Cultivate your French : Slow French, at the right pace.

We are on holidays! And I’m happy to share a few moments with you. I’m recording this episode in the garden of the house we’ve rented. This week we are in the Loire Valley region. I was dreaming to go back to Chenonceau, one the beautiful Loire Valley castles, since 2013. Chenonceau is a small Renaissance castle mainly built in the sixteenth century that the king Henri II offered to his very good friend Diane de Poitiers. When he died, his wife Catherine de Medicis took it back for herself and managed France from there. Mary Stuart was married to one of his son, Henri III and also lived in Chenonceau. This place is full of history! Micaela was surprised because she’s reading La princesse de Clèves written in the 17th century by Madame de La Fayette. The story takes places at Henri II’s court and Diane de Poitiers, Catherine de Medicis are part of the story. I’ve seen in the Castle shop that there is an English version of this book published by Penguin Books. Have you read it?

My name is Laetitia, I’m French, I live just outside Paris and I share with you a small slice of my daily life here in France. I have also been running the podcast One Thing In A French Day since 2006

All the information about the transcripts, notes and photos is available at www.cultivateyourfrench.com

These few weeks in Paris before going back to school were very intense. I felt an urge to visit as many places as we could. We visited Le Louvre, we went to La Sainte-Chapelle as Claire told us that it was wonderful to see the light through the stained glass windows, we visited the Musée Bourdelle (a very nice place for a calm moment in Paris) and one morning I suggested that we could go to the Tour Eiffel. The girls were a little bit tired of this Paris craziness, but Alice, Lisa’s friend who was we us for the day, was on my side.

Be ready for an escape, today’s episode takes you to the Tour Eiffel!

My name is Laetitia, I’m French, I live just outside Paris and I share with you a small slice of my daily life here in France. I have also been running the podcast One Thing In A French Day since 2006

All the information about the transcripts, notes and photos is available at www.cultivateyourfrench.com

Last saturday, I went to Paris with Micaela. She was invited to her best friend’s end of the year music exam, Anna. Anna was playing piano and singing. The audition took place in the cité internationale universitaire in the 14th arrondissement. The cité was built in the 1920s to accomodate foreign students. It’s a lovely place with big buildings. I left Micaela, I went to Saint-Michel for a walk and came back home. The train I took was crouded because there are works on the line and fewer trains. Near to me, two young women were talking very loud. I couldn’t do anything else than listen to them. 

What were they talking about ? This what you are going to hear in this episode. I promise I will try not to talk as loud as them. 

My name is Laetitia, I’m French, I live just outside Paris and I share with you a small slice of my daily life here in France. I have also been running the podcast One Thing In A French Day since 2006

All the information about the transcripts, notes and photos is available at www.cultivateyourfrench.com

Maybe you need a reason to go to Dehillerin and maybe you could find this reason in Hélène Luzin’s latest book : 50 gâteaux de grands pâtissiers qu’il faut avoir goûté une fois dans sa vie.

Nathalie Iris, the bookseller at La Garenne-Colombes, invited Hélène Luzin for a signing session. When I read the news, I went to buy a copy at the bookshop. The book is very clever. Each chef pâtissiers gives the recipe of it’s best cake, but there is also an interview with the chef. This is the part that I find very interesting because it gives you the story of each pâtissier and of his recipe, it tells you about his personality and it’s easy to read. 

At the end of the book, there are two pages to collect the signature of each chef. 

Nicolas Bernardé is a Meilleur Ouvrier de France and his shop is very close to Nathalie’s bookshop. He is also in Hélène Luzin’s book for his famous « Gâteau du samedi ». So the day Hélène Luzin was invited, he came to the bookshop and offered us some chocolates. 

In this episode, you are going to hear Hélène Luzin talking about what she enjoyed when she wrote the book. 

My name is Laetitia, I’m French, I live just outside Paris and I share with you a small slice of my daily life here in France. I have also been running the podcast One Thing In A French Day since 2006.

All the information about the transcripts, notes and photos is available at www.cultivateyourfrench.com

One sunny morning of June, Claire, the viola da gamba player, and I headed to Paris and went to Dehillerin. She thought that it would be nice for you, listeners, to discover this very unique shop in Paris.

The shop was founded two hundred years ago by Eugene Dehillerin and it provides cookware to professional cooks or to anyone who enjoys cooking. The shop is still in the family, Eric Dehillerin is now the manager and I had the opportunity to talk with him. The shop is in Les Halles neighbourhood because this is where, before 1970, that the restaurant owners would buy their fresh food at the central market, Les Halles, and their cookware . When the market of Les Halles moved to Rungis in the south of Paris, the Dehillerin family elected to stay in the centre of Paris.

The shop has its own website, but they intonially kept the old style wood racks so you might be a little bit confused : have you time travelled? 

In today’s episode you are going to hear a section of the recording with Eric Dehillerin. And in the notes available with the transcript, I give you some useful sentences to use in a shop. 

My name is Laetitia, I’m French, I live just outside Paris and I share with you a small slice of my daily life here in France. I have also been running the podcast One Thing In A French Day since 2006

All the information about the transcripts, notes and photos is available at www.cultivateyourfrench.com

Last week, I read you some useful sentences when you arrive in France or in Paris. Today, is a special episode about buying some bread at the boulangerie. It has been recorded in a parisian bakery Painâme, in the 11th arrondissement, rue Oberkampf with Camila and Pierre, the charming owners. A big merci to them for taking the time do record this dialogue. 

In their bakery you will find very good bread of course, viennoiseries and some increadible sandwiches with home made mayonnaise, roasted mushrooms, caramelized onions and nicely baked bread. Do not hesitate to say hello if you come. Camila and Pierre will be very happy to take your order in French. 

My name is Laetitia, I’m French, I live just outside Paris and I share with you a small slice of my daily life here in France. I have also been running the podcast One Thing In A French Day since 2006

All the information about the transcripts, notes and photos is available at www.cultivateyourfrench.com

You know that Cultivate Your French is the younger brother of One Thing In A French Day. Well, this older brother is celebrating this week 2000 episodes. The podcast will be a live podcast on Saturday June 12 th. There is a theme for this celebration, a listener gave me the idea to create a Survival French guide. Listeners sent me many suggestions of situations to develop in the podcast.  I thought that you might be interested too. So today’s episode is a mini survival French guide. Do not hesitate to repeat the sentences aloud! 

If you wish to attend the live podcast, you are warmly welcome. All the information is on the blog of the podcast at www.onethinginafrenchday.com

Please, it would be very sympa if you could rate this podcast on your podcast app. Un grand merci.

A few weeks ago, we bought a new bike for Micaela, a second hand bike that was sold by Projet Boussole an online shop created in September 2020  by Hugo Borrin. Hugo is 30 years old, he created the shop after he met Francçois a bicycle mechanic. He had previously worked in a start up after a management school. 

The shop is in Clichy, a few kilometers away from our home. So we decided that we would collect the bike. When Micaeal and I visited him Hugo Borrin accepted to answer a few questions for the podcast. You will hear him talk about his love for bikes and his best promenade around Paris. 

The shop of course is a success, nowadays many people want to go to work riding a bike rather than taking the metro. 

My name is Laetitia, I’m French, I live just outside Paris and I share with you a small slice of my daily life here in France. I have also been running the podcast One Thing In A French Day since 2006

All the information about the transcripts, notes and photos is available at www.cultivateyourfrench.com

You are listening to Cultivate Your French podcast, ONE slow french episode every week. 

Last year, I discovered that my friend Lorena, from the dance class, is a real passionate about the Château de Versailles. I asked her if she would go with me to the castle and tell us about her passion. She agreed to my great joy! But the bad automnal weather conditions, then lockdown thwarted our plans. This Spring I asked Lorena if she would talk about what she likes at the Château, like an introduction to these future episodes. So we recorded ourselves walking in Paris, as Louis XIV would walk in Versailles to have a conversation. In this episode, I asked Lorena about her favourite figures in Versailles’s history.  

I’m sure you are going to enjoy the way Lorena talks, how she builds her sentences, her reasoning. This episode is a really good training for understanding and building more complex sentences. 

My name is Laetitia, I’m French, I live just outside Paris and I share with you a small slice of my daily life here in France. I have also been running the podcast One Thing In A French Day since 2006

All the information about the transcripts, notes and photos is available at www.cultivateyourfrench.com

A few weeks ago, my friend Pauline showed me a book that she got for Christmas, a book about nice table settings, Chez eux. this book gave us the idea to build a podcast episode about setting a table.

If we were to set a table, we might as well have a lunch or a brunch on it! We took our agenda and decided about a date. Then we imagined our menu : something simple but nice, with flowers on the table.

That day, we first did some shopping. We bought some gariguetes (early strawberries), we bought some renoncules (buttercups in English says the dictionary) and a cherry tree branch. At the bakery, we bought a few croissants because you can’t imagine a brunch without any. 

For this episode, Pauline and I are in her kitchen. Everything is almost ready, it’s time to choose what plates to put on the table. Follow me in her cupboard! 

My name is Laetitia, I’m French, I live just outside Paris and I share with you a small slice of my daily life here in France. I have also been running the podcast One Thing In A French Day since 2006

All the information about the transcripts, notes and photos is available at www.cultivateyourfrench.com