Emily in France 🇫🇷 Happy France-iversary to Me!
Happy anniversary to me!
While I was learning to drive in the South of France earlier this month, my 15th anniversary with France completely passed me by. Maybe it's because I spent most of my time weeping. (I'm really not very good at operating a manual transmission, and I'm also really not very good at being bad at things.) Or maybe, just maybe, it's because my moving here wasn't a decision I made at the outset, but rather one that came over me, over time.
I first came to France, as so many do, as a study abroad student. It was always meant to be temporary; I had an apartment in Toronto, friends, a degree to finish. But it was over several quiet weeks of winter in Cannes that I slowly came to the realization that I didn't want to leave.
The machination of what exactly that would mean had yet to reveal itself to me on this day 15 years ago: the paperwork, the waiting, the stress, the sacrifice. The fact that I would make my permanent home, not in Cannes, as I had originally planned, but in the French capital, which is now officially the place I've lived longer than anywhere else in the world.
I had no idea of any of that, at 19. All I knew, then, was that I wanted to live here. And now, 15 years later, I can't imagine living anywhere else.
Cheese of the Week
Hailing from the the former Dauphiné (aka home to gratin dauphinois, aka the creamiest of creamy potato gratins), Saint-Marcellin is a force to be reckoned with. Marrying the best qualities of fresh and bloomy-rinded cheeses, it's usually sold young, rich, and creamy – and is conveniently packaged in its own little dish (sometimes wood, sometimes terra cotta, sometimes plastic) that, once you cut into the 50% fat pate, perfectly contains any of the interior that should attempt to run away from you.
To discover more of my favorite cheeses, be sure to follow me on Instagram @emily_in_france.
What I'm Eating
Franco-Korean fusion has become a major category proliferating on the Parisian culinary landscape, and Perception is one of my current faves in the genre, boasting an ultra-reasonable 35-euro prix fixe lunch offer. This vegetarian main saw tiny leaves of Savoy cabbage stuffed with a heady combination of tofu, spinach, mushrooms, and kimchi, and garnished tableside with a dashi broth. More on the blog (including my favorite dish of the day – a Korean-inspired play on classic French onion soup.)
Discover more of my foodie finds via Instagram @emily_in_france.
What I'm Writing
1. Mustard has been popular in France for over a millennium. At one point there was even a mustard maker to the Avignon-based Pope John XXII (his historically confirmed numpty of a nephew), which gave rise to the expression Se croire le premier moutardier du pape, a reference to someone who thinks a bit too highly of himself that literally translates to thinking oneself the official mustard-maker to the pope. More on this and other things you didn't know you needed to know about Dijon mustard, for Mashed.
2. Chef Chris Thompson let me inside the curing room at his Lardon, quite possibly America's finest salumeria, to discuss the process and inspiration behind his immaculate cured meats. For InsideHook.
3. Do you know how to cook a steak? But do you really know how to cook a steak? If not, I'm here to help. For Tasting Table.
What I'm Saying
1. I've got a new podcast! Welcome to the Terroir Podcast, where, alongside chef and wine expert Caroline Conner, we're delving deep into France's regional specialties. It's historical and nerdy and irreverent and delicious. And appropriately, considering where my France journey began, we're starting things off in Provence. Tune in here!
2. Each week on Navigating the French, an expert and I delve deep into one French word to try to see what it tells us about French culture. This week, I'm talking with author Keith van Sickle about the natural contrarian nature of my fellow countrymen, whose love of arguing goes a lot deeper than a simple desire to be right. With roots in 18th century philosophy and childhoods rife with being told they're wrong, the French love of débat is pervasive and far more intriguing than it may seem. Tune in to learn more!
What I'm Reading
1. As someone who is currently maintaining a 600+-item to-do list and several adjacent to do lists ranked in order of how urgent I feel a task is in a given moment (read: wholly subjectively), I found reading this at once relaxing, stressful, and totally utopian. But I wonder what others think! In the New Yorker.
2. This phenomenal (awful) review of Emily in Paris, in the Irish Times.
3. This story about raising kids with a keen sense of awe that at once made me nostalgic and led me to think maybe kids aren't the only ones who need more awe in their life. (What awe-inspiring things are you doing these days, dear reader?) In the Washington Post.
A bientôt !