Don’t Decorate that Tree until You’ve read French Country Cottage Christmas

You may think that you’ve got a some good ideas and track record on decorating your Christmas tree, but you might want to wait until you take a look at the new book called French Country Cottage Christmas: Inspiration for a Beautiful and Festive Holiday. This coffee table book is full of beautiful photographs that will inspire you in ways that you’ve never never considered, as well as provides tips and techniques on how to make it all happen.

Written by stylist, photographer, and French Country Cottage blogger, Courtney Allison, this tastemaker has brought French country style to the United States in other publications, but this is the first one that is specifically for the Christmas holidays. Even more specifically, it is the first one that is over 80% just about decorating your tree (the other 20% is about entertaining, recipes, and setting your table for those holiday dinners).

Considering the amount of people that she thanks in the credits, it is clear that Courtney put her heart and soul into this tome. Not only does she decorate many of the pictured trees, or maybe even all, she also had a good number of them shipped to Paris from the United States for placement in that true French setting. That’s reflected in both authenticity and accuracy when it comes to her French styled trees.

We’re also impressed that the book is a hardcover, which means it’s durable, and it doesn’t have a paper jacket, which means you can handle it a lot without tearing any important pages. Because you’re going to want to keep flipping through this photo book for decorating inspiration before, during, and after the holidays.

Published by Gibbs Smith, find it on Amazon here:

French Country Cottage Christmas

Holiday Recipe: Sipi’s Oven Roast Lamb Chops with Lemon and Oregano

Author Tessa Kiros’s new cookbook, Now and Then A Collection of Recipes for Always (Murdoch Books) is a curated collection of 150 new recipes that warm the heart and kitchen, and which includes Tessa’s personal reflections and favorite food memories.  It also includes several ideas and combinations for delicious holiday dishes, such as:

  • Warm Malva Pudding Cake with Whisky Sauce
  • Raspberry Creme Brulee
  • Gingerbread
  • Ricotta and Jam Pastries
  • Chocolate Cake, Sour Cherries and Clotted Cream
  • Sugar Lemon Tart
  • Kourabiedes With Pecans And Chocolate Chips
  • Pistachio Biscuits With Figs, Raspberries And Rose Syrup

One tasty recipe that Tessa Kiros shares with us here is for Sipi’s Oven Roast Lamb Chops with Lemon and Oregano.

Photography Credit: Manos Chatzikonstantis

Sipi’s oven roast lamb chops with lemon and oregano

Says Tessa: “These are the ones my mom always made in the oven at home – a big trayful. I loved scraping the bottom of the dish with chips!

I get the butcher to cut the lamb chops thin and I leave some fat on the chops as it’s meltingly delicious when roasted with the lemon. They must be served warm and, if it is cold outside, serve on heated plates. Lovely with Boereboontjies (page 29) or chips.”

Serves 4

  • 1 kg (2 lb 4 oz) thin cut lamb chops, just under 1 cm (½ in) thick max (15–20 chops) with some fat
    juice of 2 lemons (about 8 tablespoons)
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 30 g (1 oz) butter, cut into small chunks
  • 3 heaped teaspoons dried
  • Greek oregano, plus a little extra to serve

Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F). Quickly rinse or wipe the lamb chops over with moist paper towels to get rid of any stray bits of bone. Pat dry. Put into a large roasting dish where they fit in a single layer.

Splash with the lemon, season well with salt and pepper and add the olive oil. Scatter the pieces of butter around and sprinkle the oregano over, crushing it a bit between your fingers. Turn through to coat both sides of the chops.

Pour 125 ml (4 fl oz/½ cup) water around the sides of the dish. Cover the dish with foil and bake for about 20 minutes until pale but cooked, with a good amount of sauce.

Remove the foil, lower the oven to 180°C (350°F) and return the dish to the oven for another 20 minutes or until the chops have a good deep golden colour and the sauce has thickened and is bubbling and sticky in parts (there’s no need to turn the chops over and, depending on your oven, you can turn it to Fan to get the chops more golden if you like). Serve hot with a little extra oregano scattered over.

 

ABOUT TESSA KIROS

Tessa Kiros is international cookbook royalty. She helped define the modern illustrated genre and has sold more than 700,000 copies across multiple titles, languages, and decades. Her previous cookbooks include Apples for Jam, Falling Cloudberries, Provence to Pondicherry, Twelve, Food From Many Greek Kitchens, Limoncello and Linen Water, and Piri Piri Starfish. Tessa’s upbringing and lifelong wanderlust has seen her collect culinary experiences from all over the world. Born in London to a Finnish mother and Greek-Cypriot father, she grew up in South Africa. After many years traveling and working, she settled with her husband Giovanni in Italy, where they raised daughters Yasmine and Cassia. She divides her time today between Italy and Greece. Now & Then is her eleventh cookbook and it’s her definitive new work: 150-plus recipes with gorgeous lifestyle photography reflecting on the food that has shaped her, but also encompassing her table today. Her new cookbook taps into our renewed appetite for nostalgia, in cooking and in life. It calls out to Tessa Kiros devotees, as well as speaking to younger readers through the mediums of color, energy, authority, and the healthful deliciousness of her evolving modern table. This is Tessa Kiros as we haven’t known her; for 2023 and beyond.

Now and Then A Collection of Recipes for Always

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Murdoch Books (October 3, 2023)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 400 pages

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How to Pick Out a Good Australian Wine – What to Look For & Avoid



Sometimes we can’t be an expert in everything, especially wines from different regions, but if you’re confused about what makes a good Australian wine, wine experts Jane Lopes and Jonathan Ross have 3 great tips for you to try. They are authors of the book How to Drink Australian An Essential Modern Wine Book .

Jane Lopes and Jonathan Ross: There’s never been a more exciting time to drink Australian wine. The country most known for cheap critter wines and bold shiraz is actually the country to go to for quality wines in just about every style and price-point. Australia has reached an amazing confluence of generational knowledge, old-vine material, and a spirit of innovation that, combined, is creating some of the world’s greatest wines.

So how to you pick out a good bottle?

  1. Be willing to try something new. There are world-class wines made from the most popular and frequently consumed grapes: chardonnay, pinot noir, cabernet sauvignon, shiraz, and merlot. But, when grown at scale to achieve easy prices, they fall short almost everywhere.  If you venture further afield to try, say, an Australian nero d’avola, grenache or riesling, there’s a better chance that you’ll find something made and selected with care, rather than something manufactured to meet the demand of the market.
  2. Look for a region on the bottle. There are plenty of great Australian wines that say ‘South Eastern Australia’ on the back (a catch-all appellation for the wine regions of South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania, and Queensland) – take, for example, Penfolds Grange: Australia’s most prized and expensive wine! But often you can find wines made at an estate vineyard when there is a more specific wine region on the label: something like Heathcote, Barossa Valley, Yarra Valley, Beechworth, Tasmania, Margaret River, etc. The list is long!
  3. Find a wine shop you trust. This is the best piece of advice in all matters wine! Wine shops that spend lots of energy and time selecting bottles for you are going to come up with the best bottles. And small, independently owned wine shops will often be able to work with the smaller production wines that grocery stores and national chains won’t. So find your local wine merchant, and get to know them. They’ll get to know you – your pallet, your budget, your tastes – and will help you find the best bottle. 

ABOUT Jane Lopes and Jonathan Ross

Jane Lopes is a sommelier, author, and importer, having worked at New York’s Eleven Madison Park, Nashville’s The Catbird Seat, Chicago’s The Violet Hour, and most recently as the wine director at Melbourne’s Attica, before passing the prestigious master sommelier exam in 2018. Lopes published her first book, Vignette: Stories of Life and Wine in 100 Bottles, in 2019. In 2020, Lopes co-founded Legend, an Australian wine imports company, with husband Jonathan Ross, to help bring the great wines they’d experienced in Australia to the US. She is now based in Nashville. She is the co-author of How To Drink Australian: An Essential Modern Wine Book (Murdoch Books / September 2023 / $60).

Jonathan Ross is a sommelier and wine importer whose career in restaurants has included posts at New York’s Eleven Madison Park, Oceana and Anthos, and as the beverage director for Australia’s Rockpool Dining Group. Ross passed the prestigious master sommelier exam in 2017, has curated wine offerings for Qantas Airlines, and founded the boutique wine label Micro Wines. In 2020, Ross returned to the US, eager to spread the word of the world-class wine he’d worked with in Australia, and co-founded Legend Imports in 2020 with his wife Jane Lopes. He is the co-author of How To Drink Australian: An Essential Modern Wine Book (Murdoch Books / September 2023 / $60).

The Best Way to Keep Your Home and Closet Organized

Keeping your home and closet organized can seem like a daunting task, but with a few simple strategies, it can be easily achieved. One of the best ways to keep your closet organized is to hang up your clothes when you take them off. This may seem like a small step, but it can make a big difference in maintaining a tidy closet. By hanging up your clothes as soon as you take them off, you are less likely to leave them lying around the house, which can quickly lead to clutter.

Hang up your clothes when you take them off

Another great way to keep your closet organized is to use hangers that are the same size and color. This will give your closet a cohesive look and make it easier to find what you are looking for. You can also purchase velvet hangers, which are great for preventing clothes from slipping off the hanger.

To keep your home organized, it’s important to have a designated place for everything. This means that everything should have a specific home, whether it’s a drawer, a shelf, or a closet. This will make it much easier to put things away and keep them in their proper place. You can also use storage containers and boxes to help keep your items organized. For example, you can use clear storage bins to store your shoes or use a basket to hold your mail.

It’s also a good idea to periodically go through your closet and home and get rid of items that you no longer need. This can be done by going through your clothes and getting rid of anything that you haven’t worn in the last year, or by getting rid of items that are broken or no longer useful. Donating or selling these items can not only help keep your home and closet organized but also help others in need.

Basically, keeping your home and closet organized is a simple process that requires a little bit of planning and effort. By hanging up your clothes when you take them off, using hangers that are the same size and color, having a designated place for everything, using storage containers and boxes, and getting rid of items that you no longer need, you can easily maintain a tidy and organized home.