the loudemile january 25 roundup
spoiler alert: I am in France yet again
While this day is still relatively quiet, I’m doing as my parents’ fat orange cat and sitting in a ray of sunshine. Beautiful chaos is about to go down: every year, my and another family get together to cram thousands of calories right down our gob in one sitting.
Today is the yearly RGM, standing for Raclette Galette Meringue, which is exactly what it sounds like. Oozes of molten cheese on potatoes, gherkins and cold cuts, followed by a puff-pastry-and-marzipan king cake, with a salad bowl full of bite-size meringues as a chaser. All washed down with champagne, Riesling wine and Breton cider, of course.
I couldn’t tell you how, why or when it started to save my life. Raclette galette meringue is, was, and always will be. Raclette galette meringue is a state of mind and a way of life.
Wish me luck.
For those of you unfamiliar with galette, also known as king cake, let this post from Lucie Bryon be your gateway drug.
Frangipane sandwiched between two discs of puff pastry, with a small ceramic figurine (the fève) hidden inside. The youngest person sits under the table to randomly assign slices to each guest, so that everyone gets a fair chance to find the fève and be crowned king/queen/monarch. A pastry AND a game of chance.
I was extremely honoured to be featured in Katie Mather’s list of newsletters you should get in 2025, alongside some truly excellent writers. Many of you reading this found me this way, and I hope to live up to the hype!
I saw two food-related movies this past month, and I can’t say I recommend both.
Vingt Dieux (Holy Cow in English) is the story of a young man in deep rural Jura who finds himself raising his little sister alone and needing to grow up real quick after becoming an orphan. He naïvely decides to try his hand at making Comté cheese in his backyard to win enough prize money at a gastronomic competition to support himself. It’s a stunning love letter to what often-unseen deep France is like, as touching as it is real.
We Live In Time, on the other hand, was… fine. It did do the job for me, in that all I technically asked for was for two very good-looking people to make me sob big tears for a couple of hours. The acting was great; the script was weak. The soundtrack sucked.
But much more importantly, the movie opens with Florence Pugh’s character foraging in the forest to make “a Douglas fir parfait”, for which she grabs two things: some extremely toxic yew and a handful of garlic mustard flowers (which taste of, you guessed it, garlic and mustard). I know it’s movie magic and has no bearing on the story. It filled me with rage nonetheless.
I got a delightful surprise earlier this month in the form of my boiler breaking, on a Saturday morning, while I was in the shower. I got really good at making warming, spicy, vitamin-filled meals while waiting for my letting agent to make it to his email inbox on the Monday morning.
Friday was my last day at my first graphic design gig since going freelance, so I brought two dozen donuts for coworkers to share. It would have been one dozen, but I was offered the second for half price. Don’t mind if I do.
Anyway, I’m now a grandma in that my happiness levels over the day were inversely proportional to the amount of uneaten donuts.
If you’re ever in Paris and looking to try some proper South-Western French food, I can highly recommend Le Bistro Des Oies near République. Walking in, you’ll immediately be assaulted by the smell of duck and fried potatoes, then sit elbow to elbow with fellow diners while squinting to read the ardoises on the wall for the specials, and finally walk out a few pounds heavier and burping garlic. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Live update: I didn’t have time to finish writing this before guests started arriving for the RGM. I won the fève and crowned my 1-year-old nephew as my king. All is well.
In case you missed them, here are this month’s posts:
washing dishes is cooking, actually – life hack: no need to do dishes after cooking if you did them whilst.
by changing the name you changed the recipe – food waste isn’t a modern problem, but forgetting the ancient solutions is.
my food bookshelf – here are my recs, give me yours!