Emily in France 🇫🇷 Summer Has Arrived :)
Summer has arrived in Paris.
In early June, just in time for France's borders to allow visitors to enter, the skies, too, opened.
(It has been a damp summer, thus far.)
But about a week ago, just in time for me to begin to lead food tours for Paris by Mouth for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, the sun began to shine, I pulled out my yellowest sundresses, and summer truly started.
I am a summer child if ever there was one, which is occasionally tough to reconcile with my love of cheese. (Cheese, by and large, doesn't do well in the 90-degree heat I prefer. Exhibit A: the Camembert my friend Emily and I once took to the beach in Cannes that soon turned to fondue.) To enjoy cheese in the summer, one must be committed and crafty, and friends, I am both.
Armed with cold packs and colder wine (and, yes, a pencil case full of knives), I'm ready for picnicking and guiding ASAP.
Should you decide to visit this summer in the months to come, I'll take very good care of you. We will drink cold wine and eat cheese sitting in the sunshine, and I will be ever-so-happy to have you back.
What I'm Eating
Over on my Instagram @emily_in_france, I'm sharing some of my favorite cheeses via a video reel every Tuesday. This week's cheesy delight? Camembert de Normandie.
What I'm Writing
1. French vignerons are greatly governed by the INAO when it comes to the grape varieties they're allowed to use. But some winemakers are rediscovering overlooked and undervalued ancestral varieties. For Pix.
2. Any notion of “American” cuisine is by definition a thing that originated elsewhere. With that in mind, here's what four first-generation chefs in D.C. are grilling this summer. For the Inside Hook.
3. There's a reason why the expression goes: "the best thing since sliced bread." We're constantly looking for ways to make cooking easier, with shortcuts ranging from condensed soup to frozen veggies. While some of these items can be your culinary BFF, not all are worth your money. Want to separate the wheat from the chaff? I've got you covered. For Mashed.
What I'm Reading
1. I love me an unlikeable narrator. I also love a book with an unfamiliar structure. But while You Exist Too Much started strong on both counts, by the end, I found myself detangling abandoned threads and loopholes and ultimately wondering where the heart of the book was. My thoughts on the blog.
2. Translation is tough between human languages, so when you throw animal communication into the mix, it becomes even more complicated. More in the New Yorker.
3. A lost village has emerged from an Italian lake. (Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction!) In the BBC.
A bientôt !