A few years ago, I visited several Pineau des Charentes producers in a region of France known as the Charente, where Cognac is made. Legend has it that it was originally made by accident when a Cognac producer centuries ago added fresh grape to a barrel of eau-de-vie (a clear distillation of grapes), intended to be aged for Cognac. He let it rest, and age, anyways, and thus, Pineau des Charentes was made. Nowadays Pineau des Charentes comes in white, red, and rosé varieties, with the rosé...

If anyone knows the cuisine of Nice, it’s Rosa Jackson, owner of Les Petits Farcis for over twenty years. Located in the sunny south of France, Niçoise cooking is known for its freshness and Mediterranean flavors, using ingredients that range from local olive oil and anchovies to vibrant vegetables, such as tomatoes, Swiss chard, and zucchini (and zucchini flowers), as well as fresh goat cheeses and fragrant basil. Rosa is the author of Niçoise: Market-Inspired Cooking from France's Sunniest...

Can I tell you how much fun it’s been getting to know Jane Bertch over the years? I’m not exactly sure how we met, but it may have been when I was leading tours and brought our guests for a day-long market tour and cooking class at La Cuisine, her cooking school in Paris. Everyone enjoyed the day very much, including me, and over the years, we’ve shared stories about relationships, and some of the quirks involved in cross-cultural connections, working and living in France, and, of course,...

I remember when Deb Perelman, aka: Smitten Kitchen, came on the scene in 2006. A few of us had been blogging for a couple of years, doing our thing—when suddenly, a fresh new voice came out of the blue (and out of New York), that segued perfectly to the new way we eat, and cook—less rules, more fun, and how we write about food. If you’re anything like me, you’ve been following her blog for years and cooking from her books. Decades later, her blog remains one of the most popular food...

The first time I went to Win Son bakery and café in Brooklyn, I wasn’t sure what to expect. It’s billed as a Taiwanese-American bakery, and I’m not too familiar with Taiwanese baked goods. I ordered a few things off the menu that sounded good, and after I brought them to the table, I started tasting my way around the tray, and everything I ate blew me away. Everything was delicious. The bakery and menu items take cues from familiar favorites, such as chocolate chip cookies and donuts, but I...

Before I left for Tel Aviv this summer, I rounded up advice from friends who are chefs, cookbook authors, and seasoned eaters about where to eat. I’ve lived in food-centric cities most of my life, but Tel Aviv is in a class by itself. There are so many good places to eat, it’s hard to whittle it down to just a few. And if you’re there, and ask anyone where they think you should go, be prepared for a lengthy discussion that will result in a strongly opinionated list of suggestions. And if...

I didn’t expect to be as captivated as I was by The New French Wine: Redefining the World’s Greatest Wine Culture. It’s an immense two-volume book spanning nearly 850 pages, exploring the lush vineyards and wine regions of France with profiles of 800 producers and notes on around 7,000 wines. I’m no wine expert, but as soon as I started reading the first page, I was hooked. Living in, and writing about, France, it’s often a challenge to explain the intricacies of life here. In the subtitle...

When it comes to style, I don’t think anyone is eager to copy what I wear every day, although I do know that some people covet some of the dishes and cookware that I pick up at flea markets in France. Fortunately, we have Ajiri Aki in Paris, who founded Madame de la Maison, a fabulous online resource for carefully curated French antiques and linens. (Warning: You’ll want to order everything she has in stock.) I’ve been a fan of Ajiri for quite some time, but it wasn’t until the release of my...

It’s always a pleasure to chat with Dianne Jacob of newsletter, food writing coach, teacher, editor, and author of Will Write for Food, which is the handbook for food writing, covering everything from how to break into the world of food writing, starting a blog or a newsletter, as well as valuable tips on writing recipes, what to know if you want to write your first cookbook or food memoir, and how to “bring home the bacon” from doing it. During our chat we discussed: * Who “owns” a...

I had spectacular luck with I was in San Francisco and a friend suggested we meet up one morning at Kantine, a Scandinavian bakery and café. Arriving a little early, I was knocked out by the beautiful selection of pastries and breakfast offerings, which included open-faced smoked fish sandwiches on housemade sprouted rye bread, savory grain porridge, and a Scandinavian take on the breakfast sandwich, the Grovbirkes, a seed-crusted spiral of buttery puff pastry filled with warm scrambled eggs...

When Phil Rosenthal, star of Somebody Feed Phil, comes to town, we did what we do best: Eat. Phil was in Paris recently on tour celebrating his book, Somebody Feed Phil, the companion to his Netflix series. The cookbook is a compilation of the most requested recipes from the show, which has become wildly popular, and we had a lot of fun catching up since we first met in Paris, back in 2014, when it all began for him. We dined well in a few great restaurants in Paris, but took a break from...

I recently sat down with my friend Heather Stimmler, of Secrets of Paris, to talk about tourism in Paris for my podcast. Often called “the most visited city in the world,” Paris has an admirable reputation, but the word “tourist” comes with negative connotations. Personally, I love to “play tourist” and spend a day hitting museums, sightseeing, or getting to know a new neighborhood. Whether you’re a first-time tourist, a resident, a multiple-time visitor, or just interested in Paris, you’ll...

If you want to learn more about French cheeses, you can't do better than to sit down with Jennifer Greco, a French cheese and wine expert. Jennifer stopped by my kitchen with a basket of magnificent French cheeses which we sampled—and, I apologize in advance, but a few I swooned a little too much over. Yes, she knows her stuff! I hope you enjoy the podcast—and the sampling of French cheeses—as much as I did😋 -David To learn more about Jennifer's Cheese and Wine tastings in Paris, click here. ...

Sarah and I bonded over our mutual bewilderment over square pillows (which perplex me since people move from side to side when they sleep - not up and down), as well as traversins, the odd cylindrical bed pillows in France that all but guarantee a sleepless night. So I was excited to attend her latest show, The Only American in Paris, a hilarious hour of comedy, with stories about her arrival in France, meeting her French husband, and raising two Parisian children. In her fast-moving hour of...

Forest Collins of 52 Martinis, a website dedicated to featuring the best cocktail bars in Paris, stopped by my kitchen to shake, stir, and share a few of her favorite cocktail recipes with us, which use French spirits. There's a delicious 50:50 Martini, a Jack Rose, and a Sidecar to sip on. The recipes are posted in my newsletter at: davidlebovitz.substack.com Enjoy the podcast, and the drinks! -David Visit Forest Collins at her website: 52 Martinis Listen to Forest’s podcast: Paris Cocktail...

France is well-known for its pastries and sweets, but the culture does have a bitter side, which includes bittersweet chocolate, dark and dusky chestnut and buckwheat honey, red currants, assertive gentian apéritifs, bitter almonds, amers like Picon, beers, and leafy salads tossed with bitter greens, such as frisée, roquette (arugula), and Belgian endive. I first heard of Jennifer McLagan when I saw the striking cover of her book, Fat. Published in 2008, it was a grenade tossed against the...

One of my heroes in Paris is Miranda Junowicz Bothe. We’ve been friends for many years, and thanks to her, I saved a bundle when buying my previous apartment; she got me through some of the rough patches that came up during the purchase, which were challenging, especially because I wasn’t familiar with the process of (and the cultural differences between) how real estate is bought and sold in the United States versus in France. So it helped to have someone on my side to negotiate, who knew...

How does a cookbook get published? What goes into creating a cookbook, and what makes a cookbook great? While the author’s job is to write the book and create the recipes, a good editor will nurture the book until it’s in its final form, ready to send to the printers, before it’s sent to bookstores and eventually lands in the hands of readers. What does an editor do along the way? Why aren’t there metrics in American cookbooks? Why isn’t there a picture to accompany every recipe in every...

When I told a friend that when I’m in New York, I go out for drinks with Brad Parsons, she said, “Oh, he’s the holy grail of drinking buddies!” I was introduced to Brad via Ed Anderson, who photographed my books Drinking French and My Paris Kitchen, and he photographed all of Brad’s books. After shooting My Paris Kitchen, Ed sent me a copy of Bitters, which was so well-written and covered the subject so well (a subject I wasn’t all that familiar with, but the book piqued my interest!) that I...

Who doesn’t love a great croissant? I certainly do. But I also love the other delicious treats that come out of the oven of Ali Spahr, pastry chef, and ace baker at Winner in Brooklyn. Ali studied baking in France at the esteemed Ferrandi cooking school in Paris, and when Daniel Eddy, the chef/owner of Winner (who also lived in Paris) decided to open up a café and bakery in New York, he wanted to re-create some of the “grab and go” pastries that France is known for, and tapped Ali with the...

One of the great things about writing a book about French drinks was going outside of my “lane,” so to speak. I was fascinated by the culture of French drinks, everything from Cognac to beer, and wanted to take a deep dive into the subject and share what I knew, and what I learned. The subject is vast and I couldn’t include an in-depth discussion of every boisson in the French canon—quite a few, like Armagnac, wine, eaux-de-vie, pastis, and even cider, merit their own books. (American cider,...

The baking world is a big, bountiful place, and there’s a lot of ground to cover. And French breads and pastries, of course, take up a lot of that space. I met Bryan Ford, the author of New World Sourdough, back in 2019. At the time, I didn’t realize (and likely neither did he!) that he’d be one of the bright spots of a global pandemic, teaching people the art of sourdough baking during worldwide lockdowns and confinements. Now Bryan is the host of his own television show, The Artisan’s...

For this special podcast - my second! - I’m thrilled to have as my guest Quentin Chapuis, co-founder of the Fédération Française de l’Apéritif, otherwise known as the FFA. Founded by Quentin and two friends as a lark, the idea has grown into several excellent épiceries (food shops) and apéritif bars with several locations in Paris, and others in Lille and Lyon. I loved the idea so much that I featured the Fédération Française de l’Apéritif, and a drink from Quentin, in Drinking French. The...

For my first podcast, I am thrilled to sit down with baker Renato Poliafito, owner of Ciao, Gloria in Brooklyn, New York. I first met Renato when he was the co-owner and co-founder of Baked, and now he has his own delicious venue, with pastries and baked goods that reflect his Italian and Italian-American heritage, which include everything from breakfast sandwiches with eggs, crisp prosciutto and Calabrian aïoli on housemade brioche buns (they’re so good!), to Tricolor Bars (aka: Rainbow...