before I forget—some pics from France

An ensemble pic of my French family, sent to me right around Christmas:

Top row, standing all alone: my buddy Dominique

Middle row, L to R: Augustin, Manon (Auguste's new girlfriend), Héloïse (sis), Véronique (Dom's wife), Joséphine (eldest daughter), Hugo (her BF), Timothé (youngest sib)

Bottom row: Maman and Papa

And a pic of a pink bûche de Noël (Yule-log cake) made by Dom's wife Véro:

I'm gonna be frank: the cake itself looks fine, but I wish Véronique had cleaned up the splatter on the platter before someone took that photo. More positively, my hat is off to anyone who can make a proper roll cake without having the cake break apart on you while it's being rolled. Roll cakes are irrelevant to my cooking/baking repertoire because I don't think my oven is big enough to make a large-enough sheet cake for rolling.

When Dominique described his parents in an email, he said

Il vieillissent gentiment.

This can translate as They're aging nicely, They're aging slowly, or They're aging gently.

Getting older, slowly and steadily. I can relate.