04/23/2026
Oh my goodness what an afternoon! We were honored to have professor Casey Cobb from Roane State Community College and his guests, including Janette Bo***ir, a pastry chef from Paris, France, and Bruno Lacam-Caron, general manager of the La Courneuve Flash premier French American football team in France, in Tsisqwohi (Birdtown) visit the Center. Wanda Hansen, Marie Wentland, Mary Lane, Della Cooper and myself (Pat Orta) were there from the Center. 1450 WLAF popped by for a few pictures as well.
Janette is a French Pastry Chef with her own thriving business in Paris. She had an interest in learning how to make some "southern" American dishes. Along with being a busy pastry chef and owning her own business, she also has a sweet 5 year old little boy!
Bruno Lacam-Caron, is the general manager of a
French American football team, the La Courneuve Flash. This is an American style football team in France. Isn't it funny, normally football in Europe is what we call Soccer. Soccer has taken off in the US over the past 30 years- now American style Football is becoming quite popular in France!
Judy Sexton (alias Judy 2) was appointed to teach Janette a few of the southern staples. To start off, there was buttermilk biscuits (did you know that you cannot buy buttermilk in France?). Each of the cooks had their own biscuit bowls and Judy showed Janette how we make homemade biscuits. Then we moved on to one of my favorite parts - the fried chicken. Janette was not familiar with our way of cooking southern style fried chicken. Then we made the gravy from the chicken grease (Janette and Bruno admitted that they were not fans of the American gravy- but I think we changed their minds today!).
By the way, Judy had already made a bowl of potato salad to go with the chicken. Yummy!!!!
Finally, banana pudding! This was Judy's grandmother's recipe- from scratch- no instant pudding here! Janette was not a fan of bananas, so she made a basic custard with vanilla wafers- and it was tasty as well. Another tidbit of information, the French do not use as much sugar as the Americans do. Also, French milk doesn't need to be refrigerated like ours does. That fact, honestly, messed with my mind! How can you not refrigerate it, and it not go bad?
It was so wonderful to spend the afternoon with Janette, Bruno and Casey. Lots of talk about food, customs, and making friends. Janette said that she will be back and she will teach us how to make some of her French Biscuits (cookies for us Americans).
Of course, we had to send her off with a reminder of her time in Tennessee. We gave her a metal recipe box (she said she had been looking for one-her grandmother had one and she wanted one), a cell phone holder, made from Tennessee material by the Craft class, and a bright orange Tennessee insulated drinking mug.
Honestly, this was one of the most enjoyable afternoons I have had in a long time.
Pictures will follow!. Bruno was recording most of the time.
I am putting Janette's page and website address below for anyone who would like to hop on and see it. https://www.facebook.com/janetteboudoir/
https://janetteboudoir.com/
Below is one of Janette's cakes!
Commander vos Gâteaux personnalisés et sur-mesure ! Vos Cake design 93 & 95 . Number cake & Letter cake aux fruits ou au chocolat.
