I’m back home and rearing to get back to my blog. Hope you have had as great a 2 weeks as I have just had. We went to Lac de Salagou, from there to Sete at the Mediterranean (that’s where the photo is taken) and to Roses in Spain as well. Except for one awesome thunderstorm, we had fantastic weather and swam in the lake at Salagou and in the Mediterranean Sea. We ate oysters sitting on the beach and cycled along the Canal du Midi – how lucky can a girl get?!

As of today, I am on holiday!! We’re off to the Mediterranean for two weeks starting tomorrow. The cats are in a Cat Hotel, the rabbits, ducks and sheep are getting fed by friends and the drought-ridden garden is being taken care of by yet another friend. I’m exhausted from all the organizing! BUT, I will definitely have lots to tell you about when we get back, so stay faithful to me and I’ll post again before the end of the month. Lol, Crystal

Although I have been promising to catch up from January 2nd, I just have to tell you about the Hasselback potatoes I had in the month of August first. August is party month. August is the busiest month of the year after July which was actually also very busy… But anyway, stop interrupting yourself woman, and tell your stories!!

The nice thing about being part of a European family is the tradition. I was going through my photo archive and found a photo of New Years Eve two years ago which we spent with my German in-laws. Part of the family tradition is that we have wonderful Smoked Trout homemade by the equally nice Herr down the road and Potato Salad.

When my famous friend, Marieke, the Dutch ex-prima ballerina and current ballet teacher, asked me to make savory biscuits for her annual Ballet Show, I immediately said YES. Being in charge of the nibbles means I get to stand behind the bar with the food and drink at my fingertips – a slice of heaven.

I can’t believe it’s already the 29th of August and I have only managed to do one post a week this month. Sorry! I will catch up next month and you’ll be inundated with posts. What I also haven’t done for a long while is a restaurant review, so today is the day.

Tomato season is well under way so it’s about time I sat down and penned the most fantastic tomato coulis (thick tomato sauce) recipe in the world. I make bottles and bottles of it every year as it is so good and so easy to make. Today I am also featuring some of the friends who asked me to post this recipe…here are their stories. (This is not a copyright, it’s a right copy!! Sigh, “Here are their stories” is the line they use on CSI, silly.)

I have a kitchen slicer / mandolin that is sharper than a Japanese Samurai sword and ever since I bought the thing 10 years ago, I have been waiting to slice off a body part. It is an awesome piece of machinery and it’s not that I particularly want to lose a body part, it’s just that it is sooo sharp and I am sooo clumsy. So finally a year or two ago, it happened and I succeeded in almost slicing off my right hand at the shoulder.

We’ve recently met a charming Canadian woman, Vanessa, who has asked me to post some cucumber recipes as she fears she will lose all her friends if she gives them any more cucumbers!! We have the same problem with zucchini / summer squash, but as always, you will have to be patient and zuke recipes will be posted soon. For today’s blog, I will be featuring the very prolific and yummy cucumber.

As I have mentioned in several posts, I spent a couple of weeks in the States at the beginning of the year and my great friend Peg and I made a Standing Rib Roast for New Years Eve dinner which was superb. As there are no photos of this great meal, you are getting recipes for a Beef Filet dinner I made in May which was also superb and for which I do have photographs! We had Beef Filet, blue cheese Endives and Mash Potato with carrots and pumpkin and here are all the recipes. But first the stories…