One for the Road: Quiet Corners of Paris

by Kelly Amabile on

It’s been awhile since we’ve mentioned some of The Little Bookworm’s unique travel guides. So let’s get right to it — The boutique publisher has released two new books about Paris that are surely worth a mention. The first is this pretty little peek at the Quiet Corners of Paris. Hasn’t the title alone transported you to some narrow cobblestone rue off the Seine? Wandering through winding lanes and courtyards of the arrondissements sounds quite magical. Author Jean-Christophe Napias has identified over eighty of these hidden spots for wander-lovers to explore at their leisure while visiting the city of lights.

And after several hours strolling through the streets of Paris, the hunger pangs will surely require a stop at an authentic Paris brasserie. Which is where The Brasseries of Paris will come in handy. This guide to some of the very best French eateries includes photos and details about the history of these city landmarks. It’s also lightweight enough to throw in your bag when boarding that flight to Paris. Now get going — what more motivation do you need? Bon Voyage!

David Sedaris’s Travel Stories

by Jamie Rhein on

Friday night on a whim, I headed to the Palace Theatre in Columbus to see David Sedaris. Since he was here last year, I hadn’t planned to go, but changed my mind. This year, as I laughed those kind of laughs that start to hurt after awhile, huge chortles and the gawfaws–along with everyone else in the audience, I thought about how much his stories capture the aspects of travel that I love. The absurdities one finds oneself in, either because of a lack of understanding of culture or getting the language wrong. When humor shows up, that’s the best.

Last year, he read an essay about his experience in a doctor’s waiting room in France where he ended up in his underwear while everyone else was clothed. Last night, he read an essay that wove together details about pretension, ineptness and fluency when it comes to speaking a foreign language and trying to capture or butcher accents. The story moved back and forth between talking about a college professor who said Nicaragua in an overly accenty way and a friend who visited him in Paris and insisted on speaking in French even though the friend, Sedaris and the friend’s wife were all American and the wife didn’t speak French. As Sedaris read this story, it was with such gusto and flair I wanted to share it with everyone. Alas, he said that it’s not going to be on This American Life, the NPR show that he wrote it for after all. Since Sedaris is on a several city tour, perhaps if you live near one of them, you’ll have a chance to catch him.

One of the things I adore about David Sedaris, besides his writing and how he reads his work, is his generosity of spirit. The Palace Theatre was packed and he stayed after to sign books and take time to visit with each person who handed one over for a signature. What I noticed during last year’s and this year’s book signing is his knack for making each person feel like a friend, and it seems like he means it. This year, like last year, we talked about TJs Restaurant, an establishment known for dishes like the Barnyard Blaster. When I reminded him of this, he said that he always asks people where they’d go to eat after a night on the town. He also said he’d been trying to remember the name of the restaurant all day.

For your reading pleasure, here is the essay about the French waiting room. It was published in The New Yorker, September 2006. And here’s David Sedaris on NPR’s Morning Edition in 1998 reading his essay, “A New Yorker in France.”

How France Saved Me from an Eating Disorder

by Catherine Bodry on

Before I left for my first trip to Europe, I’d spent a good portion of my college years living on white rice, toast, salad, and multivitamins (and cheap beer, of course). I ran every day, and while I was never skeletal, I was pretty skinny. I continued to lose weight when I traveled around Europe en route to Angers, France, and I often got comments about how tiny I was. I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest that I would’ve continued my habits had not the culinary attitudes of the French intervened. Once I settled in to my host family’s routine, which involved a 3-course dinner every night, I could feel the flab coming on. I resisted for a good month, by avoiding patisseries and making myself jog.

And one day, the voice that told me white rice with bouillon cubes was tasty just changed its mind, and I made the choice to enjoy my time in France and worry about my weight when I returned to the U.S. There would be no forcing myself out running in striped tights with these sophisticated French women giving me strange looks. I was NOT going to eat rice while everyone else ate flan.And so I learned to enjoy food the way many French people do: slowly and simply. Granted, I tended to go for seconds when no one else did. And since I lived out of town, I often sometimes went to bed with a full stomach and a book directly after dinner. And maybe I ate savory crepes and croque monsieurs a little too often for lunch. Annnnd maybe I knew when a certain patisserie down the road took pain au chocolat out of the oven every afternoon. At any rate, I gained 20 pounds while I was there, and I was able to lose most of it when I got back. But I’ve never gone back to the white rice diet. Sometimes I wish I could recapture that incredible discipline, but at the same time, I’m glad I had the opportunity to experience a culture that savors its cheesy, creamy cuisine.

Thanks to wander.lust on Flickr for the memory of dessert cases filled with eclairs and tartes, which, thank goodness, I didn’t not often pass by.

Rock, Paper, Scissors … Well?

by Grant Martin on

Sitting on an upside down garbage can and drinking Bordeaux at a wine and cheese party in this past weekend, we got on the topic of Rock Paper Scissors (naturally) and I was politely informed by my Parisian comrades that I was playing incorrectly. In France, you see, they have the power gesture: The Well.

Rock and Scissors fall in the Well, you see, but Paper covers it.

But doesn’t that create an unfair advantage for The Well? Shouldn’t everyone choose The Well because you have a 2:1 advantage?

Riding the M3 on the way home my brother in law and I discussed this. He pointed out that any semi-intelligent person would choose The Well because of the advantage, but if you were really smart you would choose Paper, knowing what everyone else would choose. So in the end, it comes down to an economically stratified game, with the plebians picking The Well and the elite going with Paper. Classist warfare, boiled down to a game of hand gestures. And that, is what we decided, makes the game French.

Off the Beaten Foodie Path in Paris

by Grant Martin on

Believe it or not, there are other places to eat in the city than in your guide book. In cultural and gastronomic hot spots such as Paris and Barcelona, you barely have to stumble out your front door and down the block before you find a half dozen places to eat — multiply that by the ten thousand blocks in any given city and you get roughly seventy zillion available restaurants, many within walking distance. How many of those can you fit in your guidebook?


Check out our list of 500+ excellent restaurants in Paris or our list of 340+ restaurants in Barcelona.

Sure, you run the risk of docking into a complete disaster, getting horrible service and Montezuma’s Revenge. But that risk is low, and the chance of you discovering something new — a restaurant and experience nothing like the other Lonely Planet mongers have encountered — is actually quite reasonable. Travel shouldn’t be legal if you’re being led around the city on a leash by your guidebook the entire time; one should open oneself up to risk, failure and the possibility of really great things to happen.

Take Comptoir De La Gastronomie, a specialty epicerie in Paris. This cozy restaurant off Rue Montmartre hosts a spectacular menu of duck and foie gras based dishes, from baked traditional cassoulet to carpaccio, all at reasonable (although European) prices. Next door in their attached boutique you can pick up enormous jars of foie gras, cheeses, wines and a variety of deli delights, all packaged up and ready to take home to mom.

So next time you find yourself leafing through your favorite Frommers or AOL destination guide searching for that “authentic meal”, take some time to consider the risk and benefit of finding some place on your own. My guess is you’ll be glad you did.