[Update 2024: Since I wrote this article, a lot has changed at the airport, in terms of food, and there are much better places to eat at the airports in Paris. And there are now kiosks from some of the best chocolate and pastry shops in France at the airports, including Ladurée, La Maison du Chocolat, and Pierre Hermé. The food on the French trains…
La Poste takes a lot of knocks. But one of the differences I’ve noticed between France and America is that the public services work a lot better than the private ones here. Part of it, I think, is that the French identity is very well wrapped-up in its vast network of public service programs. And if you’ve read about the rash of the unfortunate suicides…
There’s now a paperback edition of The Sweet Life in Paris with a new look that I just love. The book recounts the story of my move to Paris, and what happened along with the way as I navigated living in a new city, and did my best to adapt to life in France. You can pick up a copy online at Amazon or Bookshop,…
I know I’m just starting here, but before you and I go any further, I just have to say one thing about these brownies: They’re pretty insane. I made these brownies about fifteen years ago and found it patiently waiting in the back of my recipe files. And giving it a read-through, it all came flooding back to me and I was struck with the…
During citrus season in France, if you’re lucky, you’ll run across something called a bergamot (shown above, on the left). They’re not brilliant yellow like regular lemons, but a sort of orangey color, and when split open, they’re quite juicy and the flavor is much sweeter than regular lemons. They often call them citrons doux, which translates to “sweet lemons,” and they remind me of…
It wasn’t so long ago that if you were walking down the street, or eating in public in Paris, you might get tsk-tsk’d. When I first started coming to Paris, I was warned about getting disapproving stares if you were standing on the sidewalk, jamming food into your craw. Croissants, I noticed, were given a pass, because they were just too good to wait until…
I was browsing through my archives this weekend and landed on a post that I wrote back in 2005, about Vandermeersch. The bakery is really out in the middle of nowhere and for most visitors and even local, whether you’re going by foot or even by métro. But I was looking at the pictures I’d taken back then, which didn’t do the kouglof justice, that…
When I fell into blogging a while back, there were probably less than ten people blogging about food. We were a fairly chummy bunch and met up for meals, swapped links, ideas, and technical tips as the medium continued to grow. It was all pretty small-scale until the whole thing blossomed into something that few likely would have predicted. For years I’ve generally shied away from giving…
[Update: This shop is now closed.] Even though it wasn’t Sunday, I decided to go to Un Dimanche à Paris anyway. This sleek showcase of chocolate is located in an under-utilized arcade on the Left Bank, near where the saleswoman told me has become “The quartier of chocolate.” The owner of the shop is Pierre Cluizel of the famed French chocolate family, but he’s striking…
Join me on my Spring 2026 book tour for my latest book, The Great Book of Chocolate
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