Have enough calendars for 2012 yet? If you’re looking a French calendar for yourself or as a gift, try something more original than the ubiquitous Impressionist paintings, historic black and white photos, or Parisian aerial scenes. This year you’ll find a whole new crop of risqué calendars coming from the most interesting places.  My favorite [...]

An American woman I know here was complaining that she invited some people for dinner at 7:30 p.m. and that at 8:30 p.m. they were just arriving. That is because in France, dinner is always (sauf exception) at 8:30 p.m., which means the guests will start to trickle in at 8:45. (If you are rude [...]

Every year starting on January 6th, la galette des Rois (the cake of the three kings), a cake made of frangipani (almond cream paste) and a buttery crust, is sold in patisseries all over France. These delicious cakes celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, when the three wise men came to see the baby Jesus. [...]

For whatever reason, many French people prefer chemically sprayed Christmas trees to real ones. I don’t know why, and can only think that it is some lapse in their usually keen judgment, along with drinking UHT milk instead of fresh and subjecting job candidates to a handwriting analysis. I was excited this year at my usual flower stand [...]

What better way to kick off the holiday season, then with some holiday windows, lights, games, cartoons and a letter to Santa? The French postal service has a section of its site dedicated to kids wanting to do just that. (For English instruction on writing to Santa in France, go here. The Champs-Elysées is illuminating Paris [...]

Once a year in November, magenta flags with white points flourish on many Montmartre buildings’ facades. Most people don’t even see them. The few who notice them and dare to push the doors of the buildings will discover the artists’ lofts and will understand why Montmartre is the epicenter of Paris’ artistic life. More than [...]

It’s freezing in my house right now and I had just put my warm bathrobe on over my street clothes and sat down to work when I heard a knock at the front door. Thinking A had lost the key, I ran to open it. A large black man in a gray pullover looked me [...]

Cemeteries get a lot of cinematic attention on Halloween, but in France they don’t really consider that American import anything more than a commercial holiday for stores to sell candy to kids. The real holiday is actually Toussaint, or All Saints’ Day, on November 1st. On this bank holiday families traditionally visit the cemeteries to [...]

Last weekend marked the 17th annual Salon du Chocolat, and the first annual chocolate hangover for me. Held in a huge pavilion in the Porte de Versailles, it is a chocolate trade show dedicated to the cocoa bean: its growers, chocolatiers, and consumers. I had been warned that there would not be a lot of [...]

The French call these “toilettes à la turque” but I call them “French toilets.” They are still horribly common in France, and I never saw anything of the kind while traveling in Turkey. It is rare to see a woman go into one of these toilet stalls and not come out again like a shot.