Emily in France 🇫🇷 Musings on Springtime in Paris
I always forget how gross May is.
A few years ago – this must have been 2013 or 2014 – my dad planned a visit to Paris.
'When should I come for beautiful weather?" he asked me, imagining, as I was, strolling through the city's beautiful parks in full bloom. But there was one problem. While I can certainly remember days basking in the sunshine in the Tuileries or enjoying the cherry blossoms winking over the Canal Saint-Martin, it's hard to remember small details – like when that weather graced Paris – from year to year. My diaries are far too introspective and thus of no use at all, and I think, at this point, I was still resolutely clinging to an orange flip phone I inherited from a friend who had since absconded to London, so there was no real photographic evidence to speak of either.
I looked at the calendar, and, seeing that May is chock-a-block with bank holidays, thought that all those long weekends must be when the Parisians take short, sunny sojourns to the countryside.
"Come in May," I said, and he did.
It rained every single day of his ten-day holiday. (We resolutely walked – he clad in an orange poncho – to all of the parks, and then we dried off at my flat in front of the entirety of Breaking Bad.)
May is fickle, in France, but in recent years, it has been far more damp than anything else. Even the French language is rife with expressions exploring how you can have gorgeous, sunny, late-March days that feel like summer and still be in flannel and beanies and boots in May.
En avril, ne te découvre pas d'un fil.
Noël au balcon, Pâques aux tissons.
All this to say, it is grey and gloomy in Paris, these days. But there is a bit of sun, however metaphorical, on the horizon: after several long months, Paris is finally beginning to ease lockdown restrictions, and all of my friends in the restaurant industry are thrilled to finally be able to open their outdoor terrasses in just a few short days. (Hopefully not under torrents of rain.)
In the meantime, I'll be keeping myself – and you – in pastry.
What I'm Eating
A gâteau basque is one of my favorite French pastries: a buttery shortbread base filled with cherry jam or cream. It's a cake, in keeping with my tastes, that's richly flavored but far from too sweet.
The one above is even better than the original, as it's actually filled with lemon curd. It's just one of the treats I picked up at the atypical pastry shop Fou de Pâtisserie with Mille Merci Marie's Crazy for Pastry event.
What I'm Writing
1. Elis Bond barely had a few weeks to serve his creative, high-end, pan-African cuisine before Mi-Kwabo was forced to shutter due to the pandemic. In the meantime, he's been cooking up burgers to go and making plans for reopening. He talks expectations, experience, and inspiration in this interview for AllRecipes.
 2. If you're planning on spending some time in Paris this summer (vaccinated Americans are allowed back from June 9!) but don't want to be packed into indoor boutiques, the city's many flea markets are an excellent destination. I explore my top 5 for easyJet Traveller.
3. The 1970s may not seem like the first decade you go to for culinary inspiration, but some 70s classics are back in vogue. I detail which ones – and why – for Mashed.
What I'm Reading
1. The pandemic has borne unto me a new addiction: book clubs. The Mountains Sing was a recent read for one founded with the goal of reading one book from every country in the world, and this fictionalized account of the Vietnam War's effects on one family is honest, brutal, and endearing. Despite my quibbles (and I had a few...) I couldn't put it down. On the blog.
2. Epicurious recently announced that it would stop publishing recipes featuring beef in order to take a stand against the beef industry's effect on climate change.
3. Test your book smarts with this literary quiz from The Strand.
A bientôt !