A little over a month ago, I received an email message from someone who identified herself only as “Miss Lunch.” Apparently she’d found out from reading this blog that we live in Paris and like good food, so she wanted to let us know about her new project Lunch in the Loft and invite us […]
Today is—or rather yesterday (the 9th) was, since I’m writing this after midnight Paris time—my 41st birthday. This evening Morgen and I went out for dinner with some friends at a fantastic Indonesian restaurant near Les Halles, Djakarta Bali. I thought that was appropriate given that this time last year we were in Indonesia. (On […]
Not technically France-related, but pertinent to the title of our blog, is the news that an enormous white truffle was dug up in Tuscany last week. Weighing more than three pounds (almost 1.5 kg), this pungent monster may break the Guinness World Record for largest truffle. In a classy move, the folks who found it […]
In the course of doing research for my latest post on Gridskipper, Algerian Patisseries in Paris, Joe and I had to sample as many delicious Algerian pastries as we could. It’s a tough job, I know, but someone’s got to do it. If you’ve never tasted Algerian pastries, I would highly recommend them. They are […]
On Sunday night Morgen and I had dinner at Hidden Kitchen. We left with full stomachs and warm fuzzy feelings. It was a deeply satisfying experience all around—one of the best meals I’ve had in years, plus wonderful conversation in a truly delightful setting. HK is sort of a cross between an exclusive restaurant and […]
Before we moved to Paris I had a list of places I wanted to visit when we got here, and La Grande Épicerie was very close to the top of the list. I had read about this food emporium, part of Le Bon Marché department store, on various Paris-based blogs, and was eager to see […]
It’s amazing sometimes how a small thing can turn into a big thing when there is a language barrier to navigate. Case in point: last week Joe and I went into a small grocery store we’d never been in before, and all went smoothly until we got up to the checkout. The cashier was ringing […]
In the waning days of June, as Joe and I frantically prepared for our move to Paris, there was one thing on our list that we did not get done: we didn’t see the movie Ratatouille when it first came out on June 29th. It didn’t seem like a major problem at the time, but […]
A few years ago, I wrote about absinthe on Interesting Thing of the Day. To summarize: while living in Canada, I became quite fond of this concoction of distilled herbs, legendary as the muse of writers and painters and equally legendary for its alleged contributions to insanity and violence. But as it’s still (mostly) illegal […]
During one of our first shopping trips to a local supermarket we were somewhat surprised to find that a lot of breakfast cereals here feature chocolate. While it may be normal in North America for chocolate to be part of sugary cereals, usually marketed to kids, here chocolate is even included in so-called “healthier” cereals. […]
Before we came to Paris I had read about the Picard chain of food stores and was eager to visit one for myself. These stores are devoted to frozen foods (with only a few non-frozen items to be found) and have many locations around the city, as well as throughout the rest of the country. […]
Before we moved here, I spent a lot of time looking at Web sites about Paris. I did this partly to keep me motivated through the sometimes difficult visa process, but mostly to get ideas about what we would do and see (and eat of course) once we arrived. I’ll admit that I have an […]
Ah, the humble baguette. This particular specimen was procured about half a dozen doors down from our building for € 0.80 (a bit over a dollar). We could have chosen at least three other bakeries within two blocks of here, had we been in the mood for a slightly different texture or aroma. And every […]