Saturday, July 6, 2024

From the President

 Chers tous,

Once again, a fantastic French wine degustation! The evening was a perfect mix of fine wines, delicious cheeses and pâtés and great company. Special thanks to Brent McKay of Amazing Grapes, who provided a selection of fine wines that delighted our palates and our senses. These tasting evenings are not only informative and enjoyable, but they also provide an opportunity to discover some interesting wines and enjoy a very relaxing evening... all right, the wine must have had something to do with it!

Many of us enjoy the Tour de France, not just for the race itself, but also for the scenery, the history, the wealth of information and the famous "Plat du Tour". Due to the Olympic Games, this year the Tour de France will start a week earlier than usual, on 29 June, and will be quite different with a new starting location, its first gravel stage, a non-Paris finish and a different type of final stage. As you know, the Tour de France has always ended in Paris, with several laps around the Louvre and Champs Elysées, due to Olympic preparations in Paris, it will end in Nice on July 21 with an almost 34 km individual time trial. If you would like to download the route (bilingual F/A edition), follow the link:

https://storage-aso.lequipe.fr/ASO/cycling_tdf/tdf24-parcours.pdf

Unveiled on 16 May Saint Honoré’s Day (Saint Honoré being the patron saint of bakers and pastry chefs), the French postal service “La Poste” has printed 594,000 mouthwatering copies of a new baguette stamp, which captures the scent of bread in the ink. The baguette, which won intangible heritage status from UNESCO in November 2022, is considered a jewel of French gastronomy. “The baguette, the bread of our daily lives, the symbol of our gastronomy, the jewel of our culture", La Poste says on its website. “The baguette is the embodiment of a culture and customs that are deeply rooted in the daily lives of the French. It stands for a ritual, that of going to the bakery, a local business rooted in the regions, attracting 12 million consumers every day. The fact that 6 billion baguettes are made every year confirms its emblematic status as part of France's food heritage.”

The Art in Miniature group is holding its annual exhibition at the Raglan Gallery and Cultural Centre in Cooma from 3 July to 18 August 2024. The opening will be hosted by Anne Masters, Director of the Gallery of Small Things (ACT), on Saturday 6 July at 2pm. If you are passing through Cooma, I encourage you to visit the exhibition (Wednesday to Sunday, 10.30am to 3.30pm). You are going to think that it is not really French, to which I would reply that one of the exhibiting artists, Jocelyne Godber, is French.

I look forward to seeing most of you on 14 July in Madame d'Aulnoy's Parisian salon, and if you are worried, no heads are likely to roll, because we will be there at the end of the 17th century, with the Revolution still to come...

A bientôt!

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