Hey, Princess...

In the market for a castle?

This 98-room beauty is a steal at just under $8,000,000!  You'll have to pardon me, I'm kind of lost in French Chateaux heaven and princess dream fever over at this crazy real estate site.

Does 98 rooms and a moat feel a wee bit over the top?  How about this little 73-room escape just North of Paris?

This one's downright quaint in comparison, at just 35 rooms!  J U S T  3 5  R O O M S !  Whaa?

Ok, ok... but seriously, you guys - these listings are insane.  I can't even wrap my head around them.  Most come with private parks, lakes, pools, multiple out-buildings and formal gardens.  Umm... WHO BUYS THESE?!  I love how the site answers this question...

Q. Why buy French Chateaux?

A. At present, large estates are offering superb value for money compared to other prestige property around the world. Boasting acres of land, lakes, outbuildings and their own capacious floor spaces, chateaux give one the opportunity and space to choose how to live and work. Taking the figure of 1 Million Euros as an example, chateaux costing this will far outweigh, in real terms, the real estate offered by other luxury and prestige property of the same price. In many locations, you are paying for exactly that - location - and will no doubt be jostling with other similar properties for the best view. French chateaux offer the rare ability to look out from your window and survey no land but your own.

Works for me!

I pick this one:

Home Inspiration... Le Shack!

Magical.  I'm sitting here, wracking my brain to think of a better word- and there just isn't one; to describe Isabel Marant's darling little shack, at the end of a nameless road, along the Loire river in Fontainebleau.  Can you imagine a more charming existence?  Cult-status fashion designer in Paris, 5 days a week... no phones, no electricity, no city, on weekends.  It looks like Neverland!  Now, this is my kind of camping.  

The New York Times ran a beautiful story on "Le Shack", the rustic weekend retreat of Marant, her husband/accessories designer-extraordinaire, Jérôme Dreyfuss, and their little boy.

I've been living vicariously through these photos ever since.

Bringing Up Bébé...

How sick are you of hearing about this book?

It's been reviewed, revered, and reviled everywhere from the New York Times, and Forbes, to the Wall Street Journal, and the Huffington Post - not to mention every mommy blog in-between...

I bought it last week.  

I'll spare you another in-depth review, but I'll give you my brief opinion of it.  First, you should know that I had pretty low expectations.  I read all of the above, and about 300 reader comments about the book, many of whom came from French mother's themselves, who really couldn't understand what all the fuss was about.  Many were offended by the notion that even their parenting could be reduced to a fad by an American author.  Most of them couldn't grasp the idea that these common sense ideals could be a revelation in motherhood.  In the first chapter Druckerman addresses this, by stating outright that the French mothers she interviewed insisted that they weren't doing anything special.  I realized in reading this that one mother's/country's/culture's common sense is another's  epiphany!  As an American, living and raising children in France, Druckerman found herself in a unique perspective- with the opportunity to observe both her American and French friends with their children and she found remarkable disparities in their parenting styles and focus, and these are the observations she shares with us in Bringing Up Bébé.  

   

You guys, I LOVE THIS BOOK!  

I had every intention of flipping through it, reading a chapter or two over a cup of cocoa in the Barnes & Noble Cafe, and promptly returning it to the shelf.  I was prepared to dismiss it with a super ambivalent "Yeah, I started to read it- it was crap".  But it's fantastic!  I found it really informative and objective; more anthropological than instructional.  Take what you want from it, but this is what she learned.  What works for one mother may not work for another, but I fully appreciate the idea of a woman sharing something that worked well for her, and spreading the word.  Plus, this all plays out in Paris!  The exact same parenting methods might be happening in Japan, Africa, Argentina...  but oh, Paris.  Paris just makes it all that much more intriguing, doesn't it?  

Tonight I fed my baby braised leeks for dinner- because of this book.  He loved them! Braised leeks for my 8 month old boy wouldn't even have occurred to me last week. Voila!

Merci, Ms. Druckerman.