The Tomato Knife

Valentine’s weekend, Paris’ most-popular restaurants are packed full of couples, literally cheek to cheek. Reservations are a must and, for the special occasion, most places propose a set menu with entrée, plat and déssert.  As our tradition goes, we hopped on the metro and stepped through the doors of one of the city’s well-liked, yet [...]

As I mentioned in my posts about bourru and bernache, tradition has it that you eat roasted chestnuts with these young “wines” that show their faces only in the autumn. There are two words for chestnut in French: marron and châtaigne. While we don’t seem to distinguish between the two in English, we certainly do [...]

“MacDo,” as it’s often called here in France, is up against the Louvre. Can’t help sharing this “feather ruffling” NPR article on the controversial subject of McDonald’s opening in one of the most celebrated museums in the world. Anyone who knows me can probably guess what my initial reaction to hearing this was (similar to [...]

Autumn doesn’t only announce it’s arrival in France with colorful leaves, but with a very unique, very young, and slightly bubbly wine called bourru. Driving on the outskirts of Bordeaux this weekend, I noticed several handwritten signs along the roads.  “Le bourru est arrivé,” wine merchants were announcing, inviting clients to purchase the juice from [...]

My head’s been swirling with a stew of questions, all wondering about contemporary French cuisine. Since I’ve been reading up on Julia Child this year, I’ve been vicariously living in post-WWII France, salivating over elaborate descriptions of the food and wine she discovered (and would soon share with her fellow Americans) in the 1950s.  Thanks [...]