Back Home, and the Essence of June

I'm back home after spending an amazing two weeks in Provence, not to mention the three days before that in the Bourgogne (Burgundy). My sunburned skin feels a wee bit tender and is about the color of milk tea - brown with a decided reddish undertone. My head is bursting with ideas and thoughts and recipes, and I have more than 4,000 photos to sort through (not all of them of food, but a good amount are!) Chances are, you'll be reading a lot of these beautiful areas of France in the next few days around here.

The picture above is of a picnic that we enjoyed on the small patio in front of our gite* in the midst of the vineyards in the northern part of the Vaucluse region of Provence, with wine made from the vines right in front of us. The sky really was that blue. The Mistral* threatened to carry off our whole lunch, tablecloth and all, but we held on.

It's good to be back home in Switzerland in the slightly cooler weather though, especially since our old rose bushes are at their peak right now; and when I look around at my feet in the shady spots, there are wild strawberries.

Don't you wish you could bottle the essence of June somehow, so that you could take it out for a whiff during the cold, dark days of February?

*Gite: a country home or dwelling that is let out to holiday goers in France.
*Mistral: A strong, drying wind in Provence

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