Innholdsfortegnelse for March/April 2022 i My French Country Home

Dear Readers, Welcome to our 2022 spring edition! Here in France, the gardens are beginning to bloom again — evidence that warm weather is officially just around the corner. To get us in the mood, we pay a visit to the beautiful Château d’Ambleville, known for its Italian garden that bursts into life come spring, and tap self-taught gardener Edoardo Grassi for tips on the best ways to plant tulips. Inspired by all this tulip talk, I also used a mix of varieties to create a spring bouquet! As always, we refresh our interiors for the season, this edition with a retro millstone house turned family home in Montmartre and an old Norman presbytery that’s been restored with ancient materials and brocante gems. We also take a peek into the…

La Vie en Rouje Jeanne Damas La Martinière/Abrams A modern scrapbook curated by fashion brand Rouje founder Jeanne Damas. This glamorous tome is a visual celebration, featuring iconic images from Rouje campaigns interspersed with inspiring handwritten notes, quotes and snapshots of Jeanne’s cool inner circle, worldly travels and more. An eye-catching addition to any collection. Ze French Do It Better: A Lifestyle Guide Valérie de Saint-Pierre & Frédérique Veysset Flammarion From kitchen to wardrobe, learn how to enjoy life to the fullest from those who seem to know best — the French! In this practical, tongue-in-cheek guide, two revered lifestyle writers join forces to demystify the “French enigma,” dividing the culture into “tribes” (AristoChic, Feel-Good Bohemian, Foodie and the like) and offering up fun quizzes, facts, tips, rituals and addresses…

Renovations are particularly interesting in the hands of those who adore design. This private mansion in Bordeaux, on France’s east coast, is the home and office of Jean-Xavier Neuville, founder of Neuville lifestyle and events agency. His eye for architecture, design and decorative arts culminated in the launch of his company in 2018, sparking a passion that he also brought to the renovation of this 2,000-squarefoot duplex on Cours Victor Hugo. Located in the city’s Saint-Michel district on the medieval ramparts, the home is one of many mansions built there in the early 1700s — a period during which rich merchants and shipowners settled near the quays: a prime location for entertaining guests that arrived by boat. Designed in Regency, a style known for its strict standards and sophistication, it…

www.confiture-parisienne.com…

PRINT Delivered to your door, enjoy the magic of French living in a beautiful collector’s-quality magazine. US$79.95 for one year (6 issues)* US$14.95 for one issue* Yearly print subscribers get FREE access to the digital version of the magazine. DIGITAL Enjoy the same beautiful My French Country Home features, photography and delicious recipes - wherever you are. Ideal for commuting or holidays, read the latest issue of MFCH on your smartphone and escape to France with the click of a button. Yearly digital (and print) subscribers get issues conveniently stored within the Bookshelf, accessible from your My French Country Home account. US$39.99 for one year (6 issues) US$7.99 for one issue Enjoy easy reading with adaptable viewing modes, interactive live links for online shopping and a personal library of back…

Tish Jett is an author, a journalist and a former editor at the International Herald Tribune and American ELLE. She pens our regular “Just Between Us” column. www.tishjett.com @tishjett Eric Martin is a photojournalist, notably shooting for Le Figaro Magazine. His portraits of the peach trees in Catalanonia are featured in our latest “Portfolio.” www.ericmartin.smugmug.com @photoericmartin Héloïse Brion is a cookbook author and founder of food blog “Miss Maggie’s Kitchen.” This edition, she created exclusive recipes styled with her new lifestyle collection: parsley by MMK. www.missmaggieskitchen.com @missmaggieskitchen Franck Schmitt is an author, photographer and journalist. He shot the photos for our feature on the spring gardens at Château d’Ambleville. www.franckschmitt.fr @franckschmitt.fr Edoardo Grassi is a self-taught gardener and founder of Gaspard à Table, a site that specializes in rare French…

Over 15 years ago, Julie and Cyrille Viard made a major life change: swapping Paris for the Normandy countryside and city streets for rambling hedgerows — before the idea became trendy! Former designers in charge of creating the dazzling window displays at the world-renowned Parisian department store, Galeries Lafayette, the couple decided to take their eye for style and open an interiors store: L’Empreinte Décoration. Naturally, the pair brought just as much flair in designing their own home, an 18th-century presbytery, brimming with beautiful, visible traces of time, that captivated them from the start. “The house was filled with old brickwork and terracotta tomettes, its wooden doors looked like they’d been opened and closed a thousand times, and the stairs had the imprints from years of wear,” said Cyrille. “But…

* Business Woman “There’s not really any secret to it—you just have to do the legwork.” Entrepreneur and purveyor of fine teas: Alice Bureau It’s a big gamble to launch a new business in the middle of a pandemic. How did Conservatoire des Hémisphères come to be? I always knew that I wanted to start my own business. I’d been working at Officine Universelle Buly 1803 (Editor’s note: a Paris-based perfumer) for a few years, and I began to think about what this might look like back in 2019. I started the project with my partner — I began defining the concept, while he tackled the financial structure. We researched for a year, scouring for the world’s best tea leaves and infusing tools; designing our boxes, making the labels… creating the…

For Eloïse Poirson, antiques are more a vocation than a career. As a student, she trained to be an auctioneer and was offered her first internship at Marché Paul Bert Serpette, in the famous puces de Saint-Ouen. She immediately fell under the charm of this iconic market and its unique work routine. What was intended to be a migratory visit became her job for the next 10 years, that is, until she was ready to spread her wings in 2021. Eloïse teamed up with experienced art dealer Emmanuel Roucher to create Galerie RAGE, an antiques shop with a prime position at the entrance of the Serpette market. In the short time the stand has been open, it has been well-received. Their specialty is 19th-century paintings, as well as quirky pieces…

Originally hailing from China, the peach tree, or Prunus persica, first passed through Persia before being cultivated by the Greeks. The species was most likely introduced to the region by the Romans, who referred to the fruit as the “Persian apple.” The small hilltop village of Eus has a front-row seat to this rose-hued, annual flowering. Set between the Canigou mountain — the “Mount Fuji of the Pyrénées-Orientales” — and the Confluent Valley, Eus has the distinction of being named one of Les Plus Beaux Villages de France ® (Most Beautiful Villages of France). It is also its sunniest; not far from the Spanish border, Eus’ warm temperatures offer the ideal microclimate for the juicy fruits to thrive. The massif, sacred to the Catalans, represents fertility. Come March, when the pêchers…

* What’s new? Diptyque Wallpaper The parfumeur dives into home décor with the unveiling of its first collection of wallpapers. A nod to the brand’s founding trio’s initial success selling upholstery fabrics, the papier peint features eccentric and timeless patterns reprinted from original sketches from the house’s archives. www.diptyqueparis.com Nona Source Can high fashion be sustainable? Oui! Enter Nona Source, an eco-friendly digital platform that resells leftover fabrics from the luxury industry’s biggest names, offering aspiring designers access to top-quality threads while also encouraging the creative reuse of materials. www.nona-source.com Ladurée x Olympia Le-Tan Ladurée and cult fashion brand Olympia Le-Tan have teamed up to create an exclusive collection featuring a limited-edition macaron box (encasing an array of special flavors, like Citrus Rosé Champagne) and two hand-embroidered clutches designed in…

Héloïse Brion — founder of hit food blog and art of living site “Miss Maggie’s Kitchen” (fondly named after the old hunting lodge where she lives with her family in Normandy) — knows a thing or two about entertaining. Between her successful cookbook and well-attended online cooking classes, Héloïse has created a veritable universe inspired by a childhood split between France and the US, sharing moments with loved ones over special meals. She recently expanded her brand to include parsley by MMK — a lifestyle essentials line. Offering categories from kitchenware to fashion to home décor, each item is hand-picked or carefully designed by Héloïse herself to enhance the pleasure of hosting. Every piece is limited-edition, including those born from collaborations with select designers and brands. Veggie Pies Makes 6…

Tomato & Prosciutto Tart Serves 6 •500 g block of all-butter puff pastry (don’t use ready-rolled, as it’s not strong enough for this recipe)•10 slices Bayonne or Serrano ham•2 garlic cloves• Pepper•1 tbsp rosemary, chopped•1⁄3 cup (100 ml) olive oil•4 large tomatoes, sliced•Handful basil leaves, torn Roll the pastry out to about 12 x 7 inches (30 x 18 cm) and place on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Blitz the ham, garlic, rosemary and some pepper with half of the olive oil, until you have a rough paste. Spread the mixture evenly over the pastry, leaving a margin of about 1 inch (2 ½ cm) all around. Arrange the tomatoes on top, drizzle over the remaining oil and bake for 30 minutes at 390°F (200°C), until the pastry…

Of course, there were the glamorous, fashion-related soirées in Paris, which were certainly fun — some unforgettable — but not life-changing. No, I’m talking about evenings spent in my little village near Rambouillet. One of the things I learned early on was that as une étrangere (a foreigner), it was assumed that I had some sort of expertise on the culture, politics and zeitgeist of the entire United States. Feeling an ambassador-like responsibility, I tried the best I could to answer the questions that inevitably cropped up during dinners. That was precisely where I went astray at one of my first parties. It was in 1988 when one of the guests asked me: “So, tell us about art in America today.” I proceeded to recount how The National Endowment for…

Ingredients Varied, colorful and vivacious, tulips are the epitome of springtime joy. To make this bouquet, you will need: • A large vessel (here we used an antique soup tureen)• Chicken wire (placed inside to ensure that the stems do not move around)• 10 pale pink tulips• 10 deep russett tulips• 2 bunches mimosa sprigs• 2 bunches red limonium• 10 white hyacinths• 10 deep purple anemones• 10 fuchsia anemones• 1 bunch pink wax• 12 branches of tall grasses Start by positioning the chicken wire inside your vessel, ensuring that it is firmly secured. Create the outline of the bouquet with the red limonium, pink wax and some of the mimosa sprigs. Start by using the hyacinths at the base of the arrangement to hide the top of your vessel. Begin…