My Favorite Things (September 2025)

My French Maison
Sep 30
3 min read

I "cheated" and did not publish My Favorite Things post in August... My excuses: a very hot weather (brain melting really), La Poste temporarily stopping the delivery service to the USA due to tariffs (which caused me to stop sending orders to the USA for the moment...), and illness in the family requiring trips to Lyon, hospital stays and surgery (everything turned out better than expected).

But now we are at the end of September, the month that start my favorite season. When I was a kid school started on September 1st, and we got to buy all the new books, notebooks, pens and pencils. Now I still get excited and buy myself a few stationery things but the real happiness comes from the garden tasks that can be accomplished only in the fall. Also going to garden centers, plant sales, and loading up on lovely plants. And making the flower beds and designing the garden :)

But let's talk about the three exciting things that I absolutely loved this month.

Apéro

What is an "apéro" (short from "apéritif")? It's a little something you can eat a couple of hours before dinner. Not a full meal, something easy, something fresh, a plate of nibbles.

For our apéro we usually head over to our local fromagerie, charcuterie, patisserie, to find freshly prepared bites and small dishes. You get the picture. We make the small event special in a big way. We get to try new things.

The first apéro in the house after the "travaux" was a festive occasion. We invited our neighbours, I made a tart aux courgettes, champagne was consumed. The weather was mild, we sat outside in the garden enjoying the good company. I completely forgot to take pictures of the beautifully set table, but I have some of the tart and the platter full of local delights. Voila!

Local delights and the grapes from our own garden

Mushroom Picking

After a very dry summer at the start of the month we got some rain. And like the saying goes, mushrooms grow after the rain, so we got an embarrassing amount of them. The best kind - "les cepes", the king of mushrooms, known in English as "porcini", with the shiny brown caps, and a form straight out of a fairy tale. Delicious with fried eggs, sauces, and soups, stews. The trick was to act quickly to preserve them before they turned ugly. Some of them I dried, hanging them on a string, some of them were made into a soup, which was frozen.

French Faience and Pottery

You already know that this is my weakness. But my favorite thing I want to mention today is the reference book on the subject. Often times, especially when a piece is really old, there is no obvious stamp on the bottom of a plate or a vase, there may be a signature, or a symbol, a hand painted "squiggle". The books that I absolutely adore list practically every "manufacture" and "faiencerie" in France and their marks. No online reference will do it for you. If you are a collecor look for "Poteries Faiences Francaises" by Tardy in three volumes. They are out of print but can be found online second hand.