Bonjour French Market Friends,
This week with the Summer Solstice in the Northern hemisphere on 21st June, France usually holds the Fete de la Musique to celebrate the shortest night of the year. Music is played for free, throughout French towns and villages and most public places. However, this week in France a second record heatwave is taking place. French schools were not built to withstand these temperatures, and many Learners are writing their Baccalaureate at this period, hoping to qualify for entrance to Tertiary education. Local Mayors are busy deciding whether to adjust their local schools’ schedules or close completely as temperatures soar over 40°C. In Paris 10thDistrict, Mayor Alexandra Cordebard agreed to open part of the
Canal St Martin in the evening, so that residents could swim and cool off. She said, “this is a new way of fighting climate change and adapting the city” (Image courtesy of Sortir Paris). The fact that France’s Captain Mbappe scored a record number of goals at France’s opening match at the Football World Cup on Tuesday evening, definitely added to the temperature.
Back here in our lovely city, we are all freezing as the temperature goes below 15°C. Capetonians don’t do winter and our houses are not built for the cold. It is definitely time for all those melting cheese recipes to warm us up. One of our clients bought a whole wheel of Raclette to make a special Raclette evening. 
A good cheese for melting in the oven is our Petit Sapin made in the Franche Comte, similar to a Vacherin, these are 250gr mountain cheese, which are wrapped in spruce bark. All you do is pop it in the oven and heat it up. When you take it out, the cheese is melted and ready to eat with some fresh, crusty baguette.
In our shop we get a lot of requests for cheese to make a Fondue, this is really easy to make. Ideally you use 3 different, firm textured a
nd matured mountain cheese, ideally Comte, Emmental and Gruyere and add some wine. Fondue is a great family meal. The melted cheese is eaten by dipping small chunks of fresh baguette into it, and the fun part is the game traditionally played, where the first person to lose their piece of bread into the fondue has to pay a forfeit or is given an amusing task to fulfil.
As it is Father’s Day this Sunday you can offer your dad a special breakfast with freshly baked croissants that are imported from France and you bake at home, or a delicious platter of cheese. Another treat
is our traditional French cakes made by talented French baker Cedric who uses imported chocolate which makes the cakes taste amazing, and they make a great gift. We have a range of individual cakes for you to spoil your dad. We have Chocolate and hazelnut, Opera cakes which are layers of flavours with chocolate and coffee, Raspberry passion, a dense mousse cake glazed with raspberry, Praline cakes made with meringue and a creamy filling, Paris Brest which is a choux pastry with a hazelnut cream filling, plus chocolate eclairs and traditional French style macarons. Do let me know if you want to pre-order as we are expecting plenty of demand this weekend.
Or you could give your father a special treat with a bottle of Frapin Cognac, which is smooth and golden and full of flavours.
Have a great weekend – note the City is preparing for a pre-Municipal Election registration, this weekend. If you moved recently, this is a reminder to check you are registered to vote at your local municipality.
Regards
Suzanne and The French Market Team