The New Paris Podcast

There’s no guest for today’s episode. Instead, I wanted to talk about a topic I was recently asked to write about for Elle magazine in France. And that’s the subject of tipping and tip culture. Given that tourism across France is back in a big way and the French themselves are back to traveling beyond their borders, the question of if and how much to tip has resurfaced. Because my story was in Fre...

I was reared on stand up comedians. Growing up, I was exposed to the greats: George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock. My near religious weeknight ritual with my father was watching the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and being permitted to watch The Chapelle Show even though the subject matter was Arguably a bit inappropriate for a young teen. But when I first moved t...

I’m back after a little break to visit family in the states and return to Paris just in time to get knocked out with covid for a week. I’m sounding more like myself and ready to record new interviews for the remainder of season 5! So thanks for your patience. To kick things back off, I’m joined today by someone with a mission to fill in the gaps where French authorities fall alarmingly short. Krys...

This episode was recorded April 25, the day after the conclusion of the 2022 French presidential election. That means, the first day of knowing Macron will continue to govern France after his first term officially ends on May 13. To some, this feels like a bandaid on a gaping wound. To others, a sign that reason has won. Whatever your perspective, there’s a lot to discuss about this experience and...

Understanding life in France and the foundation on which identity is based, requires an understanding of certain words, themes, and ideas. Words like terroir, laïcité, entrepreneur, and travail, among countless others. Grasping their complexity is not only important to cultural integration but to being able to navigate daily life. It’s also the focus of a podcast called Navigating the French , hos...

One of the first English-language journalists in Paris covering women’s issues both in France and abroad that I first connected with online was today’s guest, Megan Clement. Her reporting has appeared in The Guardian, Bloomberg, The Sydney Morning Herald, Al Jazeera, The New Humanitarian and many other publications. She is now editing Impact , a bilingual weekly newsletter dispatch by Les Glorieus...

One of my goals with The New Parisienne was to highlight the richness of talent coming from women in and around the capital. There’s tremendous creativity, knowledge, innovation, and inspiration and it’s these women and so many others who fuel my own work and thinking. Rahaf Harfoush , one of the women in the book and a longtime friend, is one of the women I admire and whose research, writing, and...

Running a restaurant in Paris is fraught in the best of times but the last several years have presented additional challenges. Some have closed as a result but I’m happy to report that many of the city’s best independently run establishments spanning street food to fine dining have held on and even grown stronger. I know my own desire to support them has grown — certainly a result of having experi...

With less than three months to the French presidential election, 59 days to the first round to be exact, there are a number of worrying discussions taking place online and in the media that risk distracting from the most pressing issues for French citizens but have taken up considerable airtime. In 2020, that was the controversial idea of islamo-gaucmhisme, or islamo-leftism. Since, the buzzword i...

At the very end of 2021, one of the highlights was getting to meet a whole new batch of readers when I did a book signing for The New Parisienne at the home goods store Landline which I discovered during the lowest moments of Covid. This is in the 11th arrondissement which is an area I know intimately. The French American owner Caroline Morrison opened the doors to her nostalgic general store at t...

If you’ve followed the news out of France in recent weeks, you know a couple of things. One, France has entered campaign season, with the Presidential election awaiting us in April 2022. Two, among the many disconcerting absurdities in said campaign, we have a far right, antisemitic, misogynistic pundit whose message at his first public rally last weekend played on the French perception and panic...

A recent New York Times story had a lot of us Parisians up in arms. It’s mayhem on rue de Rivoli and streets across Paris, we’re told, as bikes take over and the mayor pursues an ambitious goal of making the city a European cycling capital by 2024. The journalist includes comments such as “it’s like anarchy! everyone is just doing as they please. There are no police, no fines, no training and no r...

First, some real talk. I know little to nothing about French cinema but I do know that when the actor Jean-Paul Belmondo died in September, it came as a massive loss to a great many French people. As it happens, talking about Belmondo online, and what little I knew about him, connected me to someone who knows quite a lot about French cinema and I thought, now’s the time to do an episode on film. B...

Which country has the best healthcare system? It’s a question that is regularly tossed around, particularly as America’s healthcare system looks more and more broken with every passing year. The stories of Americans putting off doctor’s visits due to fees and the fear that a costly ailment will be discovered are so common they seem pulled directly from a dystopian novel. In comparison, experts loo...

I didn’t grow up with much exposure to Vietnamese cooking so it wasn’t until I arrived in France 15 years ago that I actually discovered the nuances in the cuisine. That’s not all that surprising: France is home to the oldest Vietnamese diaspora, which pre-dated the fall of Saigon. The first waves of Vietnamese immigration to France started over a hundred years ago, following colonization in the 1...

Making sense of your identity when you live abroad can be a fraught endeavour. For third culture kids, identity is even more complex. My friend and fellow creative who goes simply by the name Pushan, understands this especially well. He’s French, Basque, Indian, and American and has lived even further afield for his work as a photographer and videographer. He joins the show today to talk about gro...

Without question, Paris and the arts go hand in hand. The density of public museums and galeries small and large make Paris one of the most enriching artistic capitals to visit. In recent years, that has expanded to include private collections in shiny, multi-million euro spaces that have the potential to change the French art world permanently. Today’s guest, Susan Taylor Leduc, is an art and gar...

When I think of women in the food media, I instantly think of Victoire Loup, a French-born writer and consultant who goes between Paris and Los Angeles. For a time she was the communication director for Le Fooding and has written for a number of international magazines and newspapers. More recently, she has published two cookbooks in French and consulted for an international network of chefs. She...

It’s been a while since I’ve done a France news update but there are so many pressing issues facing the country now besides Covid that it was time to jump back in. And this time, I’m joined by Yasser Louati, a human rights and civil liberties activist, a community organiser, and political analyst. He also co-founded the NGO CJL, a transnational human rights and civil liberties organisation. A fell...

Talking to strangers is a part of my job. I interview people for work, most of whom I don’t know personally in advance, but is generally arranged. I know what I’m about to do and so does the person I’ll be speaking with. But approaching strangers on the street to learn bits of their story is something else altogether. That’s why I’ve been fascinated by the work of Stéphanie Pfeiffer , a photograph...

Have you ever found yourself endlessly fascinated by something, to the point of obsession? For me, that’s probably coffee and chocolate but for others deeply passionate about food and the way it is made, that might be bread, cheese, or even wine. Those are the three loves explored by my friend Katie Quinn in her new book "Cheese, Wine, and Bread: Discovering the magic of fermentation in England, I...

Mastering a language is a lifelong endeavour, one that can be complicated by the very fluidity and ever-evolving nature of language itself. Slang and idiomatic expressions change with each generation but require an education all the same. Understanding conversational and street French, for example, is a way into understanding who the French are today and their relationship to one another. Also, it...

What does it take to open and run a restaurant in Paris? What about building a brand that not only reaches a wider audience but that that may be protected from the unexpected and very disruptive obstacles, from protests to health crises? Ali Terry and Isabelle Cote have taken Sunday in Soho from a canteen they thought Parisians would enjoy to a nutrition-focused subscription option and product lin...

If there’s one thing that springs to mind when it comes to French lifestyle, it’s the importance of farmer’s markets. Few places in the world can claim to rival the multitude of marchés that are both destinations and fixtures of everyday life across France. And for many, they are a source of tremendous inspiration. That was certainly the case for Amy Feezor and her husband Pierre Haberer who start...

How important is travel in our lifelong education? For Kévi Donat, founder of Le Paris Noir walking tours, it’s a crucial element to understanding a place, a culture, a past, and a present and above all, builds empathy. He chronicles chronicles the city’s connection to Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States, covering critical themes from colonization and immigration to the literary, politica...