It amuses me when people talk about snooty people sitting around, leisurely eating pâté, because pâté is rustic, country fare, not considered fancy in France. While pâté can have a pastry-type crust (pâté en croûte) and some are a little fancier than others, the cousins of pâté, terrines, are truly down-to-earth. They can be baked in a special mold (you can come across them at…
{UPDATE: Bistro Pierre Lapin has closed.] People are impressed with (and a little envious of) the French and their relationship to food, especially a meal. So much so that UNESCO added the gastronomic meal of the French to their list of Intangible Cultural Heritage designations. The gathering around the table to eat is something most cultures engage in, of course, but it seems to carry special…
Abruptly, it’s fall. The weather turned brisk this week, and I’m starting to wonder which box my scarves and gloves are in? When I lived in San Francisco, where the weather is notoriously fickle, the joke was that the only way to tell what season it is, is to hit the market. True, not everybody is concerned with seasonality. I was recently asked during a…
I was walking down the Quai de l’Hôtel de Ville on a recent warm summer night and passed by the outdoor tables of Le Trumilou. I like eating outside on a terrace in Paris but when they implemented the non fumeur law in France for restaurants cafés, the smokers went outside. It was kind of vexing because it was so nice that everyone could go outside…
As the weather turns cooler, the skies of Paris take on that violet-gray color that we’re all (too) familiar with, which means the onset of winter. When you live in a space-challenged city like Paris, that means going through those long-forgotten boxes you’ve stored away since last spring, and sadly putting away those short sleeve shirts and linens, replacing them in your closet with wool…
Many times, I’ve walked by Caractère de Cochon, a slip of a place on a side street, just next to the earnest Marché des Enfants Rouges, in the ever-growing hipper upper haut (upper) Marais, and wondered about the cave à jambons jam-packed with hams of all sorts hanging in the window and from the rafters. But I’ve never stepped inside. But recently I was talking…
Somehow, I have a lot of fat. Fortunately most of it is in my freezer. I love duck fat and if you haven’t tried potatoes cooked in duck fat, I urge you to step away from the keyboard, go buy yourself a duck, render the fat, pluck some potatoes from your rooftop garden (if you live in Brooklyn), and fry them up. Then…Oy!… as anyone…
I have to admit, I’ve gotten a bit slack and have been buying dried pasta for the past few years. There’s nothing wrong with store-bought pasta – I’ve become fond of the whole wheat pasta spirals I get at my natural foods store, tossed with greens, garlic, and olive oil – but I was recently at the home of a friend and while we were…
If I ever get back to Sydney, I may never leave. And not just because it takes the better part of a full day to get there, or to recover from the jet-lag, which Australians know about all-too-well…since for them to go anywhere, it’s a considerable journey as well. But what I found interesting was whenever I told any locals how great their city was,…
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