food.home.design.

I’m sitting in our rented apartment in Paris, listening to Henri Salvador, sipping a gorgeous Bourdeaux, after just consuming a quite delectable meal…if I do say so myself.

If there is a way to DO Paris, this is it.  I’ve done the over-priced Paris hotel, I’ve done the small-yet over-priced Paris boutique hotel and nothing compares to what I am experiencing right now.  We rented an apartment in the city and I must say it will from now on be my first choice for stay in a city.  I think you just experience a place differently when you’re not forced to live through the constraints of a hotel; eating out for every meal, overpaying for a crappy glass of wine, paying ten dollars for a bottle of water which costs $1.29 across the street,  seeing random people falling down drunk in your elevator.  You know.  Etc, etc.

It was bone-chilling cold this evening walking around Paris, the first official leg of our trip, and so we sat in the Hotel du Louvre debating wonderful/fabulous dinner out or calm/casual/gorgeous French meal at home.

Obviously the latter won. The place we scored happens to have a gorgeous red-lacquer kitchen and specific French design detail that makes you fall even more in love with the magic and pull of this damn city!   It’s magical and it’s heaven.

My dinner choice, steak au poivre.  Nothing like cooking a traditional French meal you make on a monthly basis, yet actually in Paris!  Foodie Porn, i imagine!

My dear friend Tanya, whom I know from NYC and from grad school at Parsons is also in Paris, home for the holidays, while we are are.  She stopped by for a quick catch up and a few laughs as I cooked. We chatted and caught up on the past 2 years of life we seemed to have missed out on with each other. I flambeed mushrooms, seared filet mignons, and simmered my famous steak au poivre sauce.  We laughed and reminisced while I daydreamed that this apartment was mine and this wasn’t the only time I would feel this way.

Sigh…