a special kitchen ware brocante

Continuing to find ideas for those of you visiting France and looking for a good day out.  On the 13th  May next, in the beautiful town of Beaune, 3 hours south of Paris, there will be the annual sale and brocante event La Vaisselle des Chefs.

This is a charmingly French tradition, uniting the best restaurants in the area with the best antique and brocante dealers.  For the restaurants it is the opportunity to sell their crockery and cutlery that is due for renewal, and for the antique dealers a chance to meet with a specialised public, keen to buy anything culinary to embellish their kitchens at home.

On the website for the sale, you can even find a list of the Chefs de Cuisine  and the articles they will be contributing for sale.  We learn for example that one chef will be selling old hotel silver, another will be selling cutlery and table linen and that a château restaurant will be offering a service of porcelain decorated with their coat of arms.

I don't expect to get there that day , but if any of you make it, I would love to hear what you find: your very own culinary loot shoot!

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kitchen design - the hood

via Belgian Pearls

Without wanting to put you off reading MFCH by giving you an overdose on reality, I have to tell you that the thing I hate doing most in my kitchen is cleaning the hood over my stove.  UGH, UGH and double UGH!

The easiest solution for never having to clean the kitchen hood is to simply stop cooking, but I mooted the idea here and it wasn't met with great approval so I have to move on to more clever options

With the impending and 10-year-overdue (did I already mention that?) kitchen remake here, the right design for a kitchen hood is concentrating my mind.

I'm thinking that at least if the thing could look almost elegant, then I may be reconciled to cleaning it with a smile, well OK a less broad smirk at least.

So what are your thoughts on the matter?   Do you favour the glass hood over the island, the sleek shine of steel, the traditional stone work ..... or

are you like me and do you prefer above all else a huge fireplace over the stove, as in the kitchen of our friends at the  Château d'Emalleville, which as you may remember happens to be one of my favourite (real) kitchens in the world .. well Normandy at least!

If you have a moment to give me your secrets on living in harmony with your kitchen hood, I would be happy to read and learn from every word,   merci mes amis!

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Kitchen Makeovers

Kitchen Makeovers







Rustic Kitchen

Kitchen Makeovers

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Rustic Kitchen II

Rustic Kitchen







Cottage Style Kitchen

Rustic Kitchen

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the chateau kitchen

Now I'm not going to make this a kitchen design blog, but I couldn't  help but notice the interest shown in the first picture I put up yesterday, so I thought you might like to see more of that amazing kitchen, as well as a few other oversize,  château cuisine

I think we are attracted in this kitchen to the mellow colour of the old brick walls, the exceptional brick ceiling, the lack of structure to the room, and of course the old cooking range.

Funny though, when we all long for sleek, easy to clean, designer kitchens, how we are drawn towards this room which answers none of those criteria.

 I think if this were my room the only thing I may add would be curtains at the windows, I know about draughty old châteaux, and even with shutters closed at night, I think a little extra protection would be comforting.

 Finally, this kitchen even enjoys one of my favourite features in any house, a view onto an enfilade of rooms.  

Brooke Gianetti put up a great post a few days ago, at her wonderful blog Velvet and Linen about kitchen design, and how she no longer wants any built in kitchen cabinets.  She got me thinking and searching through my old kitchen pics, and I came up with these.  Sleek?  No ...  Full of character?  Well I think so, what do you think?

 photos thanks to Mire images

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kitchen layout

This year should be the year that we renovate and rethink our kitchen.  Inevitably I find myself looking hard at kitchen layout in magazines and on the net.

First, I have to come to terms with the fact that to have a wonderful sprawling brick-walled kitchen like this first picture, my house would need to be about 150 years older, and at least 4 times the size!!  Come back down to earth Sharon!!

Thought you might enjoy this Parisian kitchen and breakfast room.  I like the way they have used the L-shaped space, I love the quirky window and door, love the huge generous curtain that could pull across the whole wall in the evening.  I like the black paintwork with the chequered floor; the hang down lamps and the terrace garden immediately outside the door and window.

all photos thanks to Mires images

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