Archive
French home cooking is not elaborate. It is one very good ingredient, correctly handled, surrounded by things that get out of its way. Compl...
French bureaucracy is difficult for French people too. The paperwork, the missing document, the second visit. Nobody finds it easy, and comp...
Background noise is not added by default. French homes are often quiet, without a television or radio running unattended, and silence in com...
An after-dinner spirit is offered, not poured, and it arrives in a very small glass. Its function is to mark the end of the meal rather than...
They are handed on, altered or sold, and only then discarded. Depot-vente shops take good pieces on consignment, and clothing that cannot be...
The kitchen is a workroom, not a social space. It is compact, everything is within reach of one position, and the entertaining happens at th...
October and November belong to chestnuts. Street braziers appear, and chestnuts move into savoury dishes rather than desserts: with cabbage,...
The baguette is regulated: a baguette de tradition may contain only flour, water, salt and yeast, and must be made on the premises. French p...
Rest, soup, and staying home. French workplaces expect an absent colleague to be absent, and presenteeism with an infection is regarded as i...
Directly on the cloth, torn not cut, and present from the beginning to the end of the meal. There is no butter with it unless there is somet...
A proper coat and an umbrella, not technical waterproofs. Wet weather in France is dressed for with the same wardrobe as dry weather, plus o...
As days shorten, French homes move light lower and warmer rather than brighter. Candles appear on the table in October and stay until March....
Mushrooms are never washed under a tap in France. They are brushed. Water fills them, and a waterlogged mushroom steams in the pan instead o...
Repair, not replace. French heritage law is strict, and living in a two-hundred-year-old apartment with its original floors is unremarkable ...
French daily walking does not stop when the weather turns. Errands still happen on foot in October, in rain, with an umbrella. The pattern i...
From October, French hosting shifts to gratins, roasts and things that live in the oven for an hour. The house smells right, the kitchen war...
French autumn layering is thin wool over cotton under a coat. Bulk is avoided entirely: three thin layers are warmer, more adjustable and be...
Most French homes have no dedicated guest room. A sofa converts, a study takes a bed, and no square metre is held empty for eleven months ag...
The water that vegetables or pasta cooked in is an ingredient, not waste. It carries starch and salt, and a ladleful will bind a sauce more ...
The weekly market is where a French town sees itself. It is a fixed day, it has run for centuries in some places, and it functions as much a...
A short afternoon rest is not treated as a failure of stamina in France. It is brief, it is not discussed as productivity optimisation, and ...
Sunday midday is the fixed family meal in France, and it holds across generations. Nothing is scheduled against it, and the invitation does ...
One or the other, not both. French makeup convention picks a single feature to emphasise and leaves the rest alone, and the base is kept lig...
Mail is dealt with on the day it arrives, standing at the entryway, into one of three outcomes: bin, act, file. It never reaches a horizonta...
Parsley, chervil, tarragon and chives are added off the heat, at the table if possible. Cooking them destroys exactly what you bought them f...
The initial answer to a request in France is frequently no, and it is not final. It is the opening of a negotiation, and accepting it as a v...
A French plate holds noticeably less than an American one, and seconds are offered rather than assumed. The portion is calibrated to be fini...
French children sit with the adults, eat the same food, and stay for the length of the meal. There is no separate children menu and no early...
The typical French wardrobe is a fraction of the Anglo-American average, and the difference is deliberate. Fewer things, each used more, eac...
A French person eating alone still lays a place: plate, glass, napkin, cutlery. Eating from a container standing up is not a shortcut, it is...