Bon appetit! North Harford’s French Club is planning a très bien field trip to the French restaurant La Madeleine in Columbia, Maryland. This restaurant features traditional French fare in a more casual setting.

    Although the French Club went last year to the restaurant, this year it was cancelled because of inclement weather conditions. However, it has been rescheduled for Thursday, April 19th, according to French teacher and French Club advisor Larissa Arist.

    Arist commented on the choice of location, saying that she greatly enjoyed “the atmosphere and ambience.” She also stated that the restaurant, La Madeleine, provided patrons with “authentic dishes,” but not at the expense of customer satisfaction, saying the servings were “prepared quickly.”

    To get an idea of the provisions from the restaurant, one only has to go on its website. Some examples of the lunch items on the menu are the more traditional French entrees such as quiches, an egg dish, and the croque monsieur, a ham and cheese sandwich. However, La Madeleine is particularly known for its tomato basil soup made with vine ripened tomatoes, fresh cream, and fresh basil. Customers can even buy jars of it at the front of the restaurant. For the more health-conscious eaters is the salad section, including a new Mediterranean kale and quinoa salad.

    North Harford’s French Club is not the only student group in the school preparing to take a field trip at this moment. Mrs Dallam’s AP English Literature and Composition classes are anticipating an outing to the National Zoo in Washington D.C. Dallam’s classes are going in conjunction with teacher Brady Green’s zoology classes.

    Dallam is planning this trip in light of the most recent book her classes have read, which is Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. The book “examines the mythical thinking driving modern civilization, and the relationship of this world-view to ethics, sustainability, and global catastrophe,” according to Quinn’s website. This is done through a series of Socratic dialogues between an unnamed narrator and a telepathic, intelligent gorilla, which is the basis of the motivation behind the planned zoo trip.