Emily in France 🇫🇷 A Year in Review
Cheese, retreats, fiction, and more
My phone blew up with well wishes at around 6pm EST this year – and that’s par for the course. After all, in France, it's very bad luck to wish anyone a happy new year until the new year has, in fact, begun. (Luckily, we get a month to do it!)
I’m not usually one for New Year’s resolutions; instead, I tend to focus on a word – or, occasionally, a phrase – to govern my decision-making over the year, usually a word that surfaces slowly and naturally in my journaling. It’s lower-pressure than a resolution, as there’s no inbuilt failure associated with it. Rather, it’s an invitation to help me pay attention to areas in my life I feel I've been neglecting.
Over the years, in an effort to focus on anything from my career to my relationships, I've cycled through a variety of choices, anything from feel to focus, honesty to books. This year, my word is going to be kind.
As the world settles solidly into its new normal, I find myself returning to some unfortunate old habits, and one in particular, a counterpoint of having my fingers in a thousands pots, of embracing all the richness this world has to offer: a damning lack of patience.
Living in Paris has certainly trained a bit of this out of me. After all, one of my favorite things about customer interactions in France is that they take however long they take. Queue up at the butcher’s on a Sunday morning, and you’ll see this illustrated perfectly, as everyone, whether they're ordering a full rack of lamb or a single slice of ham, is given the exact same respect, time, and expertise.
This year, I want to be more like that butcher: to be in the present moment, to sow more sunshine in each interaction, however banal and quotidian. If I’m mindful of suffusing as many moments of my life with humanity and kindness as I can, surely that will resonate in a greater thematic arc over not just moments but days, weeks, months, a year. A lifetime.
And this, as much in my interactions with others as in my relationship with myself.
I realized this year that I've been hustling this freelance life for a decade. Ten whole years of pitching into the void, of developing relationships with editors only to witness with horror yet another transformation of the media world that sees countless talented people lose their jobs, forcing us all to begin again. Of late, I’ve been grappling with my relationship to writing, with the way that my craft has become my career.
But in preparing for this newsletter, I decided to take a closer look at the highlights of my year… and I was surprised to find that there were a lot more high points than even I remembered.
I traveled a lot. I drank craft beer in Bristol; I ate cheese in the foothills of Snowdonia. I embarked on a discovery of Northern Italy with Cheese Journeys, and I wandered through the Christmas markets of Frankfurt. I ate incredible porchetta last New Year’s Day in Normandy, and this past June, I walked nearly 40,000 steps on my first day in Rome.
Sometimes, work was what took me to new places, but often, it was purely for pleasure – and that’s saying a lot. Vacation is a very dirty word in my world, but this year, I embraced time off, and it was pretty glorious.
Work-travel is often quite solitary, but this year, it was anything but. I hosted not one, not two, but three retreats: two editions of ceramics- and cuisine-focused TERRE/MER in La Ciotat, and the inaugural edition of the Nantes Writers’ Workshop in Nantes.
I judged two cheese contests, one in Frankfurt and the other in Paris, bringing my grand total to four.
I also earned my Cheese Academy Associate Certification and interviewed dozens of producers and experts in pursuit of great stories about cheese, including three new articles in my cheese column for My French Life on Picodon, Epoisses, and Brie de Melun.
And that's not all. I penned over a hundred published pieces on topics from mustard to mezcal to Munster. I met fellow journalist Caitlin Gunther, who introduced to the concept of judging one’s career on having just two pieces to be proud of in a year. When I looked back at my list, I found it difficult to narrow the list down to just six, which must mean I’m doing pretty well.
(If you’re interested, they are as follows, and in no particular order: Une Journée Avec…a Parisian Café Owner [France Today], France's illustrious blue 'Breton lobster' [BBC], Gladstone's: The UK's only residential library [BBC], A Cheese Lover’s Guide to Northern Wales [InsideHook], This Food Trend Sweeping Paris Makes Absolutely No Sense [Saveur], The Last Mustard Maker in Dijon [Atlas Obscura])
I was pretty pleased with that list, and in no small part due to the fact that as opposed to last year, which ended with me feeling fried and burned out, I balanced all that travel and hard work with lots of great time at home in Paris. I celebrated many friends and their accomplishments, from Forest Collins’ new book Drink Like a Local to Allison Zinder’s new newsletter Paris on the Edge, from lifelong friends discovering their new roles as parents to members of my writing circle bringing a project to completion. I took time to enjoy the company of those who, over the course of the past sixteen years in Paris, have become my found family.
Much of that time, it must be said, took place at the table.
I sampled loads of new restaurants, with some new favorites emerging. Again, in no particular order… Dan Pear’s phenomenal pizza pop-up Pizzamarole, the lovely prix fixe at Montmartrois le Maquis, no-nonsense Thai street food at Funky Ba, phenomenal Lebanese small plates at Kubri, hearty bistro classics at Bistrot des Tournelles, contemporary bistro fare at Au Petit Panisse, old-school classics at Chez Georges, upscale seafood at Les Parisiens, excellent Chinese noodles at La Taverne de ZHAO, and an unbeatable lunch prix fixe at Café les Deux Gares.
When I wasn't out and about in Paris, I read a ton, which isn't unusual but certainly bears mentioning. Of the 41 books I read over the course of the year, my faves were probably Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman, The Whole Fromage by Kathe Lison, Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott, Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker, and Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link, the latter of which I've already read countless times but is always a pleasure to rediscover.
Reading this much was partially for the pure pleasure of it, but it also motivated the fiction-writing side of my brain/life/heart, which I admittedly discuss far less in this newsletter than the journalism side of my brain/life/heart. But fiction came into focus this year in more ways than one.
Not only did I start attending Paris Lit Up’s Thursday evening spoken word on the reg, but I also finally completed the NaNoWriMo challenge for the first year ever while waiting for my squad of phenomenal writer friends to finish reading the latest draft of my novel (spoilers: it’s cheese focused) so that I could get it into shape to send it off to my agent.
And while that’s still a long time coming in its journey from brain to book, I did have the honor of appearing in print in the inaugural edition of Version Originale, a new bilingual literary journal, with a short story stolen from pages that once belonged to the novel of my heart.
I promise that being kind to myself won't always look like tooting my own horn… but as I look back on this year, by any measure, it was a success. And I can't wait to see what 2024 has in store.
Cheese of the Week
Laguiole is an Aveyronnais delicacy with a crumbly, cheddar-like texture, albeit devoid of the sharpness most associate with this style of cheese. Instead, Laguiole boasts a lactic, occasionally meaty flavor, depending on the producer. Traditionally made from the milk of Aubrac cattle who graze on high summer pastures, the cheese was nearly lost in the 20th century, given the harsh terrain and slow eschewing of the traditional transhumance that led cheesemakers up to the burons of the summer pastures. Luckily, local endeavors have brought it back to its former glory, and these days, it's easy to find and enjoy – preferably sliced with the knife that bears the same name.
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’ve been to Chez Georges on rue du Mail three times now, and each time I think they can’t impress me any more, I’m proven wrong. I’ve been wowed by the salade lyonnaise and the ris de veau; I’ve been charmed by the old-school service and dining room. And now, I’ve even been wooed by the front-of-house team, who have dubbed me Emily Cheese. (This is even the way they wrote my booking in the old-school reservations book. I so wish I’d nabbed a photo.) More on the blog.
What I’m Doing
1. Our next TERRE/MER retreat is on the books! Join us for cooking, ceramics, and yoga overlooking the Mediterranean from April 11 to 14. Book now to secure yoru spot!
2. Signups for the next edition of the Nantes Writers’ Workshop are open! In the meantime, be sure to sign up for our newsletter to keep those creative juices a-flowing.
What I'm Writing
1. In 20 years, around 500 of Paris’ cafés have closed. I attempted to suss out why for France Today.
2. Whether you’re prepping pork, steak or shrimp, these Mexican marinades from Chef Rick Martinez will up your cooking game this season. For InsideHook.
3. From the archives: Andouillette, a tripe sausage, represents just two percent of French charcuterie production, but one volunteer-based group is committed to preserving its cultural legacy. For Food & Wine.
What I'm Reading
1. This gritty, raunchy work from Haitian-Canadian Académie française member Dany Laferrière takes advantage of short, almost vignette-like chapters to propel a relatively plot-averse, almost autofiction-esque exploration of creativity, hinging on issues linked to race, class, and sex. Smart, funny, and perceptive, this satirical novel is provocative, thought-provoking, and wholly enjoyable.
2. After having read Yellowface, I adored sinking my teeth into this heart wrenching story of a woman dedicated to finishing the manuscript her dying friend left behind. In the New Yorker.
3. This story on expected food trends this year. I can’t decide what I’m less excited about: buckwheat, florals, or soup. In the New York Times.
A bientôt !