We’re in the midst of another heat wave. Unlike other years, however, I’m seeing more people lugging fans home from the hardware store, and even supermarkets are selling them. The fear of the dreaded courants d’air (drafts) has finally succumbed to the sometimes lethal heat. I guess people have finally realized that a gentle breeze is safer than heat stroke, or worse. Still, it’s really hot, and even the best fan is no match for 39ºC (102ºF) heat that’s expected today. I’m not a big fan of AC, but like it or not, I think people are going to have to come to the realization that if we don’t change the way cities and buildings are built, as Singapore has been, it’s going to continue to get hotter and hotter. While Paris is considered the deadliest city in terms of heat waves, the city is planting more trees, although Chartres just chopped a bunch of them down in front of the historic cathedral. Fortunately, we have an ice maker in our freezer, and plenty of rosé, to get us through. And I’ve moved all my chocolate to the coolest spot in our apartment so it’ll survive, as I hope we do. Despite the heat, the upside of summer is the summer fruits and berries. When all the beautiful stone fruits and berries appear, I get giddy, and grabby, putting as much into my shopping basket as possible. As someone who has worked in restaurant kitchens, I’m not shy about turning on the oven since I worked in front of hot ovens professionally for a long time, and no matter how hot your kitchen feels, a restaurant or bakery kitchen is 5-15º hotter than our home kitchens.
June, July, and August in Paris are when the produce shops and outdoor markets are literally overwhelmed with fruits and berries. (Although, the raspberries above are from our garden. This year, for some reason, the birds gave us a break and let us have some.) But apricots, nectarines, and strawberries are in full force right now, as well as cherries, and I’m eating as many as I can.
A while back, a chef famously poked fun at Chez Panisse for serving fresh fruit for dessert (which he later apologized for), but if you watch the latest Netflix Chef’s Table Legends episode on Alice Waters, you know that the fruit served in the restaurant didn’t just show up in a box. It’s part of a long-standing relationship with farmers and growers, and the earth, that makes that fruit so special. The fruit was so spectacular, I still remember the taste of it. And while people often ask what I do with all the fruit and berries, when I post a picture of them online, most of them get eaten just as is, which is truly the best way to eat fruit, which includes tomatoes.
While shopping for fruit, and making salads, is what I’d be happy to do 24/7, living in France often involves a certain—and often, unexpected (and seemingly unnecessary)—amount of paperwork and bureaucracy. To their credit, they’re trying to make things easier by embracing the digital age; when I moved to France twenty-one years ago, people were incredulous that I worked “online.”
And even back then, when I used to say, “Wouldn’t it be great to have all this French paperwork and so forth in a single app?” no one listened to me. But finally, someone did, and there’s now a new French ID card that allows you to access a variety of digital services, from paying your taxes and social charges (for health care) to accessing social services and sending and receiving registered letters via La Poste, the post office, even though no one likes getting the dreaded registered letter (lettre recommandé) in France, which almost always has bad news in it. I have the older French ID card, which is so big it doesn’t fit in a wallet, hence the old-school “man bags.” I’ve been trying to change my French ID card, which is the official ID, and you can even use it to travel within Europe. Unlike in the U.S., a French driver’s license is only proof that you can drive, which makes sense if you think about it. When I arrived in France, I kept showing my California driver’s license to pick up packages and prove who I was in other places, and people looked at me like I was nuts.
After weeks of filling out the lengthy forms on the website, which, for reasons no one has ever been able to explain to me, asks where my parents were born, along with their birthdates, it invariably gave me an erreur message, so I finally went to the city hall of my neighborhood. Every arrondissement in Paris has its own city hall, twenty of them, in addition to the main one, which sounds like a lot of unnecessary expenses, but with all the administration, it’s necessary. I was told to come back the following day since they would be processing applications without an appointment. So I dutifully showed up the next day with all the documents they requested, along with official photos.
French people criticize the “perp walk” in America, which is used to shame people, but official photos make everyone look like they’re guilty of something. For a country that values beauty, you are guaranteed to look awful in your official ID photo. If you show any trace of teeth, a smile, or anything that might make you look slightly less like a hardened criminal, your entire dossier can be dismissed, and you’ll have to go back with new photos. After a lot of back-and-forthing, I eventually learned that they are not processing any French ID cards or passport renewals—they’re provisoirement suspendue (temporarily suspended), which makes me wonder about people who have made travel plans and find themselves with an expired passport, or one that expires in a few months, which prevents them from traveling. Perhaps they’re taking the summer off, and they’ll be renewing them in the fall? That’s what a neighbor advised. Fortunately, I’m not going anywhere, and my card is good until 2034. But still, it’s always a good idea to think ahead here, because you never know how long something is going to take.
June and July also mean lots of friends coming to visit, despite the heat, and a tumbling exchange rate. It’s always fun to see friends, but it has also been a lot of planning; I posted some current favorite/interesting restaurants in Paris recently (for paid subscribers, with a free-to-read option). But Americans aren’t used to this heat, and lack of ventilation and AC, so I’m adding “concierge” to my resumé, with all the restaurant reservations and planning.
My new book is coming out in September, the revision of Ready for Dessert, a collection of my best recipes, with several new ones in the mix, including the recipe for the magnificent Maple tart from Tapisserie bakery in Paris. It’s hard to describe how good it is; if you’ve eaten at Clamato, the seafood restaurant across the street, and had it for dessert (hence the nickname, Clamatart), you know how good it is. When they opened Tapisserie, anybody could go in and get one. It’s one of the best desserts in Paris, and I couldn’t resist re-creating the recipe for home cooks in the book, so you can make it wherever you live.
Lastly, thanks to everyone who came to my book event last Sunday with Jane Bertch at La Cuisine cooking school in Paris. It was a lot of fun meeting people, and hopefully, we’ll be able to do some events in the fall when my next book comes out. Hopefully, it’ll be cooler then, too… -David
Too Good to Go appOne of the friends who came to visit from the States recently showed me the Too Good to Go app. Started in Copenhagen nearly a decade ago, the objective of the app is to connect users with local cafés, restaurants, and bakeries that have excess food on their hands, which they offer for sale at discount prices to help combat food waste. Users log onto the app and see what “Surprise Bags” are offered in their neighborhood in the 19 countries around the world that are supported by the app. My friend uses it a lot in California, and he got a huge loaf of spelt bread from a local bakery in Paris for only €5 (normally €15), which was still warm from the oven. I wondered why a bakery would discount bread that was hot out of the oven, and he suggested maybe the bakery was offering specials early in the day to get people to discover the bakery. Checking out the app here in Paris, I spotted a few local bakeries that I like that were offering Surprise Bags for around €5 ($5.50) that are only valid within a fixed time period, generally at the end of the day. Other interesting offerings were panniers (baskets) from a nearby natural food chain (€5,99), bunches of flowers and plants (€6,49 to €21,99), and even vegan pastries from VG Pâtisserie, a plant-based bakery in my neighborhood.
Of less interest to me were pastries from Ibis, a charmless French chain hotel, priced at €2,49, which in all likelihood may have been previously frozen and baked off for guests. There was end-of-the-day sushi from a take-away stand in the Gare de Lyon train station, which was available between 9 and 9:30pm, a surprise bag from Starbucks, as well as a surprise basket from the Museum of Smoking, priced at €4,99. You don’t get to choose specific items from any of the places in the app (at least in Paris). You can only choose places where you pick up the Surprise Bag from.
You can localize the app to find places close to you, such as I did above — and you can filter by Groceries, Breads & Pastries, Vegetarian, Meals, Pick Up Now, and Pick Up Later. Not sure what category the Museum of Smoking is under, but I didn’t want to order anything to find out. It’s not really the way I shop, as I’m either looking for something specific, or I like to browse and pick out my own fruits, vegetables, and breads. But I suppose if I had a lot of mouths to feed, or a tighter budget, a well-priced bag of pastries would be nice to get, so there’s that. And for those trying to stretch their euros, the €2,49 ($3) Surprise bag from the Ibis hotel or the €6,99 Surprise basket from Gana boulangerie will stretch ‘em. Have you used the app? UPDATE THIS MORNING:
Just after I wrote about the app, I noticed this “Pannier” of American items on sale for €4,99. Wasn’t sure I needed any Sour Patch candies or something that looks like Lollypop-flavored soda (which, if I’m not mistaken, is from Korea), but I thought about “taking one for the team” and getting it. However, I noticed that it came in at 3.9 in Food Quality reviews, so I didn’t. Sorry! Let me know if I should get one and show it in the next monthly newsletter, or not:
Links I’m Likin’-Too hot to turn on the oven? Maybe it’s time for an air fryer. (CNET) (I actually have one of the first ones which I got in 2010, but should probably donate it to a museum.) -Violent storm rips through Paris, flooding métro stations and streets and uprooting trees. (France24/video) -Ina Garten enters Substack. -A Paris-based writer opines on the difficulty of finding a good meal in Paris…which generated a lot of comments. (Washington Post/unlocked)
(Speaking of commenters, I’m often surprised when I read that people will only eat “where locals eat.” We had a very good meal on Sunday night in Paris — except for an unexceptional pasta, but served by an amazing waiter, at Yard, where 80% of the customers weren’t locals. Most good restaurants in Paris, and other cities, are a mix of locals and visitors. News Flash: Lots of visitors like to eat good food when they travel, including me.) -This basil vinaigrette is my sauce of summer. (Davidlebovitz.com) -Excited about new cookbooks from friends: Boustany from Sami Tamimi and the upcoming Mokonuts: The Cookbook. You're currently a free subscriber to David Lebovitz Newsletter. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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Tuesday, July 1, 2025
July 2025 Newsletter
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