Archive for December, 2008


Food Wednesday: Best new tables of 2008, Movie star Paris, etc.

Wednesday, December 17th, 2008

Bonjour mes amis and welcome to another edition of Food Wednesday! What’s going on in the world of French food media this week?
Le Figaroscope has yet another “Best of” article, this time naming the 20 best tables opened in 2008. I can’t quite tell, but it seems like the little write-ups are actually written in […]

Great cooking gifts for $30 (or less)

Friday, December 12th, 2008

With Christmas only twelve days away (YIKES), perhaps you, like me, need to pick up some speed on the shopping front. 
Voila, here are this year’s Cooking-the-Books-approved suggestions for five gourmet gifts under $30.

Food Wednesday: Where the chefs eat

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008

Happy Wednesday!
Great chefs spend their lives creating extraordinary meals, but have you ever wondered where (or what) they like to eat? In this week’s round-up of French food media, Le Figaroscope gives us a sneak peak into the favorite haunts of Paris’s most famous toques. Here’s a sampling of three:
Alain Ducasse: Le Fig says: “For a […]

Food Wednesday: Two weeks in one

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

Welcome to another edition of Food Wednesday, our weekly round-up of (some) French food media. This week features not one, but two weeks worth of  news as last week we were in Aveyron celebrating Thanksgiving and strolling among Didier’s terraced grape vines (see photo above).
Alors, what did we miss last week? Le Fig had a round-up of industry hot […]

Thanksgiving in La France “profonde”

Monday, December 1st, 2008

They call it la France profonde, meaning “deep France,” and indeed being in Aveyron is a bit like stepping deep into another world, or maybe another time. The weekly village market at Espalion is like a party — everyone knows each other and exchanges three-cheeked kisses before defrosting over a glass of vin chaud. Butterscotch-colored cows […]