (I do!), here’s a recipe for ‘Escargots à la Bourguignonne‘.

Today saw the transport workers striking against pension reforms which Sarkozy is trying to introduce as the benefits that many public workers have are becoming a drain on the French economy. However, his reforms aren’t being taken lightly and he really has his work cut out if he’s going to win the French people over.

With the rising costs of fuel and weak pound against the Euro, France isn’t becoming very appealing as a holiday destination this year, which is a great shame as I very much enjoy our trips to France. Perhaps we’ll wait until the autumn and see what happens then!

One of the best places we’ve stayed in which is great for families is Barneville Carteret in Manche, Normandy. We’ve been several times and found a friendly family run ‘hotel’ which is more holiday apartments with B&B at about 60 euros per night, great value! The beach is fab, when the tide is out it stretches for miles with views across to Jersey and the seafood restaurants are wonderful. If you don’t want to travel far when you get to France it’s perfect as it takes about 30 minutes to get there from Cherbourg.

I have to say that I do like French baguettes and patisserie in general (see my post on Tarte aux Pommes), although sometimes French baguettes can have a hard crust that scrapes the inside of the mouth.

I can’t see the French wanting to import British bread, especially the sliced white type - sacrebleu!