Jamie Schler
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Jamie Schler is an American living and eating in Europe, former Art Gallery Manager, Culinary Guide & Interpreter, food magazine Assistant Editor and Milliner among other odd jobs, now a full time food blogger and writer, author of Life’s a Feast.

Blog Entries by Jamie Schler

This Little Piggy Went To Market: Where Does Your Meat Come From?

(22) Comments | Posted May 29, 2012 | 10:15 AM

In 1988, I brought my French husband home to the U.S.; as well travelled as he was for 30 years old, this would be his first trip to the States.

Shortly after our arrival, we made our first visit to the local supermarket, one of several national chains in...

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Hazan Family Favorites: A Cookbook Review

(2) Comments | Posted May 24, 2012 | 10:35 AM

Mangiare per vivere e non vivere per mangiare.

Eat to live and not live to eat.
- Italian proverb

A great cookbook is like a good friend: it is ever-present, reliable and trustworthy, offering unequivocal pleasures, comfort when comfort is needed, joy in the everyday.

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One Man's Meat is Another Man's...

(30) Comments | Posted May 18, 2012 | 10:52 AM

There's a show on French television that I love: Rendez-vous en Terre Inconnue, Rendezvous in an Unknown Land. The host of this astonishing program takes a French celebrity, a singer, actor, director or comedian, to an unknown destination (unveiled while they are sitting in the airplane) to spend two weeks...

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In Defense of Dessert: Is It Really Healthy?

(21) Comments | Posted April 13, 2012 | 1:05 PM

I recently wrote a piece published on Huffington Post bewailing the deluge of junk food posing as the home baked and home cooked on so many American food blogs, the glamorization of gaudy sweet treats concocted from industrial, packaged, processed foodstuffs for a large reading public. I wondered...

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You are What You Eat: a Food Blogger's Dilemma

(85) Comments | Posted March 15, 2012 | 5:55 PM

Information spreads, food cultures merge, and awareness grows. America has embraced the green, the local and the seasonal, organic is all the rage and farmer's markets are the latest trend. Culinary discoveries surround us, new cuisines and exotic ingredients now a simple shopping trip or internet connection away. There has...

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Chocolate Espresso Cake For Valentine's Day

(1) Comments | Posted February 6, 2012 | 7:55 AM

Each and every year, as we inch towards that most passionate of holidays, Valentine's Day, we begin the search for the most special gift or treat to offer our dearly beloved; we begin shifting through recipe after recipe looking for the most extravagant, drop-dead gorgeous, romantic meal -- okay, who...

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Eating And The Law In France: In The News

(16) Comments | Posted January 17, 2012 | 10:13 PM

France is the most popular tourist destination in the world -- attracting a whopping 78.95 million foreign visitors in 2010 alone even in the middle of a world economic crisis. Her gorgeous countryside, her museums and châteaux, a rich cultural heritage and history; from Aix-en-Provence to the wild, rugged coast...

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Grand Marnier Bundt Recipe To Start The Year

(2) Comments | Posted January 10, 2012 | 9:05 AM

The decorations have all been taken down, wrapped carefully up and returned to their hiding places, the evergreen has been dragged out to the compost and every scrap of crumpled wrapping paper and discarded ribbon has been gathered up and thrown away. The last of the holiday leftovers have been...

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The Weekend Baker: A Holiday Gift Suggestion

(11) Comments | Posted December 12, 2011 | 4:07 PM

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As the holidays approach, I, as is the custom, have begun making my list for Santa -- or whomsoever is behind the windfall of gifts (well, windfall is rather an exaggeration) that come my way each Hanukkah and Christmas season. Although...

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A Gluten-Free Recipe For Brownies

(63) Comments | Posted November 23, 2011 | 7:17 AM

Call me a skeptic. Maybe it is because I have what some refer to as an iron gut. I can eat anything. Anything. Never sick. Or maybe it is because I've had the runaround one too many times, a doctor trying to convince me that one son or the other...

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Baked Chocolate Tartlets With Salted Butter Caramel Sauce

(4) Comments | Posted October 11, 2011 | 4:43 PM

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Chocolate is a perfect food, as wholesome as it is delicious, a beneficent restorer of exhausted power. It is the best friend of those engaged in literary pursuits.
- Baron Justus von Liebig

Who can deny the power and persuasion of...

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The Disappearing "Pause Déjeuner"

(20) Comments | Posted October 7, 2011 | 10:18 AM

La pause déjeuner has always been a veritable sacré moment in every Frenchman and Frenchwoman's day. I was introduced to and initiated into this ritual before I married into a French family; every day at noon, my future husband's parents would see out their last client, lock up the shop...

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New Orleans and the Whole Food Blogging Thing

(5) Comments | Posted September 9, 2011 | 9:57 AM

Everyone, it seems, is jumping on the food blogging bandwagon: famous chefs and tv personalities, professional food writers, stylists and photographers. But most food bloggers are just plain, ordinary folk simply passionate about cooking, baking and eating. It begins small, posting the special, homey recipes passed down from generation to...

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The Summer Barbecue French Style

(3) Comments | Posted August 16, 2011 | 12:50 PM

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August 15 is holiday in France. A religious holiday celebrating the Assumption of Mary, it is now a day on which families and friends gather for festivities with a somewhat less than religious bent. We awoke bright and early to the joyous ringing...

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Summer in Nantes: Roasted Cherry Tomato, Feta and Arugula Quiches

(9) Comments | Posted August 1, 2011 | 10:38 AM

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It has been raining relentlessly across Europe and the summer has been no summer at all. We step outside, jackets thrown over our sweaters, umbrella unfurled, and walk into centreville, head bowed against the chill wind. We watch in dismay as the few...

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Mixed Summer Berry Pie with Lattice Crust

(6) Comments | Posted July 19, 2011 | 8:15 AM

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My husband and I just returned from our great adventure: one fabulous week biking along the Canal Nantes à Brest. What was once inhospitable territory had become navigable, a route from Nantes through Brittany's interior and reaching out towards Brest, a swathe cut...

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The Italian Pine Nut Tart: A Recipe Everyone Loves

(12) Comments | Posted June 15, 2011 | 3:58 PM

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If given the choice, my husband and sons would have me bake exactly the same sweet treats every single time: our youngest, the persnickety one, would be happy with the most basic of brownies or a simple chocolate chip coffee cake over and...

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Red Velvet Cake for My Brother

(26) Comments | Posted June 3, 2011 | 12:12 PM

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I miss him. It's as simple as that. No long, rambling stories recounted, no wisps of nostalgia or idle memories rekindled. I simply miss my brother. As ALS Awareness Month comes to an end in the United States and begins in both Canada...

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To Trend or Not To Trend: A Continental Divide

(55) Comments | Posted May 9, 2011 | 9:05 PM

And a Recipe for Traditional Far Breton

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Each month as I sift, measure, fold and pipe out perfect little domes of batter and whip up deep, dark chocolate ganache for my French macarons, my husband, French himself, storms through the kitchen, ranting...

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Homemade Passover Macaroons & Berry Macaroon Crumble

(1) Comments | Posted April 23, 2011 | 12:02 PM

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How many days into Passover do you get tired of the same old same old? Matzoh smeared with jelly, canned coconut macaroons and packaged sponge cake? These are the holiday foods of my youth and I wonder if, over all of these years,...

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