Meilleurs voeux

The image above was painted by our friend Annie Paterson and is reproduced here with her kind permission. European Mistletoe is rather an apt motif for sending with New Year good wishes, as compounds in this common parasitic plant are showing promise as a medication that will offset some of the unpleasant effects of chemotherapy. One of most important of people's good wishes, and the one which is most often specifically referred to is the wish for the good health of friends and family in the New Year.

So we would like to take this opportunity to wish all our readers good health and much happiness in the coming year.
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A la cuisine hier: I used the last drops of my delicious homemade sour cherry liqueur yesterday in some sorbet. Sob! And roll on cherry season so I can make some more.

Fusilli pasta with a sauce made from leftover diced carrots, the last of the chorizo, frozen peas, leftover tomato sauce, garlic, the famous La Borde cream and parmesan cheese.

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French Expressions: I telephoned the radiography lab yesterday to make an appointment for my biennial mammogram. The receptionist's response to my 'je voudrais prendre rendez-vous s'il vous plait' was 'pourquoi?' Now, pourquoi is usually translated as 'why', and usually that is a perfectly reasonable translation in English. But pourquoi literally translates as 'for what', so the receptionist's response was not as odd and terse as it might appear. Not 'why on earth would you want to do that?' but 'what service do you require?'

And for your bonus piece of trivia: Anne Boleyn owned a lap dog called Pourquoy, the old French spelling of pourquoi. It was so named as it was always sticking its nose into things, incorrigibly curious.