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1) Curves 2) Sunday rollerblading 3) The country comes to the city 4) Wandering through the passages 5) Trying to fly

It's not every day that you get invited to spend an afternoon sitting in a small room overlooking the Seine with an MOF or two, the president of la Chambre professionnelle des artisans boulangers-pâtissiers de Paris ,  a delightful fromagère, Djibril Bodian,  the winner  of last year's Best Baguette in Paris competition and, most importantly, two long tables lined with baguettes. 155 baguettes to be exact. To be tasted by only 15 of us. A seemingly endless and daunting task, yet it was taken very seriously. We inspected, sniffed, poked, prodded, chewed and tasted 71 baguettes each over the course of the afternoon. The tasting wrapped up around 6:45pm, the final numbers were tallied up and the winner was called just after 7pm. Then the bottles of Champagne came out, I'm sure with the goal to both toast us for our efforts and to get the flavor of bread out of our mouths. Baguettes, as far as the eye can see! As I mentioned in my most recent post , the jury is made up of mai...

This is the photo that got me through the door. Every year, in addition to a handful of industry professionals, the Mayor of Paris chooses 6 members of the general public to sit on the jury of le Grand Prix de la Baguette de Tradition Française de la Ville de Paris  or the Best Baguette in Paris competition. For the last couple of years, with fingers crossed, I (along with I'm sure thousands of others) submitted my email to the lottery, but with no success. This year the Mayor decided to use Instagram as a way to select the lucky 6. Two weeks ago they put the word out, asking the public to post a photo of their favorite boulangerie, baker or baguette with the hashtag #MeilleureBaguetteDeParis. I guess someone at the Mayor's office liked my photo, because last Monday I received this comment ,  "Bonjour, vous avez été sélectionnée pour participer au jury qui élira la #MeilleureBaguetteDeParis. Félicitations :) Le jury aura lieu le jeudi 17 mars à 14h." I was ecstatic,...

"Jamais dans le réfrigérateur!," la fromagère firmly stated as I was buying this wedge of Tome du Ramier at the  Pari Fermier  market today. Concerned by that advice, I told her that our apartment was often quite warm.  "Better it is kept too warm than too cold," she replied. And as much as I would love to experiment with how long I could leave this cheese sitting out at room temperature before it starts to decompose, I highly doubt that it will be around long enough to find out!

1) Crab cake po' boy, and the most amazing onion rings! 2) French Quarter colors 3) On the float, beads and booze at the ready 4) Dancin' in the streets 5) Royal Street

We've been living in Paris full time for three months now (after my 1.5 years of commuting from Normandy), and I have a few observations to make: There is a lot of dust.  And I mean a lot! I thought that living in the country, surrounded by vineyards and la garrigue would mean serious dust, but the Minervois has absolutely nothing on Paris. Our vacuum cleaner is getting quite the work out. Uber rocks. That's all I need to say about that. Watching the Eiffel Tower sparkle every night makes me happy.  Yes, we have that cliché "American in Paris" view. Which, as it turns out, is fabulous. I never thought I could be such a sap. Pedestrians are cocky. They walk right up to you and expect you to move out of  their  way. They step out in the middle of the street in front of oncoming traffic. They ignore the "Don't Walk" sign. They're lucky they're still alive. Access to such an abundance of ingredients from around the world amazes me. Spend 12+ years...

1) La Petite France 2) Tarte flambée - cream, bacon and onion perfection 3) Dusk 4) Bûche de Noël - classic and not so much 5) Almond studded kugelhupf