My dear friend, Cedar and I, get together 1-3 times a week for dinner and chatting,while our DH's play disc golf. We enjoy cooking together and planning our meals. She is moving north about 2 hrs this month, to start her music teaching career. We are trying to get together often before she goes, so this made a great outing on Saturday night. We left hungry and craving beef stew. So yesterday we spent our day food shopping and making an irish beef stew, homemade cheese bread and for dessert chocolate fondue. It was soo much fun. Because we are now inspired to build our cooking skills we are going to take a class or two at the Stonewall Kitchen cooking school. Its only 40 minutes away, and we get to eat the yummy creations!! Yay! The only interruption we had while watching the movie was a man in front of us snoring verrry loudly. At one point the whole theater was giggling...but nobody was upset. The woman he was with seemed to be trying to ignore him...When we later told my husband, he suggested perhaps it was the time she had been left alone in years, LOL.

I was shocked when I saw her kitchen (on some forum - could have been here) for the first time a few months ago. My grandmother - born in 1904 - adored Julia Child's TV show...I have such happy memories of watching my somewhat bitter old grandma sitting close up to the TV to watch Julia Child and she'd laugh and laugh and smile and smile and take notes. She just came alive. It's only now that I realize she must have been imitating Julia Child (or maybe just that era) cause she had such a similar kitchen w/ that peg board and big table to work or eat at and so much more. Julia's kitchen makes me feel so at home I could cry! That's all those women needed - Julia and my grandmother: to be able to reach out an arm like an octopus and grab what they needed. Love it! Yes it's a bit too cluttered for my taste as well but it's a different kind of eye candy to me. :) Man I wish my local wood countertop supply stores had better samples (they sorely lack in that department and I can't make such a big commitment without it being local and without having good samples to take home)...I'd love to have that butcher block countertop look - whether the kind you cut on or not.

I understood that it's the new owner who will also offer cooking classes. Patty Vinson -- the best way to get to the house is to take the TGV train from Paris to Cannes. It's a 5.5 hour train ride, but lovely to take. Pack a picnic lunch from a market and buy water on the train. Settle back and enjoy the ride. If you book in advance through the French iDTGV instead of SNCF websites, you can snag a deal. The most I've paid for that trip was $50 one-way per person in first class. To use the iDTGV website, you'll need to understand French. If you book on SNCF, they'll bounce you to an English language website that seems to always charge more. In Cannes, you can either take a bus or rent a car to drive to Grasse. Grasse is a lovely little village. My late husband and I stayed in nearby Mougins one year and several years, we stayed in Antibes. You can also fly to the Nice Airport from the US, then rent a car and easily drive to Grasse. I love the Riviera. Have been many times.....too much to add to this little post! If you want to go to Giverny, I've been twice since Paris is an annual trip for me. On my husband's last trip in September 2013, Grumpy Gardener (Steve Bender) from Southern Living and his wife were with us. I took them out to Giverny. You don't need to go on a tour. I wrote a blog story about how to get to Giverny from Paris. In hindsight, I wrote this six days before we got my husband's terminal diagnosis. You don't need to book your regional train ticket in advance, You can buy it the morning of your trip at the Gare Saint Lazare. The train station is huge and somewhat like a shopping mall, so you'll need at least 10-15 minutes just to navigate through the station if you're going in from the Métro. I'll be back in Paris in September and October, with a trip in between for a week in Basque Country with friends who live in Paris.

I looked at the pictures the other day when it came across my facebook feed. I did think of how folks here would not approve. But it does look happy and cheerful and like something impressive should be produced in it. I knew she was tall, but didn't realize quite how tall - at 5'10" and often in heels, I have thought more than once about raising my counter height.