We when get the craving for pizza in this family, it almost always comes down to defrosting a frozen one or ordering delivery.  But not this weekend! I finally decided to take matters in my own hands; literally.  One authentic Italian style dough ready for plenty of toppings, coming up! I should mention that after last years getaway ...

All of the content I've seen on television since Christmas has been about weight loss.  Stars' diets, lose weight fast schemes, or that horrible cayenne pepper cleanse; all of them fall into the category of post holiday fads for me.  Post-Christmas is when all of the chocolates, and in France, foie gras, go on sale for 50% off! You would be silly to start a diet with prices like that!   So I'm resisting the 'temptation' to join the fuss and ...

After a blowout Thanksgiving feast at my house, one of my Swedish friends posed the question, “what kind of special dishes do French people eat during the holidays?”  The first thing that came to mind was foie gras.  Raw, seared, stuck on a lollipop stick; the French love their foie gras. But there must be something more ...

When I’ve already worn all of my scarves at least once and gone through a whole box of tissues in a week, I know that winter is coming.  It doesn’t hurt that the wind chill is at an all time high and it gets dark at 5:30pm.  And while I usually love everything that winter brings (Christmas gifts, ski vacations, eggnog at noon) my outdoor herbs enjoy it about as much as they do my cat nibbling at their leaves.  Time to find a solution to keep that ...

Sauces are a staple of French cuisine.  A filet mignon will come with its jus, a properly made croque monsieur with a béchamel, or a simple goat cheese salad with vinaigrette.   All of these qualify as sauces.  Paul Gayler, of Lanesborough Hotel in London, writes in “Comme un Chef” that technically speaking, a sauce is a perfumed liquid made from a ‘base’ that has been lightly thickened.  Whether it’s the perfuming or the thickening, not ...

The power cut out twice.  Twice!  We had to throw an electrical cord out the balcony and connect it in my neighbor’s apartment so we would have enough juice to continue the show. I’m talking about ‘Un Diner Presque Parfait’ of course.  The French reality cooking show…that I just won! The show was filmed back in April ...

Summertime is by far the busiest season in Paris for this foodie.  Tourists are buzzing about, new restaurants are opening up, and SNCF decides to close the main drag of the RER C, the one cutting right through the middle of the city.  I think they do it with smiles, too. Because July is such a hectic month, I often loose touch with dear friends, most of which are rare to find and hold onto in this city.  Last week I realized that I hadn’t had a ...

On this Bastille Day 2011, the violent beginning to a revolution that would turn increasingly fatal over the next decade, we celebrate food.  That’s right; la bouffe as French slang goes.  Families and friends everywhere, French and foreigners alike will join together to celebrate over BBQ’s, fruit salads, and hopefully some French pastries.  And even though the French bourgeois of today don’t find it ironic to be indulging in the same delicacies ...

I love discovering new summertime veggies that I can eat raw.  Traditional French crudités are great, but they’re not so new after a couple of years in this foodie country.  A fresh salad always hits the spot too, yet it’s frowned upon to begin munching on a head of batavia while exiting the open-air market.  No, I prefer something refreshing and practical.  I know, I’m picky. Yet I managed to get my even pickier chéri to enjoy these little ...

Paris sees 27 million tourists per year.  About 20 million of them, at some point, in some restaurant, are going to make a fool of themselves.  If Paris is one of your destinations this summer, take a look at my top ten things NEVER to do in a Parisian restaurant.  This list could make your waiter actually mean that ‘merci, ...