Le Quartorze Juillet, also known as La Fête Nationale or, especially in English-speaking countries, simply Bastille Day, is next Sunday.  July 14th is a French national holiday that marks the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille (prison) in 1789 and the symbolic birth of modern France. To learn more about the history of this fête nationale, please see an earlier TMT post. If you are lucky enough to be in France as you read this post, it will not be difficult to find a place to celebrate Bastille Day. Depending on where you are, there may be long parades, fireworks, airplanes decorating the sky…

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Superfluous piece of information for the benefit of readers who stumbled upon this blog in a completely unrelated search: Bastille Day, also known as La Fête Nationale or Le Quatorze Juillet, is a French national holiday that marks the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille (prison) in 1789 and the symbolic birth of modern France. It is celebrated on July 14th with fantastic pomp and circumstance in France, in many cities around the U.S., and in our home.  Yesterday was Bastille Day. I know I should have been thinking red, white and blue—thick swaths of each color—as I arranged our small French Tricolors around…

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We are grateful to David Scott Allen of Cocoa & Lavender for developing an original menu and to Win Rhoades (proprietor of South Street and Vine) for his knowledgeable recommendations on wine and cheese.  We are indebted to Mark Sammons for his erudite synopsis of the history of Bastille Day. I was lucky enough to be in Paris on Bastille Day in 1974.  I saw tanks and military troops parade down the Avenue des Champs-Elysées, hundreds of French flags flying everywhere, and huge numbers of proud citizens lining the famous avenue from the Place de La Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile, all waiting to view…

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