The Tomato Knife

Amboise, a small town in the Loire Valley, is known primarily for its overbearing medieval castle- once home to some of France’s most famous rulers, as well as to Catherine of Medici’s ten children! Amboise is also renowned for Clos-Lucé, the stately home where Leonardo da Vinci (invited by the French King Francois I) spent [...]

The Paris-based English literary and arts review, Upstairs at Duroc, is launching a new reading series…tonight. In cooperation with Berkeley Books of Paris, an English-language bookshop, “Pause on the Landing” (I know, we try to be clever when we can) will be a recurring discussion-based gathering to help support both new and established writers. The [...]

I didn’t eat cucumber much before coming to France. Now it’s become a staple- and I usually have part of one hanging around somewhere in the fridge. After farmers’ market on Sunday, I came home with an especially nice-looking, organic one that I mixed into a refreshing salad. Since cucumber doesn’t have a very strong [...]

I’m sipping a steaming cup of Jade Chai Green Tea- one of my special finds in San Francisco’s China Town. Thanks to a friend, I spent the better part of an hour sticking my nose into tin after tin of rich, fragrant tea leaves- from Silver Peony (a white tea) to Organic Golden Monkey (a [...]

Three of the restaurants I tried while in San Francisco left quite an impression on me. What I appreciated most was the excellent vegetarian fare they all offered. In this post, I’ll be talking about Greens, an upscale vegetarian restaurant, Pauline’s Pizza and Dragon Well, a hip Chinese spot. Greens My new favorite restaurant (in [...]