Le Quatre-Heures

Last night I was thumbing through Clotilde Dusoulier's lovely book Chocolate & Zucchini looking for cherry recipes when I came across her entry on Le Goûter. This is what she says:

Le goûter is French for an afternoon snack, the one that tides you over
from lunch until dinner. Children are the most observant of this custom
and can often be seen walking home from school nibbling a croissant or a
brioche, with an optional stick of chocolate thrust into it. Another name
for le goûter is le quatre-heures (four o'clock), which refers
to the time at which kids are traditionally let out of class.

Four o'clock is also the time of day for Afternoon Tea in England, a practice of which I am particularly fond. And as silly as it may sound, I usually try to do some sort of "tea" every day round about this time.

And last but not least, this is the time of day when my little Emilia is down for her nap — or thereabouts anyway — freeing me up briefly to think about cooking (after all, what is for dinner?); books (we must have down time and expand our minds); and any other little thing that strikes my fancy (namely all of the old-fashioned feminine things that make me tick).

And so, without further ado, I've just created a blog — and this is the name of it for now. My husband thinks it is weird and hard to spell, and maybe he's right. As for me, I find it suits me rather nicely.