France Today Live – Toujours La France! with Janine Marsh – Cooking Tips from the Neighbours Clip

In May of 2022, Janine Marsh joined Sylvia Davis to discuss her book “Toujours La France!” where she shares more heart-warming and entertaining stories about the peculiarities of life in a small French village. With the return of much-loved village characters, and some idiosyncratic new faces making an entrance, there is never a quiet moment in the Seven Valleys.

We hope you join us as Janine returns to France Today Live on the 25th of January 2024 at 11:00 as she shares insights from her book “How to Be French: Drink, Eat, and Travel Like the French.”

Discover the secrets of the French lifestyle, from the joy of taking your time, indulging in a glass of wine or a decadent pastry, to knowing just how to dress so you “always look effortlessly chic”.

Don’t miss this delightful chance to delve into the essence of French living with a confirmed Francophile.

It it doesn’t matter who you speak to in France it doesn’t matter where you go I can I can just walk down the road walking the dogs perfectly minding my own business and I’ll see John Claude and first of all he will mention the weather you know oh it’s very hot today

Oh it’s very wet today or it’s very dry today or cold today but then the next thing is oh did you know so and so has asparagus in their shop and so and so and did you know that Mrs Dilan has some new pork chops in this week and you know

Like everyone just wants to share tips on everything and when I first came here um they were so horrified that a woman of my age couldn’t cook and I just I just never bothered to learn to cook my mom wasn’t much of a cook um I lived in

London we have takeaways on every corner and I work long hours so if I got home at 8 n o’clock at night I really wasn’t interested in cooking anything I might do beans on toast which would horrify you Silvia I’m sure as it does most French people no no I I

Love not horrified at all I tried giving them beans on toast here and but yeah so I have beans on toast or Kentucky Fried Chicken or McDonald’s I’m sorry about that everyone but you know when you when you work long hours you you don’t cook when you come home and so

Coming here you know Claudette when I would go to see her she would say oh yeah I’ve made this Pano do you want the recipe and and I would say not really because I don’t cook and she was utterly like why don’t you cook and it dawned on

Me quite early on as well when we came out here that we are at least 10 minutes dve from the nearest shop shops do not open on a Sunday the shops open all night long like they are in London um so you have to be really organized about

Food here and you have to learn to cook and so Claudette tried to teach me to cook with some success at first Mark was better than me and then the bread man who delivers our bread he would put recipes in the in the post box then the postman started putting recipes in the

Post box B got this awful reputation for being a woman who couldn’t cook I already had the reputation for having my septic tank blow up the day we moved in and uh which got me the nickname Madam M which is very good but I I also was the

Woman who can’t cook H and so everyone tried to teach me and it’s taken quite a long time but I can actually now cook pan I can cook carbonide foron I can cook Lush or t f as it’s called and tart tan because my neighbors would not let

Go they just they just wouldn’t let it be so they said no you must learn to cook so I and then when we’re cooking they often talk tell me stories you know about food from the past and you don’t put the bread upside down and quite often French

People don’t know why they do this which is completely normal because you just grow up knowing never put the baguette on the table upside down but you don’t question it because your mom tells you that so I love to look into these things and find out why so yes your book is

Filled with these um lovely uh facts and also historical references and you do a lot a lot of research because it looks you know it’s it’s it looks it’s it’s a lot of fun and it has a lot of hum but there’s a lot of research behind