Emily in France 🇫🇷 I Know What I'm Bad At
I am the absolute worst at group chats.
I'm not one to self-flagellate, but let's say I know my faults.
I'm a pretty horrendous workaholic. My sense of direction is, in a word, abhorrent. (Which, according to this study, might just be due to the fact that I'm from New York.)
I have laser focus to my own detriment, which I recognize sounds like one of those false flaws like "I'm too much of a team player" but actually means I tend not to notice things (like the fact that the sun has gone to bed and I've been attempting to read in the dark for about an hour) until someone informs me. (Which seems, to me, to contradict the plausibility of my sense of direction or lack thereof being solely linked to the fact that I grew up in a grid system. My father grew up in a grid system and his natural sense of where north is borders on uncanny.)
I talk too loudly, even after years in France, and I never answer the phone when it rings. (I also don't save phone numbers in my phone, which may be why I don't ever pick up.) My housekeeping skills are middling at best, and the most I'm willing to do to "do" my hair is wash it every once in awhile.
But perhaps my worst fault is this: I'm really bad at group chats.
Like many Millennials my age, I'm a member of no shortage of such chats on WhatsApp and Signal, but while messages in one or another appear on my phone screen with fairly reliable frequency, the best I can do is congratulate someone on an announcement of an accolade or accomplishment (often way after the fact) or occasionally drop in a link to something I've read I think the group might like with no context at all.
I've long suspected that group chats were not my forte, but it wasn't until reading this story in the Cut that I gave it any real thought. The piece, which posits that the group chat is actually on its way out, was meant to be a think piece. But all it really did was make me feel that icky mix of low-grade guilt and panic, thinking about the chats with my uni friends, my siblings, my family, and my writing group I've left on read in the past few days, weeks, months... years.
Part of me thinks my reticence in group chats is an echo of being bad at class participation, a fear, somehow, of getting it "wrong" in what feels like such a public arena. Part of me thinks it's down to the actual way in which I use my phone, rarely actually conducting long conversations on any messenger platform, whether with one friend or several. Those who know know that a text conversation with me that should have lasted six minutes can last six weeks, and when there are other voices in the melee, anything I really think of saying is far from being relevant by the time I get around to saying it, a tendency only complicated by the fact that my phone's most frequent state, when not in my hand, is upside down and on silent. (Seriously, one of the major takeaways I got from this story is that some people actually use the ringer on theirs.)
But if I'm honest with myself, I think the biggest contributing factor to my being bad at group chats isn't the chat part – it's the group part. I prefer my social interactions one-on-one: It's better for my poor directional hearing (another flaw), for my natural introversion, and, frankly, for my anxious brain.
Seeing as one of my goals is to stay put a bit more this year, I'm looking forward to an added benefit: more time spent one-on-one, in person, with people I love.
If you're in a group chat with me, don't expect things to get any better – and don't take it personally. But if you're in Paris, please, let's meet up this year. I promise, I really want to know what you're up to... and I want to give you my undivided attention.
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Cheese of the Week
One of my life goals is to someday have a cheese named after me, as Paul Georgelet did with his Tomme de Paul. (Of course, ideally, [and à la Brillat Savarin] I wouldn't have to make the cheese myself. Still working on that bit.) Georgelet's eponymous tomme is made from goat's milk, which makes sense, given that he produces it in Poitou, one of France's goat cheese capitals. Both funky and lactic, the cheese boasts three distinct textures, with a rich, fudgy center surrounded by a thin, barnyardy layer beneath the rugged rind redolent of cellar and stone.
Bleu de l'Aveyron is a cow's milk version of Roquefort – arguably one of France's most famous blue cheeses. It has the same damp, crumbly texture and piquant flavor as its more famous cousin but is devoid of the barnyardy aroma so typical of ewe's milk.
To discover more of my favorite cheeses, be sure to follow me on Instagram @emily_in_france, subscribe to my YouTube channel, and tune into the Terroir Podcast, where Caroline Conner and I delve into France's cheese, wine, and more one region at a time.
What I'm Eating
I grew up in New York City, where great pizza is pretty easy to come by (if you know where to look), and satisfying pizza is literally on every street corner. (Is there a pizza more satisfying than a dollar slice? I think not.) All that to say that I’m not generally on the lookout for great pizza. Great tacos? Yes. Great croque monsieur? Obviously. But I already have John’s on Bleecker. I don’t need to go searching for my be-all and end-all pizza when it already exists.
That said, when someone recommends a pizza as wholeheartedly as folks have been Stanning the ones at Pizzamarole, the pop-up currently in residence at Michelin-starred Rigmarole, I sit up and pay attention. And I’m very, very glad I did. More on the blog.
Discover more of my foodie finds via Instagram @emily_in_france and on the blog.
Where I'm Going
1. To Nellu, for chef-driven food with Korean flourishes in the heart of the Marais.
2. To Wanted Café, a spot that invites locals sleeping rough and other folks from the neighborhood to exchange and chat over drinks and games.
3. Back to Pizzamarole – No, but seriously, I reserved my next visit before the ice cream on the apple crumble up top had even melted.
What I'm Writing
1. What’s the cheesy, bacony way to say “hygge” in French? Tartiflette, bien sûr. For Food52.
2. The Sino-Spanish founders of Mercado Famous share tips and tricks for presenting and enjoying cured meats. For InsideHook.
3. These siblings sell the secret spices powering DC's hottest menus. For InsideHook.
What I'm Reading
1. Most of my favorite food writing is highly critical (like this total pan of Chez l’Ami Louis), but I adored this piece on soup (a food, btw, that I do not like), which features the following lines: "I will sweat in the awkward Pittsburgh summer heat, which vaguely replicates the experience of biting into a fresh-out-the-toaster frozen waffle that hasn’t cooked all the way through.” ...and... "If you attempt to run while also attempting to eat it, you will experience both the loss of soup and the gain of well-deserved shame." In the Washington Post.
2. My family experienced the slow tragedy of Alzheimer’s with my grandmother. This story explores the ways in which one revolutionary village is attempting to give sufferers of the disease more autonomy and a new lease on life. In the New Yorker.
3. This story about the frustratingly contradictory urgency and stagnancy of long-form fiction writing. In the Millions.
A bientôt !