Adieu to the année maudit 👋
Huge news for your host, a holiday gift guide, achievements in French cheese
Dear readers,
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! …Kind of. As we come to the end of the longest, shortest year in human history, I’m delivering all kinds of treats to your inbox today: big news about your host, a holiday gift guide for Francophiles (and those who love them), a recipe roundup and a few diverting odds and ends. This newsletter is a doozy, a million miles long, with something for everyone. Ready? Allons-y!
I’ll be releasing my last episode of the year in the next few weeks, and I’m excited about it. If you absolutely miss the sound of my voice in the meantime, I have a very cool substitute: I’m going to be the guest host on next week’s episode of the Dear Prudence podcast! For years, my friend Danny Lavery has been running one of America’s foremost advice columns. As a very bossy know-it-all, it’s always been my lifelong dream to tell people what to do professionally. Needless to say, being invited to tell complete strangers how to live their lives is one of the highlights of my year. The new episode will air on December 8th at 11 AM PST!
The Land of Desire Gift Guide: 2020 Edition
Just imagine it: if you were in France right now, you’d be strolling through a Christmas market, sipping vin chaud, picking up a few locally-produced, artisanal crafts for your loved ones and-
Just kidding. 71% of French people buy their Christmas presents online, and that was before the confinement. So do like the French do, shop safely at home, avoid the cheaply-produced tat, and invest in something delicious or beautiful or brilliant for the Francophiles in your life (or add these to your own Christmas list..)
P.S. I’ve tried to avoid linking to the big stores as much as possible, so you can use these links to support small businesses while you check off everyone on your Nice list!
For the gourmand
There are a few places I’d like my ashes scattered someday. One of those places is the Treasures Room of the British Library Museum. One of the other places is the tea room of the flagship Mariage Frères store in the Marais. It’s simply the best smelling place on earth. I’m obsessed with their tea, I have a million kinds and every trip to Paris yields a few more varieties that they don’t export. Their tea is packaged in beautiful containers that make for very luxurious gifts, and I think they’re the perfect $30 gift for a relative who’s hard to shop for. You can buy their tea online from Market Hall Foods based right here out of Oakland. If you prefer cream and sugar in your tea, the Wedding Imperial is heaven. If you prefer something that stands on its own, Thè des Impressionnistes is a green tea that smells like vanilla and strawberries. I just discovered that The Cultured Cup is importing a new almond tea and as someone with a 6 pound marzipan advent calendar staring at her from across the table, this feels like dangerous knowledge.
Maison Boissier is one of the oldest chocolate shops in Paris. Victor Hugo was said to be a huge fan (to the chagrin of the shopgirls, no doubt). Food52 has a bunch of their goods for sale right now, like this beautifully packaged set of heart-shaped truffles.
Some of the best news to come out of 2020: Angelina opened the first US location of their famous tearoom (let’s be real: hot chocolate emporium) in NYC last month. For the rest of us, that means you can now buy some of their treats domestically through Goldbelly. Stuff’s going fast, but if they restock the crispy crepes, don’t hesitate! (You can also buy Ladurée products, which are not my favorites but heaven knows they’re popular.)
Look, you’re going to think I’m crazy, but go with me here: the best gift to give to someone you love is salted French butter. Rodolphe le Meunier makes the best butter I can buy in the United States. It is the alpha and omega of my cooking. It is my self-care. It is my friend in These Uncertain Times. If you live in the Bay Area, you can find it at Mollie Stone’s, Bi-Rite Market and other bougie food halls. Otherwise, you can buy online.
For the cook
I say it every year: buy your favorite baker a madeleine pan. It’s just specialized enough that they probably don’t have one sitting around in their kitchen already, but once they have one, madeleines are marvelously easy to whip up. This is the pan I use (gifted to me by a hungry boyfriend) but if you’re trying to avoid buying from Amazon, here are versions sold by independent cookware stores in New York City, Boulder CO, and Portland OR.
Instantly French! Classic French Recipes For Your Electric Pressure Cooker: Calme toi, calme toi. The pressure cooker is a French invention (Denis Papin, 1679) and bonnes femmes have been taking advantage of them for ages. Ann Mah wrote Mastering The Art of French Eating (a new classic) so she knows what she’s talking about. This is on my own personal Christmas list.
My Paris Kitchen by David Lebovitz - This cookbook contains my favorite dinner recipe of all time (yes, even above Julia’s boeuf bourguignon): the divine poulet à la moutarde. I’m linking to it below because it’s a perfect holiday meal, but god, this cookbook really is a treasure. David Lebovitz has been doing this for so long that I remember using his blog to research where to eat before I first moved to France. If you’re not a cook, consider his new book on French cocktails, Drinking French.
My Life In France by Julia Child - There will never be a year when this isn’t on my list. Julia Child is the only celebrity that I’ve come to love more after learning about their lives in great detail. Her memoir is a treasure and a gift.
Dirt by Bill Buford (see below)
For the reader
Dirt by Bill Buford - One of my favorite delights of this strange year. The inimitable Buford decides midway through the season of his life that he would rather, actually, become a chef. He documented his struggles in the kitchen in his now classic book, Heat, but decided Italian cooking wasn’t enough punishment: he was going to learn from the great chefs of Lyon. Buford is a classic aw-shucks type, stumbling his way around the kitchen, and this book is a wonderfully entertaining. You may recognize Bill from the greatest episode of Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown, linked below.
Je Ne Suis Pas Parisienne by Alice Pfieffer - Ahh, is there a word for the moment when you realize someone has finally written the thought that was in your heart all along? If you’re bored to death of the “French Girl” stereotypes and the sight of Jeanne Damas makes your eyes twitch, this is the book for you. I wish I could hand out copies of this book to everyone. I fall prey to the mythology the same as anyone else (ask me how much I’ve spent on red lipstick in a year nobody can see my face) but this book felt someone pointing on that the Emperor has no clothes, not even a pair of Sézane jeans. You can read more about this work in Marie Claire.
Berezina by Sylvain Tesson - We got really into The Long Way Up this year, watching Ewan McGregor and his friend Charley Boorman ride motorcycles all the way up South America. This book is a hilarious sort of counterpart, only this time, the author and two of his friends hop on motorcycles to recreate Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow to Paris.
Paris On Air by Oliver Gee - Oliver runs the popular podcast The Earful Tower, where he managed to snag an interview with a certain French history podcast host before she hopped a train. Now he’s published an entire book about his experiences interviewing Parisians on the ground over the last five years!
Today Sardines Are Not For Sale by Paula Schwartz - If you loved learning about women in the French Resistance, here’s a new scholarly work about two singular protests by women in the grocery lines. For anyone interested in gender, power, the Resistance, and how cultural memory gets created or destroyed, this book is for you.
The French Embassy actually runs a lovely bookstore, and it’s one of the easiest ways to order the big literary prize winners of 2020 before US stockists can get their hands on them.
For the art lover
750 Years In Paris by Vincent Mahé - Alas, I cannot find any link outside of Amazon, but this is one of the lovelier gifts I’ve ever received. It’s a beautiful illustrated book depicting a single house over the course of nearly one millennia of French history. Children would love it - bright colors, tons of funny, clever details. It’s fun to browse through and try to guess exactly which historical event is getting depicted in each year (there’s a key at the back). My favorite touch is the way the goods for sale change over the course of history, i.e. New World fruits showing up after the 1500s. It’s a perfect coffee table book.
Renoir, My Father - A portrait of the artist by his son, the great film director. This book was out of print for so long, and now it’s beautifully reprinted through NYRB, so your favorite art lover probably doesn’t have a copy already.
The Private Lives of the Impressionists by Sue Roe - One of my favorite general art history books. It’s a total crowd-pleaser, offering a perfect balance between informative background on Impressionist art and 19th century France and juicy gossip about famous artists. I’ve re-read it many times, and it’s inspired my episodes “Manet & Morisot & Manet” and “Four’s Company - The Scandalous House of Claude Monet”.
Wouldn’t be a holiday newsletter without wintertime treats, now would it? Heaven knows we’re all still at home, so if you aren’t utterly sick of cooking, here are a few of my favorites for chilly days and nights:
Make my favorite madeleine recipe but this time add orange zest and 3/4 teaspoon cardamom. If you’re not afraid of spice, I like to add allspice and cloves too for a little pain d’epices effect.
As mentioned above, David Lebovitz’s poulet á la moutarde is one of my all-time favorite recipes. It’s very simple, doesn’t require a million ingredients (or very expensive ones) and it’s incredibly rich and hearty. You can’t make this dinner during summer, you’ll just collapse. It’s perfect for winter nights, paired with crusty bread to soak up every bit of that sauce.
Bertrand Larcher’s Breizh Café is one of my favorite places to eat in the Marais, and when I went to Japan a few years ago I was overjoyed to see he had a bunch of locations in Tokyo. I’m a huge fan of Breton savory crepes/galettes, and the last truly good restaurant to serve them in San Francisco closed a few years ago. (Aspiring SF chefs: please fill this gap!!!!!) Savory crepes are perfect cold weather food. The English version of his crepe cookbook is out of print and hard to find, but I splurged on a copy which should arrive by Christmas - my gift to myself! In the meantime, you can use his recipe for a potato, mushroom and sausage galette.
Danny Lavery is the one who first pointed out this line^, the funniest moment in the entire duration of 30 Rock. I have news for him - at long last, it is that much cheese:
French Madman Officially Breaks Intense Pizza Record
Up above, I recommended Bill Buford’s newest book about becoming a chef in Lyon. If that sounds familiar, it might be because he was in one of the best episodes of Parts Unknown, set in Lyon, where he takes Anthony out for a hell of a meal. This cozy, wintery episode shows Anthony at his absolute happiest, meeting his idol, Paul Bocuse. (There’s even a shoutout to les mères lyonnaises featured in “A Tour de France: Lyon”!) I cry every time I watch this episode, and it makes for wonderful viewing this time of year.
I’ll look forward to sharing my last episode of the year with you all very soon. Until then, catch me on the new episode of the Dear Prudence podcast, try your hand at those madeleines, and say hello in the comments. This year is almost over, friends. Here’s to happiness and above all, health, in the year to come.
Bisous,
Diana
Joyeux Noël! I acted upon an earlier tip of yours and bought some Mariage Frères tea (blue “noël in love” - incredible!). It nicely complements the 13 desserts of Provence that I assembled, including a fougasse that I made (first time - won’t be the last!).