If you’re one of those people who’ve been trying to get one of the coveted places at Hidden Kitchen, the supper club in Paris, liberté and egalité have arrived in the form of a wine bar and restaurant called Verjus. After running their successful dinners, they’ve decided to take the plunge and create a warm space where they could welcome any and all guests, whether…
When I moved to France, one of the first things a friend said to me was “David, you need to get a good tire-bouchon.” Seeing as an unusually large about of wine bottles were being opened on a regular basis all around me (and seeing the recycling bin on my street was constantly overflowing), it seemed he was right: one does need a decent tire-bouchon…
I always think that maybe I’m kind of a loser because I don’t go out and eat as much as people think I do. Ever since I left the restaurant business – where I worked every single night of every single weekend of my life, surrounded by other cooks (which probably explains why I am a social misfit when I have to mingle with “normal”…
Some time last year, I pretty much stopped buying red wine. France was always la France, feminine, and I find white wines much more nuanced and interesting, like women. Whereas (depending upon where you live) men are tough and brutal. And in my own special way of reasoning the unreasonable, the longer I lived here the more I found myself gravitating toward the lighter, cleaner…
I’ve noted that wine bars in Paris often are the best places for casual dining in town. So when my friend Rochelle, a pastry chef friend from the States, came to visit, I wanted to go somewhere easygoing, where we’d be assured of good, honest food. So we agreed to meet at Le Garde Robe, which serves mostly natural wines. Another plus are the charcuterie…
They say that you know you’re holding a glass of wine from Cahors if you can’t see your fingers on the other side of the glass through the wine. Which is why the malbec wine from Cahors is nicknamed “black wine”. Peer into a glass of it, and it’s easy to see (or should I say ‘not see’) why. I didn’t know much about the…
When folks ask me what the French do for Thanksgiving, I don’t think the word they’re expecting to hear are “Um, nothing.” And why should they? It’s not as though America shuts down for le 14 juillet. Still, a few places around here do get into the spirit and you’ll see a few bags of cranberries at the market, a few more sweet potatoes piled…
For someone who used to not drink that much, I seem to have a lot of liquor on my liquor shelf. I guess I should rephrase that. For someone who drinks a lot of wine, but not a lot of liquor, I sure have a lot of liquor on my liquor shelf. Is that clear? Americans may be known for our cocktails, but in France,…
How does Cognac get to this… …from this? I didn’t know, but I was determined to taste as many glasses as I could to find out. The first thing I was asked before heading down into my first Cognac cellar during my recent visit was, “Are you afraid of spiders?”
A
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