Aran has a really wonderful style of teaching.   She gives as much help or as little as we wanted.  It was fun for me, to progress from photographing what she styled, to starting with some of her ideas and making it my own with choice of props and location, to finally creating my own ideas like the risotto photos below. I wanted to show how easy and few ingredients you need for risotto and thought this was a good way to do that.

Wednesday was also market day in Sarlat. Yum!

Back at the Manoir we photographed our market finds.

Of course another cheese plate with our lunch.

For dinner we were invited to Stephanie’s gorgeous maisonette, a stone cottage that shares a wall with the castle in Sarlat.  We walked down the candlelit stone pathway to and greeted with drinks in the garden.

For dinner we had an amazing dish of chicken with morels.  I’ve never tried morels before but they’re now one of my favorite foods!  I was too busy eating and having fun during dinner to take any more than just a couple photos but you can read all about their rennovation of the maisonette here.

See photos from Day 1, Day 2,

It’s my birthday today and unfortunately it’s raining buckets and I have lots of work to catch up on, but I’ll celebrate with a cup of my favorite tea and these sunny memories from last week of the marvelous Manoir de la Malatrie.  Every room in the manoir is unique and charming and Ouafa and her husband Daniel took wonderful care of us.  And the breakfast, I’m still missing the breakfasts!

The view from my bathroom on a foggy day.

and on a sunny day..

The adorable Olivia above reminds me of a young Sophia Coppola, beautiful and creative with her own lovely take on the world.

Oufa made us an incredible Moroccan dinner one night.  We ate, and talked, and laughed, under the stars.

more photos from our third day of the workshop coming Monday.

See photos from day 1, day 2

Day 2 of our food styling and photography workshop with we started preparing some sandwiches and a quiche for our afternoon picnic.

I took this scrumptious cheese plate outside to a mossy step.

Olivia with a cheese plate she styled.

After all this hard work we sat down to a fabulous lunch.

In the afternoon we went to a walnut grove for a picnic.

Every day Nadia (on right) pulled out the most beautiful accessories including this scarf and bag.  How I’d love to come play dress up in her closet.

My french canadian grandfather died 7 years ago today and I think he would have liked reading about this week in France.  He liked music and literature and he loved to cook for his family.  I still remember him packing our lunches with pâté sandwiches.   He didn’t realize most  7 year old American kids don’t eat pâté.  Grandpa Ray,  I do now.  J, OG, and I danced to this song for you this morning.

more coming tomorrow…

See photos from day 1