And we’re thrilled with what has arrived. Absolutely gorgeous linens, freshly washed and pressed and smelling heavenly. Some of the most beautiful shams and sheets we’ve seen in a good long while. Some very unusual feedsacks (grain bags), gorgeous homespun clothing, clothing covered in lace (beautiful trousseau nightdresses), and so much more.

The truck will be full (and it’s a 26 foot truck!), so don’t miss us right before Marburger starts, from Friday March 26 to Saturday April 3. None of these items have been seen before, we will bring only fresh merchandise and as always, the early bird……

The store is progressing slowly. It will be open to the public about a week after the Texas show, is the current plan. The furniture is in place for the most part, and we are excited about the look and feel it will have. We can’t wait, so hopefully neither can our customers!

See you in Texas!

Woke up to this (view of our front door from the path)

Now this is Georgia. We don’t do snow. So everything fell behind schedule.

And this is what the warehouse and offices looked like yesterday – February 14

Luckily our great crew rallied up and by noon almost all were there.  And today more came, so we’re now about 30-40% unpacked.  We should be able to ship almost normally tomorrow.  A few mysteries, a few items we can’t seem to locate but these will show up.  More pictures of the progress, tomorrow or Tuesday.

(Image used with permission from the Author)

Some of her really cool suggestions include using different colors, to get a variegated effect, or to try with colored doilies (and we’ve been itching to try our hand at dying linens since it’s such a huge thing in Europe right now).  She also recommends making sure the background fabric is a little bit different so the design shows up, but not too different, so it doesn’t steal the show.

I’m now going to go dig through doily boxes and make one too!

Inside is progressing well:

The furniture for the store itself is now sitting in the packing room because

the store itself is getting painted this week

Meanwhile, the warehouse has twice as much shelving as before. Will it be enough?

One of us is colorblind.  And apparently so is the painter, despite us having given them the pantone colors.  Yikes.  They have to fix this, obviously

or maybe it did not photograph well.  This is being written while I am far away, so of course who knows!  We will know soon though.  I hope it’s simply the picture that is not right.

So far it’s been promising. The Atlanta Gift Show is always huge, and this year it seems to be bigger than ever. And there is a festive, almost giddy, feeling of relief in the air – as in whew, 2009 is over, hurray for 2010!

Today the Mart turned interesting as Atlanta experienced snow and then freezing temperatures, i.e. black ice. Once every ten years and it’s chaos out there. So getting to town was a touch dicey but once there, we shopped and shopped. 4 days down, 2 more to go.

So far we’ve found more than we had hoped, a good thing!

After this show, we start shopping the European ones. We’ll see what wonderful goodies we can find!

Meanwhile, greetings from:

It really doesn’t take much to bring this city to a standstill – it simply is not the kind of weather we ‘do’ down here!

We hope you have a wonderful day of fun, good food, family and laughs

The Touch of Europe Team

]]> http://www.touchofeurope.net/blog/happy-thanksgiving/feed/ 0 http://www.touchofeurope.net/blog/a-great-and-easy-way-to-use-chestnut-cream/ http://www.touchofeurope.net/blog/a-great-and-easy-way-to-use-chestnut-cream/#comments Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:57:26 +0000 tofeurope http://www.touchofeurope.net/blog/?p=305 Also known as Creme Vanillée de l’Ardèche, it is used for Mont Blancs and other fancy desserts. But last month while traveling, we found this easy and incredibly delicious recipe through friends, and could not wait to try it out.

The proportions are ridiculously easy: same weight of dark high quality chocolate (Voisin, Castelein, Valhrona), Chestnut Cream, and butter. Yes, it’s sinful, but it’s worth it and you can make bonbon size pieces of this, to have just a small piece each day (if you can stop at one).  Here is what the Chestnut puree looks like:

Clement Faugier Creme de Marrons de l’Ardeche Chestnut Spread

Crème de marrons de l’Ardèche is sweet chestnut purée from the Ardèche region, invented by company founder Clément Faugier. What started out as a family business with a dozen employees has gro …

Clement Faugier Creme de Marrons de l’Ardeche Chestnut Spread – Pack of 2

Crème de marrons de l’Ardèche is sweet chestnut purée from the Ardèche region, invented by company founder Clément Faugier. What started out as a family business with a dozen employees has gro …

Clement Faugier Creme de Marrons de l’Ardeche Chestnut Spread – Pack of 2

Our Price: $3.75
In Stock

To make this delicous dessert or have-with-coffee treat:

Melt chocolate (broken into small pieces) in a double boiler (or simply in a pan placed over a pan of simmering water).  When melted, add butter, also cut up in pieces, and then chestnut cream.  When all well combined, put in your molds and refrigerate 2 hours.

Use small silicone molds, or small individual paper or aluminum molds, in any shape you want (silicone ones are super easy for this)

See this French Blog (fabulous one too!) for pictures (and more detailed instructions if you want them… )