Emily in France 🇫🇷 Perfecting Perfectionism
Greetings, from the South of France!
I have left Paris behind, abandoning what I have been assured is beautiful weather and sunny blue skies for the oddly grey and drizzly Corbières, where I'm currently attempting to get my French driver's license. As happened following my brief foray into broadcast journalism, I now have a whole set of vocabulary words in French that I don't have in English. (Rétrograder? Embrayer? Priorité à droite?) And I'm also facing off with my fatal flaw.
Friends... I'm a bit of a perfectionist.
(Cue laughter from people who've spent even five minutes around me IRL.)
Look, logically I know that I can't be perfect. I know that everyone makes mistakes. But there's this monster inside of me that, every time I do make a mistake, diverts all of my attention to it: "Look at that. Look what you did. Look. Look. Look."
It makes it hard to focus on anything else... and makes for a very unpleasant – and dangerous – driving companion.
My goal this week, then, has been to attempt to let the little things go. To understand that, yes, stalling in a roundabout or downshifting too early is, indeed, a mistake, and could prove a dangerous one, but focusing on it to the exclusion of all of the new information around me is even more dangerous.
Not beating myself up over my mistakes has always been difficult for me, but this week, it has literally become a life-or-death matter.
Let's hope that's enough to stop me from being quite so mean to myself.
Cheese of the Week
Seeing as I'm currently in Cathar country, it seems only appropriate to show off the Cathare, a thin, flat disc of a goat cheese made in Occitanie. Despite the Occitan cross detailed in its otherwise grey, ashy surface, this cheese is made, not by natives of the region, but rather by Swiss immigrants, who opened their Ferme de Cabriole in 1985.
Relatively mild and subtle in flavor, this cheese is characterized by herbaceous and only slightly goaty aromas. Since it's not very thick, the Cathare needs to be eaten quickly if you want it to be soft and fresh – and trust me, you do.
To discover more of my favorite cheeses, be sure to follow me on Instagram @emily_in_france and tune into the Terroir Podcast, where Caroline Conner and I delve into France's cheese, wine, and more one region at a time.
Where I'm Going
1. To La Ciotat, to meet my friends' new baby and explore the beautiful ceramics they create at ICI l'Atelier.
2. To the Cave Coopérative du Mont Tauch, to stock up on local wines made by my friends.
3. To Villefranche sur Mer, to discover the beautiful Villa Gaïa. (And either celebrate or nurse my wounded pride with local rosé!)
What I'm Eating
I have spent a long time hoping that Frenchie Wine Bar would one day be restored to the place it once held in my heart, but despite this truly exquisite upscale play on one of my favorite bar snacks... I might be giving up on it ever being the restaurant I fell in love with all those years ago. More on the blog.
Discover more of my foodie finds via Instagram @emily_in_france.
What I'm Writing
1. Warmer temperatures mean that txacoli season is approaching, and my favorite saline, slightly effervescent Basque white wine is perfect when paired with the patatas bravas from Jaleo in Chicago's River North. I've got the recipe for InsideHook.
2. Our over-reliance on plastic means that microparticles can be found in our blood, stool and lungs. What does it mean for our health? Find out in this deep dive for Sliced.
3. From the archives:Â Antoine-Augustin Parmentier was the potato's ultimate hype man. Here's how the keen marketing sense of this 19th century agronomist paved the way for French fries. For Vice.
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What I'm Saying
Lyon is a city fueled by silk production and juicy Beaujolais – and it's also Caroline's home! This week, we're exploring how leatherworkers contributed to one of the most famous local seafood dishes and why Paul Bocuse felt lost whenever he left this rich gastronomic center. Tune in to the Terroir Podcast to find out more!
What I'm Reading
1. Striking the right balance between the reality of childhood emotions and melodrama is a true skill – and one that Irène Némirovsky masters deftly in her novella, Le Bal. This story, which takes place in 1920s Paris, explores the reaction of one young adolescent told by her nouveau riche parents that she's too young to attend their upcoming ball. Chaos – of course – ensues.
2. Fusion used to be a dirty word, but today, it's anything but. Danny Chau explores the blasphemous notion of mashups that sound frankly delicious in the New Yorker.
3. I do not like chopping garlic. At all. But I also think that it's ludicrous for restaurants to ban it outright. Here's more on the snooty places in New York that are, in the New York Post.
A bientôt !