Are you happy to be in Paris?

No, actually

I am pretty exhausted after a weekend in Paris and just… life, so here’s just a little round-up of stuff rather than the potential essay-ey thing I had planned.

Not happy to be in Paris

We went to Paris for the weekend and I had not the best of times. We made the mistake of hunting for bookshops with English language books, but then you end up in very (VERY) touristy sections of Paris which I found very depressing.

While I staunchly believe everyone who travels to places briefly is a tourist, there is a level of unpleasantness when every square centimeter has to be monitized. I’ve learned my lesson and will just focus on visiting the (probably still touristy but not the global Nutella waffel house cum money laundering touristy) places that are more likely to bring me joy.

Also good to note some Paris eateries seem to just have reviews they dislike removed so you can’t really fly by the 4.5+ reviews on Google Maps as you would maybe do in other places.

Thankfully we ended on a high note with a visit to Deyrolle for taxidorky, some 7 to 10 pastries at The French Bastards as well as the amazing Reyna which I’ve been dying to go to for their burrata with kecap manis and chili oil (among other things) with Danielle Duncan who I have known and admired on the internet forever, and who is now a wonderfully insightful Parisienne.

What I read

• Alicia Kennedy’s essay on recipe writing is very very good

• As is Jenny Lau’s essay on style and the use of ‘-inspired’ in food writing
  
  They both touch on similar issues which has given me food for thought in terms of my feelings of being at a slight stalemate when it comes to recipe writing, because everything feels done and surely people can come up with these things themselves?
  

• I finally read the Sambal Shiok cookbook and immediately made their chicken satay recipe which is definitely a keeper.

Excel sheeting

It also led me to finally make an excell sheet (sorry, I love an excell sheet) to keep track of which recipes I want to cook from which books. In case you face similar issues:

• I’ve created two sheets for rough weather appropiateness, i.e. spring/ summer and fall/ winter

• Each have three columns for now: recipe name, book title and page no.

Published

So I this was last year but I am a bit behind on the self promotion so I finally shared a little bit of what I wrote for Cheese Magazine issue 3, you can read more on that here.

Gardening

The artichokes I almost killed last year exploded and trippled back, so now I am actively looking for artichoke recipes. So far I have cook them in stock and garlic and then dip in vinaigrette or equally tangy sauce, or shallow fry the hearts and eat those with a tangy sauce.

If you have more ideas please do let me know in the comments because the only time I ever had fresh artichokes before was when my roommate made them for me back in 1999.