recette

A recipe for scaring crows, French and otherwise.

la recette (reuh-set) noun, feminine
  1. recipe, formula  2. receipts, returns

Ils avaient des goûts communs et des métiers différents: ...la recette même de l'amitié. They had common tastes and different professions: ...the very recipe for friendship. --André Maurois
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For you today: thoughts from the writing trenches...

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Do you have the recipe for success? Well, maybe you do. As for me, I have never been good with recettes* and find myself cooking (and constructing a career) "au pif," that is, "by guesswork." The risk is a flat cake here and there--rather, many flat cakes ici et là,* and a lot of "putting the cart before the horse," while watching everyone else seemingly glide by, maps in hand, water bottles overflowing and, Poor weary traveler would you like a sip? Surely you are thirsty?

Maybe you are like me, always forgetting to drink?

Thirsty, you find yourself on some sort of path. You learn to follow your hunches. For a while you have faith. Then, against your better judgment, and under the guise of "getting some perspective," you take your eyes off the next stone step. You trip, of course. Looking up, you are astonished. While you are,
indeed, nearing a summit you are also a deep desert canyon away from your destination. What happened? Now anyone's guess is better than yours.

While you grovel around for hard ground, the temptation at this point is twofold:

  1. board the next cable car.
  2. measure your progress against another traveler's.

Grace intervenes in time to remind you that there are no free cable car rides and that to compare yourself to another is to kill your so-called craft. While you thank Goody-Two-Shoes Grace for her wise thoughts, you rather fancy a bit more groveling at this low point, a bit more scraping-of-your-face against the rocky ground, for the blood and tears that pour out are strangely soothing.

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References: la recette (f) = recipe; ici et là = here and there

:: Audio File ::
Listen to my daughter, Jackie, pronounce today's quote:
Ils avaient des goûts communs et des métiers différents: ...la recette même de l'amitié.
http://french-word-a-day.typepad.com/motdujour/files/recette.wav

Books on France and more:
Translated into English for the first time since its original 1927 publication, La Bonne Cuisine has long been the French housewife's equivalent of... The Joy of Cooking (Publishers Weekly)
"Words in a French Life" -- soon available in paperback!
TeLL me More French -- Used everyday in more than 10,000 academic institutions

Recipe!
Last week, I told you about Madame Delhome's savory "Cake aux Olives". Here's the recette.