Excuse a brief departure from my usual topics. But it’s not often I see a New York Times news item that includes an obituary for someone I had the good fortune to spend a bit of time with, albeit many years ago. It was such a pleasure to read [paywall, [...]
A friend nailed it in a recent email, lamenting how hard it is to coordinate our work schedules to plan a group trip... "Why can't we all just be independently wealthy and travel the world at our leisure?" Yes! Why not, indeed. It's almost enough to make me buy a [...]
I get a lot of wonderful cards in the mail from my wonderful sister, for any number of reasons, and for no reason at all. She has a knack for finding really great cards that are arty, fun, clever, and touch on any number of my favorite things (France, gin, [...]
The Cathedral Saint Benigne I thought it was hilarious at the time, during that visit I made years back to the city of Nîmes in the south of France. I don't know of any historic record that my last name, Nims, has any connection to that city -- [...]
Once upon a time there was this book: It was, for many years, among the kit of references and tools that students and stagiaires were given upon arrival at La Varenne cooking school in France. In it are the foundational basic recipes that we would be drawing from over the [...]
It's no surprise that a lot of reminiscing went on this past weekend while Anne Willan was in town. She was here, after all, to celebrate the release of her new memoir, One Soufflé at a Time: A Memoir of Food and France, so she's heavy in memory-mode, going back to her [...]
My first three trips to France came over the course of about five years and the length of each trip increased about five-fold from one to the next. First, one month with about 20 students for a Winterim term in Paris. Next, just six of us from the same university [...]
It's Mother's Day today, at least back in the United States (the French will celebrate la Fête des Mères in two weeks). So what I did I do to honor the day in Paris? I took a walk through Père Lachaise cemetery. Not out of some grim impulse to acknowledge [...]
I spent a few minutes trying to come up with a more clever title for this post but figure it pretty much speaks for itself. Whether you've been there on your honeymoon or for a study-abroad term, if you backpacked-it in a hostel or lived it up at George V, even if [...]
Ah to have been in Paris this past week! It would have given me the opportunity to toast–in person–my mentor Anne Willan for the honor bestowed on her latest book at the Gourmand Cookbook Awards. Instead I raised my coffee cup generally France-ward to salute this book that represents a [...]