“Can I bring that back?” I’ve been asked that question a lot by visitors to France, wondering if they can bring certain items home. Here are some articles and posts about what can and can’t be brought back into the United States: –Think Twice Before Stuffing Your Suitcase (USA Today) –Transportation Security Administration –Importing Food Products into the United States (FDA) –Travelers Bringing Food Into…
According to LoI n° 2006-11 du 5 janvier 2006 d’orientation agricole, article 47… …as of January 1, 2010, all plastic bags in France will be compostable and biodegradable. The new sacks are being introduced this week as part of a campaign to promote people shopping at the outdoor markets. What a great initiative. Go France!
Here are some of my favorite places to eat in Paris. This is not an exhaustive list, and I’ve mentioned many of my other top picks here on the site, so you can use the search engine to find them. And there’s others on My Paris page here as well. Several of these are also not fancy places. Sure, many people come to Paris for…
I tend to sometimes take things for granted. I get messages from readers, “You’re so lucky! You get to live in Paris!”. To be honest, it wasn’t like one day back in San Francisco I came home and there was an envelope waiting for me with an airline ticket, an apartment lease, and all the blanks filled in on the paperwork filled for a French…
Paris is reported to be the most popular tourist destination in the world. Each year people come from all over the world for their vacations. I’m sure they spend months and months making arrangements, searching the internet looking for a charming, affordable hotel, scouring web site for decent airfares, and searching my blog for places to eat. So after all that, what do most people…
You won’t often find much in the way of vegetables on the menus of many cafés in Paris. I don’t mean the over-hyped restaurants with the fancy chef names attached that the slick food magazines tend to worship. There you might find a coin of grilled zucchini, a dot of sauce, and perhaps a leaf of parsley as a carefully-draped garnish. But most of the…
Some people love it, and others leave it. Yes, it’s White Chocolate, that controversial melange of cocoa butter, sugar, and milk (more on that later). Often there’s vanilla, or vanillin (a synthetic vanilla-like substance) added as well. Dark, or bittersweet chocolate, contains cacao mass (the ground beans), sugar, cocoa butter, and sometimes vanilla and lecithin. White chocolate has none of the cacao mass, hence…
Jean-Charles Rochoux has perhaps the tiniest chocolate shop in Paris, located on an unassuming side street off the Rue de Rennes. It’s hard to see and easy to miss if you’re not looking for it. But what causes most passers-by to stop are the window displays, filled with intricately-sculpted statues and figures, crafted entirely of chocolate. M. Rochoux spent many years in the workshop of…
To Whoever This May Concern: I apologize for stealing your Sharpie® during my current book tour. As you can see, I couldn’t help it. It started with the one I borrowed when booksigning in Virginia. But somewhere between there, and San Francisco, my obsession went horribly wrong. But you see, we don’t get Sharpies® in France. And I just couldn’t resist yours. Your Sharpie® was…
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