Isolating in our French farmhouse

Bonjour everyone. Thank you all so much for your warm wishes for my family and our health. I'd like you to know that we're all really fine. We've just had a few days of flu-like symptoms, a cold, maybe a little cough but we're all recovered and we're just a little tired maybe but we just said to ourselves that it's winter. The winter is a time where nature is slowing down or maybe not even doing anything and just resting and I guess it's inviting all of us just follow this pace of nature. The season of resting and cuddling up and getting cozy and comfortable and getting ready for when springtime comes we can all be super active again and that's what we did. So we had to miss the party of our village. We did decorate our house and I'm just going to share with you in this vlog what two weeks of isolating in our French farmhouse looks like. A nice recipe and I'm also going to share with you where exactly in France we are. And in the evening my oldest son and I went for a small walk at safe distance from everyone through our village to look at all the lights. And we could hear our neighbors chat and cheer and having fun. We could smell their roasted sausages and we just said to each other we'll join them next year. And I also wanted to take a moment to share with you where in France we actually are. France is quite big, not all of you might know all the little corners of France. So here is a map of France. The Eiffel Tower, that's where Paris is of course the capital of France. And the island that you see there is Corsica. Big parts of France are surrounded by seas. So the Atlantic Ocean to the left and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. France touches Spain all the way at the south. Italy at the southeast. Parts of Switzerland just above that. Then we touch Germany and following by Luxembourg which is very small. Belgium and the Netherlands, my home country, is all the way in the north. So you can see that whenever I travel from my home to the Netherlands I have to cross three different countries. Belgium, France and Luxembourg. Here all the way in the south at the Mediterranean Sea close to the Italian border is the city of Nice which you may know. And all the way to the west is the city of Bordeaux also very well known for the wines and it's close to the Atlantic Ocean. And we are here in Burgundy which is the region that used to be called Burgundy. It's actually not called Burgundy anymore but let's try to keep things as simple as possible. So here's Burgundy with the cities of Dijon and Beaune which is a smaller but very well known wine city. And we're close to Beaune. And to give you an idea for the distances for about a three hour drive from Paris I would say Nice will be about six and a half hours. But in general we have cities at 20 minutes, at 40 minutes or anything under an hour there's three or four big cities. So all in all we never feel like we're really really remote. And I wanted to make a recipe today that's typical for this region. Burgundy of course is known for the wine that's made here but also for the food. In Dutch we actually have a word Burgondier which we use when we talk about someone who really likes good quality food and wine because Burgondier means someone from Burgundy. But it has nothing to do with the people being from Burgundy. We use that in Dutch to talk about people who really appreciate good food, quality and wine. Burgundy is known for its good wines but also for a number of foods. One of them being the mustard. You might know Dijon is also used I think in United States or in English-speaking countries as a color for paint, for wall paint for example. And also the mustard is made in Dijon but we also have a mustard factory here in Bonn which is really nice at Montfallot. Dijon is also known for the pain d'épices. And it's funny because pain d'épices is actually a cake, very sweet, that we also know in the Netherlands as ontbijtkoek or peperkoek which either means breakfast cake or pepper cake. Never really understood why. So Dijon is known for the pain d'épices and I wanted to make a recipe of a pain d'épices with you today. The recipe that I'm going to make today is from this book by Rens Koos. She's actually Dutch and she really promotes a healthy lifestyle and so she offers many recipes with maybe less sugar or alternatives that are much better for your body. And I was all excited about sharing her website with you because as far as I knew her website has always been in both Dutch and English and she shares many really wonderful recipes on there. But when I checked, I found out it seems like it's no longer in English. So if any of you out there know Rens and know any links to her recipes in English, please do share them in the comments.