The other French paradox

La Pergola cafe replaced a hamburger chain
La Pergola café replaced a hamburger chain

You’ve probably heard of the apparent contradiction that the French have a low incidence of heart disease despite consuming seemingly large amounts of saturated fats. There is at least one very successful diet book based on this Paradox that includes dairy, red meat, and wine every day. We can confirm from just general observations, at least at traditional gathering points for the locals such as the open-air market, the butcher shop, the seafood vendor, etc. that it continues to be true. Interestingly we saw yesterday that the building that used to house a well-known US based hamburger chain is now a café/brasserie serving individually prepared meals from all fresh ingredients. No one getting fat here! Continue reading “The other French paradox”

Running on empty

Empty wine racks
Empty wine racks

We went to Trader Joe’s® today and I’ll let you guess why based on the accompanying photo. You may recall that we’ve been “shopping from the pantry” trying to use up all of the food that we still have stored on the shelves. That policy applies to the wine cellar as well and it would appear that we’ve done a really good job of clearing the shelves down there! If you’ve been to our house you know that these wine racks are typically full just in case a hurricane hits Atlanta and it’s unsafe to drink the water. Continue reading “Running on empty”

Now you see us…

Watermill and fish market, Bayeux, France
Watermill and fish market, Bayeux, France

Did you ever see the movie The Forgotten or one of the similar stories where the main character grieves a dead relative but no one else seems to remember this person ever existing? Even the photographs of the family have a mysterious gap where someone’s smiling face might have been. That’s how I felt today when looking at Google maps. Continue reading “Now you see us…”

Lucky shot?

Doubling up on darts
Doubling up on darts

We got a message of congratulations over the weekend from WordPress, the company that hosts this blog. It said “Your stats are booming! Let’s Live in France is getting lots of traffic.” You were probably part of that frenzy, so thank you. It started when Bill posted on both the blog and Facebook that we were clearing out the basement with lots of things going to charity or the dumpster if they weren’t otherwise claimed. The response was overwhelming, so now there’s much less to give/throw away, but there’s still more….

Continue reading “Lucky shot?”