Lunch by the sea. Waiting…

There is something you must know about me: I am a diary-kind of person. It started as a kid in France, when we were made to keep a school diary (emploi du temps), where the daily homework was copied from the blackboard and had to be checked and signed off by Mum or Dad. That went on thru high school, then University, though no parent’s signatures were required any longer. Thus was planted the habit of planning for the next day, week or month and it has followed me ever since. I only keep one diary at any one time and while in my earlier adults years, the entries were mostly about appointments, deadlines, and phone numbers; over time I have included various notes on things of interests,  like a written version of a Pinterest board…Nowadays, open any page and you will find: bills to pay, money for the kids, teachers appointments as well as reminders to call my mum, restaurant to book, menu plan, shopping lists… That’s any given day. When planning a crossing, I need a separate diary just for cruise preparations!

Why I am telling you all this? Because that’s how my brain works, and without diaries, lists, or procedures I would probably forget half of what I’m supposed to do, or the order of which things need to be done. I would let myself be distracted by my children asking to go to the beach or my husband setting up on the deck for a sunset drink! Actually I do get distracted. A lot. But thanks to my diary, I can remember what I did last month and share with you some of our July Happenings in the galley…

Last month’s cooking mood was French, Bastille Day being the theme for most of our meals. Inspired by Manger a beautiful blog I stumbled upon (more on that in another post) and French Rendez-Vous, a French Designer fashion boutique newly opened in Brisbane by a dear French friend of mine, I kind of felt a longing for all things French. Some days, we ate something simple like omelette & mushrooms  

or vegetable soup & grilled cheese tartines.

Other days I subjected the family to full on experiments such as marinated tofu

or sweet potato bread

(not very French, but the ingredients were in the fridge!).

And of course we had fantastic dinner parties with non-French guests, so I really went to town: fricassee of chicken (which is French for Chicken casserole, really), bacon-wrapped baked chicken, BBQ pork ribs, All-green salad, Plum cake, Apple tart

,

All chocolate cake…

Some of the dishes were “blog worthy” and I’ll post a recipe (you’ll have to guess which one!), others either need more work (read cook again!) or were just too “mehhhhh” to even bother any further.

It’s not to say that we forgot about the rest of the world so we also duly celebrated American July 4^th with cheeseburgers and National Tequila Day with margaritas on our favourite beach. See how international we are!!!! Now let’s try detoxing a little in August…stay tuned.