Teach a man to order a brownie and he’ll save you two steps?
A Dane and an American walk into a bakery in Paris, one orders a pistachio crumble, the other a brownie. The baker says... Read this sad tale of French service in which the author is berated for ordering a brownie inefficiently.
Teach a man to print stamps and he’ll communicate with the world
Service at my local post office has improved over the years, but as this recent experience shows modernizing and privatizing a French post office doesn't necessarily modernize and humanize the employees.
Portrait: Fabien Nègre
Fabien Nègre is a French writer, journalist, consultant to chefs and restaurateurs, gastronomic critic and commentator, wine man and cigar connoisseur.
Mano Solo has died. If you don’t know his work check it out.
Mano Solo, one of the most remarkable, independent voices of contemporary French music since the release of his first album in 1993, has died at the age of 46. He is buried in Pere Lachaise Cemetery.
Dom Pérignon and the Birth of Champagne
As cellar master at the Benedictine Abbey of Hautvillers, Dom Pérignon was instrumental in development of clear, bubbly, cork-popping Champagne.
Leslie Caron kicks off the release of her memoir “Thank Heaven”
To those with memories of Hollywood’s Golden Age, watching Leslie Caron in An American in Paris (1951) opposite Gene Kelly was enough to turn...
Prizewinning project “anima” at the French Institute
Jean-François Spricigo, the 2008 winner of the Prix de Photographie by the French Académie des Beaux-Arts, says that he learned photography during night walks with his dog. If so then, anima, the exhibit of his work at the Institut de France, is as personal for him as it is haunting for the viewer.
My Dear General: the relationship between Lafayette and Washington
The Marquis de Lafayette first met George Washington in Philadelphia in the summer of 1777. At 19, the marquis had left his wife and baby in France to pursue his heroic dream of helping to win America’s freedom. From almost his first meeting with Washington, Lafayette claimed the general as the father he had never known.
African-American sacred songs in Paris
Gospel’s got a special place in the soul of Europeans, who, generally speaking, hear it not as a call to praise the Lord but...