Emily in France 🇫🇷 Holiday Feels
What do holidays look like where you're from?
It's the holiday season – les fêtes, in France – and I find myself, as I often do, considering the differences between the ways in which these holidays are celebrated in my adoptive and native lands.Â
It's not for nothing that my butcher once called Thanksgiving "American Christmas." In my experience, Christmas in France is far more about food than anything else: about foie gras and oysters, bûches and turkey and chestnuts. In the U.S., the focus is far more on gifts, and when I arrived in the U.S. earlier this month to find that shops were already bedecked with twinkle lights and piping carols through the speakers, I got that all-too-familiar "Christmas Exploded in Here!" feeling I grew up with. (My mother is nothing if not a fan of the holidays.)
When I first moved to France, I tried hard to recreate the traditions of my childhood: going to peer into department store windows; baking Christmas cookies; putting up a tree; tuning into Christmas radio stations. Now, I lean into French Christmas traditions, from Christmas markets to mulled wine. But the second I come home, everything changes: I get that holiday spring in my step. Something within me is tuned into the reliable, comforting excess of the American approach to this (and, well, any) holiday.
Either way, one thing is for sure: I'm grateful, in these strange and uncertain times, to be home for Christmas. Especially as, thanks to my oldest friend, the cheese I painstakingly packed and carried home, only to forget it in her fridge in Pennsylvania, has made it home for the holidays.
Cheese of the Week
Whenever I come home for Christmas, I make sure to stop by Jouannault, my favorite cheese shop in the Marais, to pick up some gifts for my brother, a huge fan of pressed Alpine cheeses. Abondance belongs to this family, but it's a bit funkier than some, with a fragrant flavor that's a bit more Appenzeller-y than the pure, buttery, nuttiness of Comté or Gruyère. This cheese gets its name from the Abondance breed of cow, which must make up more than half of the herd; morer productive Montbéliarde and Térine are also sometimes used. It's aged on special spruce boards which impart a unique aroma to the finished cheese.
To discover more of my favorite cheeses, be sure to follow me on Instagram @emily_in_france.
What I'm Eating
American-style les cookies have taken the French capital by storm in recent years, and if I had to choose, my favorite place to indulge is Cookie Love. The cookies made here by American expat Jean Hwang Carrant are expertly crafted: consistent, chewy, and always a delight. I recently got the chance to sample three – the black sesame mochi, chocolate-Espelette pepper, and rosemary, date, and walnut. Even I was surprised by which one proved to be my fave. More on the blog!
Discover more of my foodie finds via Instagram @emily_in_france.
What I'm Writing
1. We all know my feelings about cheese... but can it exist in a sustainable diet? I tried to answer this essential (for me) question for Organic Authority.
2. As a native New Yorker, I've got Opinions about pizza. Here are the 19 spots you should try, for Mashed.
3. In the French Basque Country, a former Parisian is redefining what it means to run a sustainable restaurant. For Life & Thyme.
What I'm Saying
1. When you go to a French restaurant, it's not all about the food. There's a certain theatrical bent, from the adornment of the table with all manner of flatware to the dramatic tableside flambage of your crêpe suzette. These elements and more are part of the idea of a restaurant gastronomique, an idea I'm discussing with chef, culinary educator, and gastronomy guide Allison Zinder this week on Navigating the French.
2. On Chez Toi, Caroline Conner and I pair your home-cooked recipes with the perfect wine and most complementary cheese. This week's recipe comes from Denise Powers: a rich, hearty farro soup. Tune in to discover the bright orange cheese and herbaceous wine we chose!
This month, I'm teaming up with Jacqueline Menoret (aka the founder of Paris' Immigrant Book Club) to pair books with tasty treats – the ideal gifts for any literary minded foodie! if you're interested, be sure to follow me on Instagram.
What I'm Reading
1. This exploration of Emily Dickinson's "scrap poetry" in the New Yorker.
2. Why GenZ doesn't believe in birds, in the New York Times.
3. The issue of cultural appropriation and museums, as explored by NPR. (I look into this specifically in France in an upcoming episode of Navigating the French, so stay tuned!)
A bientôt !