[Photography by Maxence]

What is it with a city that makes you fall head-over-heels for it? Is it the energy that it glows with, is it the sunshine, is it the fabulous food, the designer boutiques, the million little streets just a few blocks from the skyscrapers, the feeling of being in a movie, the meeting of like-minded friends, the walking, the walking, or maybe the walking?

Most certainly a combination of all those quality ingredients, magically enhanced by the company of the love of your life, who is just as enthused as you are — and ever so patient with your mile-long list of food recommendations that make you stop in your tracks at every other street corner, exclaiming with glee (“Oh look! There’s such-and-such! Someone wrote to me about it!”), and will happily walk with you to take a closer look.

So many recommendations, so little time and stomach room! I have managed to vicariously enjoy a great many of them — studying menus, gazing through windows, walking around stores, eavesdropping on the merchants’ advice, watching the other customers, and collecting little cards for keepsake. As for the actual, real eating (the “oh yummy-yum-yum” kind) I have tried to get as wide a range of tastes as I could, sticking to the things that are difficult-slash-impossible to find in Paris, whether for the ambiance or the food itself.

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Well, this is it! All packed and excited and ready to go, with my print-out of the C&Z readers’ guide to NYC, a tasty snack for the plane (Amanda Hesser‘s good advice was not lost on this girl) and dreams of skylines and designer stores and art collections and brownstones and marquees (and bialys and cupcakes).

And if you are in NYC this Sunday (June 19), do join us in the bar area at Otto around 5pm — we will be there, drinking Italian wine and nibbling on antipasti!

Note: The Big Apple pictured above is the juicy, crunchy Golden du Limousin, a truly delicious apple and the very first one to be distinguished by an AOC (Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée, a certification of origin). They are grown on a low mountainside, they are hand-picked and some of them (very much sought after) have a rosy hue on one cheek, the one that is most exposed to the morning sunshine.

And today, I thought I would share with you a small and mundane element from the everyday French office life. A food-related element, that goes without saying.

In France, the set of laws that governs the work environment, le code du travail, forbids you to eat in the rooms where you work (ahem — no, I don’t know how those crumbs got into my keyboard, did they maybe chip off from the ceiling?). But if enough employees wish to eat in their workplace, the employer must provide a way for them to do so under safe and healthy conditions. He can either furnish a room with chairs, tables, a fridge and a microwave, or he can give them access to a cafeteria (usually operated by large catering companies), or he can give them lunch vouchers to use in nearby restaurants.

Such vouchers are called chèques-repas, chèques-déjeuner or titres-restaurant, but are most often referred to as tickets resto. You get a little checkbook at the beginning of the month, with one voucher for each day that you will work. Their value is co-financed by you and your employer, usually on a 50/50 basis, which means that if your ticket resto has a 6€ face value, it costs you 3€ (deducted from your paycheck) while your boss pays for the other 3€. The incentive is that the whole thing is tax-deductible for the employer as for the employee. Of course, the higher the face value of your tickets restos, the bigger the perk, and it’s one of many ways to judge how well a company treats its employees.

Most restaurants in France will display a little sticker on their door to indicate that they accept those vouchers, provided they are open for lunch and are interested in catering to the office crowd. If you’re not sure you can just go ahead and ask — “Vous prenez les tickets resto?” — but be warned that some mid- or upscale restaurants will look at you with contempt and scoff: “On n’est pas chez Flunch“*, as I was once told at a restaurant where they thought good food could make up for obnoxious service.

* Flunch is a French chain of cafeterias, often found in malls.

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Red currants hold a special place in my heart as the perfect companion to peaches and nectarines and a dash of whipping cream in my mother’s summer fruit salads — preferably enjoyed in the cool shade of the garden, on a table with a cherry-patterned tablecloth secured by pretty star-shaped weight clips, should a little breeze pick up.

I also like that they are not your ordinary easy-to-like, easy-to-please berry. No. La groseille is startlingly red and pretty, but it is also super tart and a bit of a pain to prep, as you will need to carefully pluck each berry from its pale green stem. Some are advocates of the fork tine combing method, but this tends to crush a sizeable proportion of the yield so I prefer to gently pull at the clusters with the tips of my fingers, feeling each little bubble loosen its grip and detach itself, one after the other. But of course in the grand scheme of things, it is much less of a chore than, say, butchering a pig, and it is also considered good manners from whoever will eat the berries with you to help with the plucking.

Even at the time of the eating, the red currant won’t let itself be loved that easily: to enjoy the delicate texture that ruptures and explodes in your mouth (salmon roe made berry), to delight in the fresh burst of tart juice, you have to make do with the grainy seeds and their slightly puckery effect.

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