The French Scarf

 Does your average French person leave the house without wearing a scarf?

 I doubt it.

 How-to-tie your scarf is demonstrated everywhere you look.

 Scarves are non-gender, non-seasonal accessories.

 Do French infants wear a scarf in their cribs? I have to do further research...

 The stripe scarf is a French classic. You can not go wrong wearing a stripe scarf.

 Four variations on tieing your scarf.

 Here's a scarf that grew into a coat...

 Your classic cardigan can double as a scarf in France. Pas de problem.

 Tintin gets away with it...

 Even some French parfums don a scarf...

 Scarf around a baguette? Bien sur.

 The classic Saint Honore wears a kind of chantilly scarf non?

 A traditional Fr couple - La femme is scarved. Monsieur appears to be scarf-free.
Bear does NOT wear a scarf. Does this make him less French? Should he get one ASAP? What do you think?

Boxed In

 It's no secret I have a love affair ongoing with French boxes.

 My collection keeps growing.

 At this year's Salon du Chocolat there was a special 'Professional' section to view suppliers of boxes, ribbons, ingredients etc. 

River Pack makes Pierre Herme's innovative boxes as well as Cafe Pouchkine and other 'couture' patissieres...

 Embaline Cartonnage de Luxe is another fancy box-maker.

 Upstairs at the Salon I loved Arnaud Larher's lunchbox style candy box.

 And my favorite and it's contents (flavored-chocolate faux macarons) was tiny - just under 3" square but inside soooo delicieux

 Sadaharu Aoki puts great thought and wit into his boxes.

 He was at the Salon as always to chat with consumers.

 Boissier does the prettiest boxes. I'd love to visit their salon de the in the 16th.

 More faux macarons - these are really almond candies/calissons d'Aix -

 Real chocolate-dipped macarons in a plain see-thru box

 Box-shaped chocolate snacks were provided for 'professional' viewers at the Salon by Lenotre - how we suffered...

Do you want to see more Paris candy boxes?

I have many more to show.

Louvre bookstore

More often than not when I visit the musee Louvre I avoid the lines.

And go instead to the Louvre bookstore under the pyramid.

It's never too crowded.

You can check out other exhibition in Paris - look at their catalogs.

I'm a book-aholic. I love bookstores. I'll never give them up and France hasn't either.

But I decided finally to give in and try a Kindle.

There will be books I won't be able to read on it.

Or maybe not?

At least I'll finally be able to read in bed not just on the subway.

Pestering Kindle readers on the subway and reading La Table de Nana's kindle post made up my mind.It is lighter than carrying a book around.

It might be nice to have some travel books in my bag in Paris,

Like Thirza Vallois' guide to the 1-6 arrondissements.

One thing you can't do with a Nook, iPad or Kindle is rest your teacup and macarons on it.

Do you LOVE your E-Readers PBers?

Do tell all!

Tarte Fine

 Tarte Fine au Pomme, 9" x 11"

 To find a tarte fine aux pomme in Paris look for glass paintings near the doorway of cows, chefs, wheat sowers etc.

 Your everyday, no-name, corner, neighborhood patisserie like this one (on rue martyr 75009) will have les tartes fines.

 Basically a tarte fine is a flattened round crust (usually pate sucre or feuilletee) layered with multiply thin slices of fruit in a spiral pattern. It can be savory as well with tomate/aubergine/basilica etc.

 The top is liberally painted with a brush full of abricotage (apricot jam glaze).

 The tarte fine comes in 'individual' sizes or family size. Not so pretty an example here but it tasted divine I assure you...chomp chomp

 Usually your tarte will be wrapped in pretty fruit- decorated paper that acts as dual napkin/holder...

 You will not find many tarte fine in high-end 'couture' patisseries like Fauchon, Herme, Lenotre, though their pastry chefs learned their tarte skills at their grand-mere's knee bien sur. Is it a snob thing?

 If you see chef figurines inside a Paris pastry shop, you'll see tarte fine too...

 Hand-written ardoise/blackboards announce the fruit flavors of-the-day...

 A tarte fine aux fruits makes a great 4 o'clock snack in my opinion - the next best thing to eating an apple...

Sometimes it comes in an adorable illustrated pastry bag worth collecting if you're into Paris trash...

What's not to love about la tarte fine?