Archive for August, 2012
French Dessert: Îles Flottantes (Floating Islands) Posted by Hichem on Aug 31, 2012
Mes amis, you are all welcome aboard the “Îles flottantes“, which in French means “Floating Islands“! When prepared with love and passion, tasting these exquisite French “Dessert Islands” is likely to offer you the sensational experience of traveling to some faraway French Caribbean “Desserted Island” 🙂 To prepare this French dessert, which is also…
Jusqu’à la Fin (To the End) Posted by Hichem on Aug 29, 2012
What happens when a famous French singing lady teams up with a famous English music group? Especially when the French lady singer in question is called Françoise Hardy, and the English group is Blur…? Well, we shall have to find out, shan’t we? Recording the song “To The End” (Blur with Françoise Hardy, of “Mon Amie la…
French Grammar: Ordinal Numbers: 1st – 100th Posted by Hichem on Aug 28, 2012
In today’s post, you will learn how to rank in French—the same way they do it in the Olympics, for example. It goes like this: le premier/la première (the first), deuxième (second), troisième (third), etc.—all the way up to centième (hundredth”)! These ranks are known by the fancy name of “ordinal numbers”, as opposed to the cardinal…
Mon Amie la Rose (My Friend The Rose) Posted by Hichem on Aug 27, 2012
This is a magnificent yet tragic story of a melodramatic rose, told in music and lyrics written in both languages, French and English. “A lifetime comes and goes, and as my friend the rose said only yesterday: This morning I was born and baptized in the dawn I flowered in the dew and life was…
How to Make and Bake a Classic French Croissant—All By Yourself! Posted by Hichem on Aug 22, 2012
Trust me, mes amis, making your own croissant has nothing of a miracle—oui, oui, you can do it yourself! Today, we’ll show you that you won’t be needing any special hardware to make and bake a classic French croissant. The whole thing is a matter of mastering “la bonne technique“. The video of Ed and Marieke…
“Et Moi, et Moi, et Moi” (“And Me, and Me, and Me”) Posted by Hichem on Aug 21, 2012
You listen to this famous and catchy French song, and you tell me if the French gentleman who wrote these lyrics back in 1966 has never been more right today than he ever was… The French singer, Jacques Dutronc, summarizes the process quite well: The narcissism and egomania of the “Baby Boomers” (his own generation…
French Grammar: Transitive Verbs of Two Objects Posted by Hichem on Aug 20, 2012
You are already familiar with transitive verbs, meaning verbs that require an object. Now meet the less known breed called “ditransitive verbs.” It may sound complicated at first, but once you know what it stands for, it suddenly becomes très facile: As their name says, these are verbs which need one direct object and one additional object introduced by…