I'm not one to easily back down from an argument, especially when it comes to anything food-related. (Well, except about whether brownies should have nuts or not. That's just something I just can't get worked up about, as much as some people do.) Recently I was having a bit of a disagreement with someone particularly stubborn about the role of fat in cooking.

I believe fat is fine, but should be used where it makes a difference. For example, milk is better in hot chocolate than cream, as the heavy richness of the cream overwhelms the taste of the bittersweet chocolate. And I don't think anyone who tastes a scoop of my chocolate sorbet can tells me it doesn't have the intense flavor of the deepest, darkest chocolate dessert. I dare ya.

But on the other hand, if you're going to pan-fry potatoes, a spoonful of duck fat in the frying pan will produce crackly, crisp-browned potato cubes, and they're going to be a life-changing experience. So I'm happy to use it there. If you still afraid to try it, and are too concerned about eating duck fat, walk to the gym the next time you go, instead of driving there.

Last year Amanda Hesser was reminiscing with me about Maida Heatter, when she asked me to recreate Maida's popover recipe. For those that don't know who Maida Heatter is, she's responsible for writing some of the most amazing, luscious, scrumptiously adjective-worthy baking books over the last few decades. Known for carrying around cellophane-wrapped brownies in her purse, and distributing them freely, she was equally generous with recipes as she was with words.

I had a wee bit of a dilemma recently. In my refrigerator was a half-jar of crème fraîche, that I had to use up before I left for a recent vacation on the beach. I'd been thinking about making caramels with it, but I also knew that I would be slipping on a swimsuit within a few weeks. And being alone in my apartment with an open jar of ultra-rich crème fraîche was probably not a good idea.

So what did I do? I hemmed and hawed about it, until I channeled my mother, who would have flipped out if I tossed away the rest of the crème fraîche. (Or anything, for that matter.)

Maybe we shouldn't count out le Kir quite yet. (# 2).

Although I'll take a pass on one spiked with violet, or à la rose.

The other night I was sitting at Le Garde Robe, minding my own business, trying to get down a glass of natural wine. Being seven o'clock, naturally, in addition to being thirsty, I was starving, too.

And the lack of food (and sulfides) must have started affecting my brain because I started thinking about how I often hear tales from visitors, such as when they told a Parisian waiter they didn't eat meat and shortly afterward, were presented with a plate of lamb. Or they ordered a salad, that was supposed to come with the sandwich, and was actually just a single leaf of lettuce. Hoo-boy, and yes, I've made a few gaffes of my own, too: I once ordered a glass of Lillet (pronounced le lait, which isn't well-known around Paris) and the perplexed café waiter brought me out a long, slender glass of le lait (milk), presented with great panache, on a silver dish with a nice doily. Of course, everyone was staring at the grown man who ordered a tall glass of milk. And I don't think it was because of the starched doily.

Anyhow, I was scanning the chalkboard at Le Garde Robe, looking at the various charcuterie and cheese on offer, and noticed filet mignon, and thought, "A steak is a funny thing for a wine bar to serve, especially one that doesn't serve hot food." Until I remembered what it is in French. And if everyone wasn't already staring at the idiot at the wine bar, nursing a stemmed glass of milk, I would've kicked myself for thinking that's a big, juicy steak. Which it's not, in France.

1. Mixing Up the Mignons

Mignon in French means "cute". And to my pork-loving friends and readers, that can only mean one thing: pigs. French people think cows are attractive.

A few weeks ago, I made plans to meet my friend Terresa in Pigalle, to check out a new épicerie (specialty food shop). I don't know if you're familiar with Pigalle, but the area has a certain well-deserved 'reputation' and if you're a middle-aged man walking around by yourself in the evening, casually looking in the windows of the cafés and bars, don't be surprised if a very scantily-clad woman tries to catch your eye back, and catch your fancy. And a few euros.

My friend was late, so after I cut my walk short though the quartier, I waited outside the Le Marché des Gastronomes, where we were planning to meet, which made me only slightly less of a target. And within a few minutes, people were handing me business cards for various 'services' of the female persuasion. So I was especially glad when the only woman in the neighborhood I was interested in hooking up with finally arrived and we went inside.

The idea of the store is to be one place filled with many great products. There were indeed some interesting things on the shelves, including Spanish hams and other European specialties. But when you live in France, it's hard to get worked up about shrink-wrapped cheeses, no matter how good they might be, when there's so many amazing fromageries in every neighborhood. But I think they're trying to be both a specialty shop and cater to the locals who need the basics, too. So I give them points for rising to that task, and most of us would be thrilled to have a place like that in our neighborhood.

Menu for Hope 6 raffle winners have been announced here. This year we raised nearly $78,000 for the UN World Food Programme. Big thanks to all the folks who donated, as well as the bloggers and others who donated such fantastic bid items.

I scored, too! And several of my readers...(and French friends, and shopkeepers, and just about everyone else in Paris...) will be thrilled to know that I won a series of French classes.

There's nothing that can kill a great trip more than a bad airline experience. But since Twitter has now become the airline's biggest public relations headache, I won't complain about anything. Okay, except for the guy sitting in front of me for the 12-plus hour flight, who kept insisting that if he just leaned forward, then slammed his body backwards, his seat back would go back even further than the seat physically, would actually allow.

So even though it took a few minutes after we landed to remove my knees from my chest, (although I think I need to get some medical attention tomorrow for my bijoux de famille), I still have managed to keep a smile on my face after winging my way back from Ixtapa, Mexico for our first-ever Food Blogger Camp.

Aside from hooking up with my blogging pals; Elise, Matt, Jaden, Adam, Diane, and Dianne, I also met Diane's other half, Todd, and Michael Ruhlman, who proved a formidable foe for the entire week. I don't think we agreed about anything, except that we always agreed that we disagreed with each other.

Yesterday was the best day of my life. Okay, it was the best day of the year. And since the year is only a couple of weeks old, there's probably going to be a few other contenders in the next fifty weeks. But still, yesterday would be pretty hard to beat.

To any 'normal' person, they might think that lazing in the sun for a few hours was bliss. But for me, it's all-you-can-eat tortillas. And I've been doing my best to make the buffet here at Club Med in Ixtapa live up to that designation.

It's nice to know that even after living in France for a number of years, I still haven't lost my uncanny ability, like many Americans, to be able to pile our plates to the max of whatever we feel like shoveling in our craws.

I don't know how you say "bad influence" in Spanish, but I think the photo pretty much says it better than I could—in any language...

Last summer, Romain went to stay at a place in the French countryside with a large, semi-wild potager, a vegetable garden, which the people who lived there fed themselves from. They let weeds grown, didn't spray pesticides on anything, and they ate most of the food as close to raw as they could. During his stay, he called me and said that he never felt better in his life, and that he wanted to eat like that when he returned home to Paris.

One doesn't think of people in Paris munching on wheat berries and whole grains, but it is possible, especially because there are a few rather decent natural food chains here, as well as some smaller stores, too.

First there was the music business, which shifted radically when people learned to download music digitally. Movies are up next, and like music, the challenge for the movie studios is to figure out how to get people to pay for movies that they're downloading digitally. And the next frontier is print media: newspapers, magazines, and books.

A few of my friends are traditional journalists, the kind of that get paid to write for newspapers and magazines. Whenever people say that blogs are going to take over the news, I'm not so sure. Food bloggers can easily go into the kitchen and whip up a batch of brownies, but until political bloggers start paying their own way and going to the front lines of the war in Iraq, there is still an argument for conventional journalism. But still, in order to make it work, there needs to be a way to pay for it.

The publishing industry went into a tailspin the past few years, and is trying to find its footing. Books have rebounded but many magazines and newspapers are barely hanging on, and few good ones disappeared. Those that remain reduced their staff and payroll, and with the media asking bloggers and others to work for free, it doesn't seem to me like a sustainable business model if you're relying on free labor to keep afloat.

I don't think I've ever made a New Year's resolution. Even if I did, I likely didn't have much success sticking with any of them, so I just don't bother with them anymore. Usually resolutions involve quickly-forgotten rules about eating better, losing weight, and saving money. (Which is probably why I never make them in the first place.) So I wouldn't place any bets that I'm going to stick with doing any of those three things this year, I'm happy to report that for those of you with more will-power than I, this Potato Leek Soup falls neatly into all three categories.

I kind of have a funny relationship to soup. If I'm going to eat soup, I eat it as a main course for lunch or dinner, not before. And since for me, soup is a meal, I like thick soups. I'm not a fan of slurping up thin broth from a vessel. If I wanted to lap up watery liquid from a receptacle, I'd slip a collar around my neck and get down on all-fours for my supper. No thank you. (Well, at least not at dinnertime.)

So where do I start with this one?