After a distracted and busy summer, we’ve refocused our creative time. And the dames are back! Here’s how we live in our cloistered French way, moving seasonally and adapting to the heat to change our flow of work. 

Tamsin and Kate share our top tips for slow living, cooking from scratch, growing our own food, and how to shape our days and our lives. From not planning too far ahead, although creating a long-term vision, the essence is always faith and trust that we will arrive at a destination. Perhaps by letting go of productivity goals, we end up being more productive.

* What’s happening in our late summer gardens, what’s happening in our lives, and. of course, the cake we are eating!

* The practice of repetition of actions makes a life practice.

* Becoming open to what you are not used to is a way to experience a slower pace.

* Dropping the unnecessary habits that distract you in life.

* Time alone is the essential ingredient to maintaining your creative integrity.

* Keeping a sense of anticipation in life.

* Setting a rhythm of work based on sun cycles and the changing seasons

BOOKS

To Stand and Stare / Andrew Timothy O’Brien- observing the garden/life

Timeless Simplicity / John Lane

Tara Mohr / Playing it Big

Recipe: LEMON VERBENA CAKE

* INGREDIENTS

* 2 tablespoons lemon Verbena dried leaves

* 5 medium eggs

* 75 grams (1/3 cup) softened butter or ghee

* 100 gm Almond flour

* 75 grams buckwheat or chestnut flour

* 50 grams (2/3 cup) granulated sugar

* Zest of one lemon

* Juice of one lemon

* 1 teaspoon baking powderDIRECTIONS

* Preheat the oven to 180ºC (350ºF). Grease a  cake pan (24 x 8 centimeters (9 1/2-inch diameter with 3 1/4-inch-high sides) with butter and dust with flour or use a rubber muffin mold

* Chop the lemon verbena leaves finely.

* In an electric mixer, beat on medium speed the eggs, sugar, and lemon zest until a homogeneous mixture. Pour the lemon juice, chopped leaves, butter, and mix for 3 to 4 minutes until it’s nicely incorporated. Reduce the mixer speed to low, add the flour mixed with the baking powder, and beat until a homogeneous and creamy mixture.

* Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 35 minutes (the time depends on the oven).

* Remove the cake from the oven and unmold it onto a plate. Let cool completely and serve. we served it with lemon verbena tea, of course!

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April brings a bit more focus to our lives, helped along by planting seeds and tending the kitchen gardens of our French lives. Seeds are planted, tended, germinated under some shelter, and then planted out as the days lengthen and the nights grow warmer. Kate always makes a plan, mostly because she likes to draw on scraps of paper, and looking back at 20 years worth of garden plans is always as interesting as it is fun.

Are you enjoying our little French chats? Like, comment, subscribe, and support our Dames de Paradis podcast; all the feedback helps us make plans. And please, share with your friends! The more we grow, the more we can share.

Here we are at the beginning of a new season—Spring and all the glory is on the French March doorstep. Join Tamsin and Kate as they sit by a morning fire at Camont (it’s drizzling out!) and discuss intentions for a new season… and a new year. And, of course, there is cake! Recipe for the Marmalade Cake included.

Tamsin and Kate talk about the sweet idea of giving- to friends, family, and strangers. While often the most simple idea, a loving gift of a key might open more than a car door. Kate tells about the packet of 1970s photographs she received—a gift of her own youth! Another much-appreciated gift we received is a set of new microphones, to clear up our slightly muffled recording here. Stay tuned for more and clearer podcasts from us Dames!

What do neighbors give neighbors? Friends celebrate the everyday French gifts of farm eggs, wild mushrooms, fresh peaches, and a Tupperware of pumpkin soup. Sharing abundance is a part of country living even in the most unexpected places like the Gamm Vert farm shop! * 3 eggs

In the first episode of the Dames du Paradis Podcast, Tamsin Jardinier and Kate Hill introduce you to a small quiet corner of Southwest France, a few villages strung along the Garonne River valley, and the inspiration for starting a podcast about the Art of Lost Living. Sit next to the gently crackling fire on a cold February day, listen in and consider your own life and how you find quiet inspiration in the daily practice of cooking, gardening, working, creating, and the lively conversations that grow out of cake and coffee.

We invite you to make suggestions for future episodes or anything you would like to bring up; after all, you, too, are part of this conversation …and make cake. Leave your topic ideas in the comments below. For more written words and recipes, please see the corresponding substack newsletter.