Bienvenue!

Bienvenue everybody! Wow, I'm pretty excited: this is my first post on my blog!

I hope to be able to share with you my passion for cooking as well as my love for my native country, France. Yes indeed I am French and for once, no one is here to hear my accent and ask "so you mean, you lived in France for a little bit", or "so you have French descendants in your family?". I have been such a lover of English since I was 11 that I have done anything possible to mimic THE perfect English accent. First it was British, and now it's American English, or should I say Texan. Apparently I am starting to get a bit of a drawl here and there. But I digress...

I am 29 and my name is Laetitia. I live in Austin, Texas with my Texan/Dallasite husband, Juan. In France, my family is from the Rhone-Alpes region, which is close to Lyon and Grenoble. My hometown is a little village no one would know about (come on, do you know Bouvesse?). But I have lots and lots of fond cherished memories there, and I certainly am going to share a lot of them with you here!

Going to the University of Texas in Austin in 2001 was a turning point in my life:

• I finally realized my dream of living in the United-States, even if it was just for a year, to finish my college degree at UT.
• I met THE coolest guy ever and we fell in love with each other (everyone was teasing me before I left France: "tu vas bien te trouver un beau cowboy la-bas" or "I'm sure you'll end up meeting a hot cowboy there". "Texas" calls to mind "cowboys" in France, of course). He has been my best friend and loving husband since 2003.
• I came to realize how much I love to share French food culture, more than anything. That all the saucissons and pates making with my grandfather, the memories of my Mamie's cafe (grandma), the wine harvest of my grandfather's little vineyard were like little seeds planted inside me, waiting to bloom into a passion.

I treasure French homestyle cooking and hold in the highest esteem my mother and grandmothers' cooking.

You know how sometimes taking a step back can help you realize certain things in life? That's what happened to me when America became my adopting country; a whole new light was shed on my life and my everblooming passion for French cooking.

So welcome to my kitchen and to my Franco-American lifestyle!