Emily in France 🇫🇷 On Routine in a Life Built on the Unexpected
Routines get a bad rep.
This might be odd, coming from a freelancer, but I love routines.Â
The reality is that most of the time, my days couldn't look more different from one another. Some days I start things off with a four-hour food tour, and I spend the afternoon and early evening fielding phone calls from chefs and culinary experts in American time zones on topics as varied (and occasionally esoteric) as the presence of microplastics in the food system or how to recreate a Puerto Rican pig roast in your own backyard. Sometimes, I begin the day, instead, by archiving photos, or spending a few hours with my novel, or walking an hour to the American Library, only to guide American visitors through a wine-and-cheese pairing in the late afternoon and finish things off with a guided whisky tasting from a Scottish expat. Some days, I leave Paris entirely, to visit producers and farmers in the Auvergne or in Brie or in Normandy, for a day or a week or sometimes even more time than that.
But no matter how the rest of my day pans out, it always starts the same.
Whenever possible, I let myself wake up naturally: around 7am, usually, and hopefully because the sun is poking through the window. I make coffee. And without so much as glancing at a screen, I grab a book, and I read for as long as the story holds me. When I'm done, I journal in a paper journal. And when I've filled a page, I spend at least a few minutes with my novel. Then, and only then, do I check emails and get to work.
It's a routine I try to stick to every single day, though I'll admit there are some where I deviate. But I don't beat myself up about it; I just try again the next day.
I've completed my routine in Paris and New York, in villas and ski chalets, on trains and planes and, once, in a moving car. It's a little gift to myself in a life built on variety: After all, it means that no matter where else the day takes me, no matter how distracted I become, I've done the three most important things before I've done anything else at all.
How about you, reader? What does your morning routine look like?
Cheese of the Week
This week, I'm once more featuring, not a cheese, but a cheese plate: one I tasted at a recent visit to Marie-Anne Cantin's 7th arrondissement cheese shop. Working clockwise from the 10 o'clock spot, the plate featured Comté, Saint-Nectaire, truffled Brillat-Savarin, a sheep's milk cheese from the Pyrenees, Rocamadour, Camembert, and Roquefort – and that's before we sampled the Morbier, fresh butter, and Marie-Anne's favorite Coulommiers!
All were delicious, but I've got to admit I had a special preference for the Saint-Nectaire. How about you? Which one would your favorite be?
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.
Â
Where I'm Going
1. To Gilles Marchal, in the 18th, to snag a seasonal strawberry-basil madeleine.
2. To a clothing swap in the 15th with cocktails catered by my friend and cocktail expert Forest of 52Martinis.
3. To my storage unit, to figure out what the heck I did with last month's receipts. (It ain't all glamor and glitz, this freelance life!)
What I'm Eating
Laouz is an Algerian-inspired pastry shop with an eye towards uniting tradition and innovation, not to mention the flavors of Chef Rachid Sellali’s heritage and his travels. The results might be a corne de gazelle pastry scented with Espelette pepper, or a coconut-flavored mchawek. Each offering is more beautiful than the next, making it difficult to choose just one! (So I didn’t.) More on the blog.
Discover more of my foodie finds via Instagram @emily_in_france.
What I'm Writing
1. Once upon a time, according to Aurélien Vorger, director of the Groupement d’employeurs des AOP Persillés in France’s formerly volcanic Auvergne region, fourme was another word for cheese. Since then, however, it's come to refer to one of two specific blue cheeses, one of which, Fourme d'Ambert, is the subject of my third cheese column for My French Life.
2. The cool kids aren’t grilling beef anymore — here’s what they’re making instead. For InsideHook.
3. Whether you call it zucchini or courgette, this little summer squash is nothing if not bountiful come summertime. I delved into the common mistakes home cooks make with this staple vegetable for Tasting Table.
Â
What I'm Reading
1. Elif Shafak is nothing if not prolific, but somehow it took the impetus of The Immigrant Book Club's choosing The Island of Missing Trees for me to delve into her world. I've been told that her works are as varied as they are numerous, but I really enjoyed the magical realism, familial themes, and political undertones of this novel... if not the dialogue, which somehow seemed even more stilted given the vivid character of her otherwise flawless prose.
2. In Wyoming, one man who survived suicide has given himself a new mission: Help other men overcome the pressures of the expectations of masculinity. In the Washington Post.
3. A number of factors (only some of which are linked to Covid) led Chef Roy Choi to examine his own role in the gentrification of one Los Angeles neighborhood. In Life & Thyme.
A bientôt !