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 1) Goat cheese season!   2) Frilly tulips      3) Une baguette française          4) Organic       5) Île Saint-Louis

1) Autumn stroll along the quay 2) Getting the cheese board all set up for a virtual workshop hosted by  la Cuisine Paris . If you missed it, there's another one happening in December! 3) One of my favorite things 4) Enjoying some much needed fresh air during the second lockdown in Paris 5) Nutella crêpe? Yes, please!

1) My kind of cake! 2) Do I spy Emily in Paris?    3) Giant bouquets of autumn hydrangeas 4) A modern cheese board 5) Café life

I resisted. Boy did I resist! The idea of going virtual with cheese "tastings," both during and after the lockdown in France, was completely overwhelming to me and I just didn't know how to make that transition. Several friends offered advice, but I was stubbornly closed to the idea. Then something changed.  Part of it was the positive reaction from the guest post I wrote listing my Top Ten French Cheeses for David Lebovitz's  fabulous blog. Additionally, Context Travel, who I was about to start doing tours with back in March, asked if I would join them as their online cheese connoisseur. So, I'll be going live on September 27 with a deep dive into all things cheese-y at From Camembert to Chèvre: An Exploration of French Cheese.  Hope to see you there!

1) Apéro 2) Spring green 3) Homemade applesauce happened during confinement (along with banana bread and a lot of homemade yogurt!). Apples courtesy of a neighborhood shop called Paysan Vrac . 4) No filter 5) Spinach, onion, ham and goat cheese tart

1) We have a great fromagerie around the corner, so we're still able to enjoy French cheese. Phew! 2) The nuns at the Catholic maternity clinic across from our apartment have been coming out on their roof terrace to join the 8pm applause for the health care workers, and then staying on to sing a couple of songs for the neighborhood. Complete with tambourines 3) Zonked out 4) Sunday is now pizza day! This one from last week was sautéed red onions, red peppers and Spanish chorizo 5) There were flour, egg and sugar shortages at the beginning of the lockdown, so when I walked into our local G20 grocery store and spotted this, I felt like I'd won the lottery

As life has thrown us all a curve ball and we're advised to stay inside as much as possible, I'm heeding that advice. With that, I'm being extra conscious about not wasting food (something I will definitely be better at in the future!) and being creative with what has been lurking in my kitchen cupboards. I also, like so many others, have a lot of time on my hands to cook. It's rare that I follow a recipe to the letter. When I cook I feel pretty comfortable swapping a minor ingredient or two if I don't have what the recipe calls for and if I don't think it will change the flavor of the final dish. Last night I needed to use up some fresh goat cheese and zucchini, and after looking in my cookbooks and searching online, I found this tart recipe that looked interesting, but I still felt the urge to tweak it. I thought about swapping the walnuts for toasted almonds and omitting the honey entirely, but in the end I made it almost exactly as it was written (I used dr...

It's been one year since Notre-Dame de Paris was almost destroyed by a devastating fire. Sadly, the re-construction has been temporarily put on hold due to the Covid-19 virus lock down in France. I so look forward to the day when her famous roof and spire will once again grace the skyline of Paris! The city isn't the same without her. #Parissesouvient

The New Normal. Life has completely changed since France closed non-essential businesses and asked its citizens to go into confinement in mid-March. It was supposed to last for two weeks, but now has been extended until April 15. I think this came as no surprise to anyone and now we all wonder if it will be extended again. So we wait. Fortunately, the boulangeries and fromageries are considered essential! I'm trying to avoid going out as much as possible, so every time I think about leaving the house to run and get a baguette or pop into the local fruit and vegetable shop, it's a mental tug of war of wanting to support local businesses vs. respecting the fact that we should stay inside as much as possible to avoid spreading this virus. The latter is winning. But when I do venture out, about every 5-6 days, I try to shop at the small, local places. Obviously, tourism has been hit HARD, so I'm not working for the time being. This means I could be doing many things to fill my...

It's World Cheese Day! My favorite day!

Wishing I could be as chilled as Enzo...

One of my favorite cheese shops in Paris. And her selection of Comté is incredible!

The covered passages in Paris are worth exploring! Especially on a rainy day.

As a person who gets cold quite easily, I love it when cafés offer blankets when it's cold outside.

A Corsican ewe's milk cheese sprinkled with aromatic Mediterranean herbs and sold in a perfect state of affinage. Heaven!

We kicked it off with a long walk through the quiet streets of Paris and ended it with the holy trinity - cheese, wine and bread. A good start to the new year! Wishing you all a very happy 2020!

A Haussmannian building that houses a café named after Baron Haussmann located along the Boulevard Haussmann.

The minute I started to unwrap this one, I was in heaven! SO lusciously smelly, oozing and sticky. We haven't tasted it yet, but I expect wonderful things. Oh, and for those of you who are curious, it's an ewe's milk, washed rind cheese from Corsica. I can't wait to try it!

Les grèves in Paris continue...* I've been averaging seven miles a day on foot since last Thursday to get to and from my  food tours , but this morning I had a long walk across the river for a cheese workshop , and as an added bonus there was a huge protest march this afternoon, so it took me almost two hours to get home after being rerouted due to closed bridges and roads. The entire time I was walking (and hungry!) I was focusing on two things;  one was not getting run down by the inexperienced cyclists and trottinette  drivers, and the other was making a giant bowl of comforting, filling spaghetti carbonara for dinner when I got home. And a giant bowl it was! I should have invited several friends over to share it with us. (However, I know I'll appreciate the leftovers when I get home tomorrow night!) *There are a few more days of strikes (grèves) predicted, but hopefully things will get back to normal by this weekend. 

"You are the love of my life."