PARIS–When Ella Fitzgerald wrote the lyrics to this wonderful song, which was made equally famous by Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra, she knew what she was talking about. Not only is Paris the most romantic city in the world, it is the city which immortalized the loves of the world’s most famous couples, including Heloise and Abelard, George Sand and Frédéric Chopin, Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, Aristotle Onassis and Maria Callas, Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky.

            Still, one might ask: how do you find your own private Paris when you have to share it with over 40 million other visitors each year? Fortunately, the French capital is spread out in twenty different districts (arrondissements), each with its own unique characteristics, each featuring delightful restaurants, wine bars, museums and galleries, as well as parks and gardens. It is little wonder that Paris is one of the most photographed cities in the world, and has been used to film such classics as Funny Face and An American in Paris, as well as Sex and the City. That is perhaps why some of the most romantic couples return to the city year after year, and why some of them never leave.

            My favourite quartier remains the Marais, which boasts the largest number of listed historic mansions in all of France (over 150), starting with the stunningly perfect Place des Vosges, whose red brick and white tufa stone mansions overlook one of the most charming squares in Paris. Here you will find elegant art galleries specializing in contemporary paintings and sculpture, or an excellent bistro meal on the outdoor terrace of Ma Bourgogne, which serves the best steak tartare and fries in Paris. If you have any energy left, you may decide to amble over to the charming Victor Hugo Museum, where you can learn about the intriguing and productive life of the man who penned The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Misérables.  Don’t miss the ever-so-tempting Rue des Francs-Bourgeois whose chic and funky clothing stores include Gérard Darel, Barbara Bui, Comptoir des Cotonniers and Les Petites.

            Take time out to explore the upper Marais, around the Picasso Museum, (unfortunately closed for a two-year renovation), particularly rue Vielle-du-Temple known for its cutting-edge galleries, fashion boutiques, and charming café-restaurants.  I also love Rue Charlot, Rue de Poitou and Rue de Bretagne, with its nifty vintage stores, sexy clothing boutiques, and atypical accessory designers. A must! A great place for people watching remain Le Progrès and La Perle, two of the fun cafés and bars that make this one of the most sought-after areas in the city. Be sure to make time to visit Jacques Genin’s gorgeous new patisserie and chocolaterie—it may have the finest chocolate tart and éclairs in Paris.

            The Marais’ Jewish quarter, whose hub remains the Rue des Rosiers, is particularly inviting on Sundays, when the kosher cafés, restaurants and pastry shops become a mecca for people from all over the world, many of them lining up for the mouth-watering felafels sold at the counter l’As du Felafel), as well as to the trend-setting designers whose shops remain open. The Jewish Museum of Art and History www.mahj.org, which has an exceptional collection of illuminated manuscripts from all over Europe, as well as some of the oldest menorahs in the world, is a must. It also boasts an exceptional collection of 17^th and 18^th century wedding ketubahs and wedding rings.

            My second favourite area of Paris is the Left Bank—an area that includes the Sorbonne (the University of Paris) the city’s second oldest church, L’Eglise Saint Germain, and two of the world’s most famous literary cafés—the Deux Magots www.lesdeuxmagots.frand the Flore www.lesdeuxmagots.fr—as well as such high-end boutiques as Dior, Louis Vuitton, Swarovski, Cartier and Louboutin.

The college student district flanks Boulevard Saint Michel, and is often referred to as The Latin Quarter, largely because students and teachers only spoke in Latin for several hundred years. (French was only decreed a state language in the 16^th century under King Francis the First).

The district’s charming rue Mouffetard, the oldest market street in Paris, remains a feast for the eyes and the senses. You’ll want to come here in the spring, and pack a picnic lunch of fresh-based breads, cheeses, fruits, and charcuterie (pâtés and cured ham), bottled water and wine. Be sure to ask for a corkscrew in case you forgot to pack one.

A guided tour of the area would reveal the former haunts of Hemingway, Verlaine, Dante, and St. Thomas Aquinas, as well as  the history of the splendid 14^th century Hotel de Cluny Museum www.musee-moyenage.fr, which claims the only extant Gallo-Roman baths left in Paris. But don’t stop there. Be sure to take a moment to visit the museum’s breathtakingly beautiful Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, which illustrate the five senses as well as the art of love. If you get hungry, head over to Les Fontaines on the Rue Soufflot, where you can eat a delicious prix-fixe lunch with a glass of wine for a mere 14€.

            While I would skip the Pantheon—there is nothing romantic about a mausoleum, even if it contains the tombs of Alexander Dumas and Marie Curie—I would take time out to discover the Collège des Bernardins www.collegedesbernardins.fr, a recently restored Romanesque edifice that continues to encourage meetings between secular thinkers and the church. Its architecture is  sober and elegant, and there is nothing else like it in Paris.

            No day in Paris is complete without a romantic walk at sunset in the Left Bank’s Luxembourg Gardens, which were originally conceived by the Italian Queen Marie de Médicis. They are so hauntingly beautiful that they have been immortalized by the painter John Singer Sargent, as well as by a host of other writers and poets, including Paul Verlaine and Ernest Hemingway.

             By now, with all the walking you have done, you are probably yearning for a delicious cup of tea and a treat. It is hard to resist the enticingly mouth-watering pastries in the window of  master baker Gérard Mulot www.gerard-mulot.com on the Rue de Seine, or the jewel-like chocolates of Pierre Marcolini, www.marcolini.be/ also on the same street. In winter, you’ll want to sample the creamy thick hot chocolate at Chez Angélina www.groupe-bertrand.com with whipped cream, or a cup of fragrant tea with several different flavors of macarons at La Durée www.laduree.fr. While the original branch of La Durée is on Rue Royale, there are several others around town, including a darling one on Rue Bonaparte.

            If you prefer to save your calories for dinner, you have lots of choices on both the Left and Right Bank. You could sit at Jack Nicholson’s table at Le Grand Colbert www.legrandcolbert.fr—the bistro that became famous through the movie “Something’s Got to Give� starring Diane Keaton. When you taste Le Grand Colbert’s oysters, steak, fries and profiteroles, you will understand why they fell in love over dinner. For something even more intimate, you could choose one of the private dining-rooms on the second floor of Lapérouse www.laperouse.fron the Left Bank, or the Coupe-Chou www.lecoupechou.com/, an authentic Medieval establishment in the Latin Quarter, whose cheery fireplace is as welcome as its delicious, hearty menu.

            Still, my favourite restaurant in Paris remains Christian Constant’s Le Violon d’Ingres www.leviolondingres.comon the rue Saint Dominique, whose 49€ menu remains one of the best values in town. Perhaps that is why I chose it to celebrate my wedding earlier this year. Not only is the food imaginatively prepared with the best of ingredients, but the service is attentive and friendly.

            If you happen to be staying in an apartment in Paris, you can always invite a private chef in to cook you a gourmet lunch or dinner, or even have him on staff for the entire week, depending on your needs and wishes. If you would prefer to attend a cooking class in Paris, there are over 20 different ones to choose from, including courses given at cooking schools established by Guy Martin www.atelierguymartin.com/and Alain Ducasse www.ecolecuisine-alainducasse.com, two of the most famous chef/restaurateurs in France.

There are some outstanding wine stores and cellars in Paris, including Legrand Fils et Filles www.caves-legrand.com/ and Fauchon www.fauchon.com/fr/. If you have time, you might want to schedule a champagne or wine and cheese tasting. They are lots of fun, and don’t have to set up back the price of a bottle of Dom Pérignon. My favourite wine bar in Paris is Tim Johnson’s Juvenile’s; my favourite champagne bar is Dokhan’s www.dokhan.paris.radissonsas.com. Both have a charm and authenticity that makes them truly exceptional. Or you could have a cocktail at the celebrated Hemingway Bar at the Ritz, where they still serve some of the finest cocktails and mixed drinks, decorated with fresh orchids—a reminder of those heady days when F. Scott Fitzgerald ate orchids in the bar to win over a lady who had caught his fancy. Later in his life, Fitzgerald was to pen a famous story titled “A Diamond as Big as the Ritz.�

And for those of you who want to take romance to another level, be sure to admire the jewel-filled windows on the Place Vendôme opposite the celebrated hotel. The eye-candy on display is from such stellar craftsmen as Chaumet, Van Cleef & Arpels, Buccellatti, and Mikimoto.  Even if you don’t buy a thing, just for a moment, you will feel the romance of Paris all the more keenly, in all its dazzling facets of light.

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Rachel Kaplan is the author of six books including Little-Known Museums In and Around Paris (Harry N. Abrams) and Best Buys to French Chic, The Savvy Shopping Guide to Paris (the latter sold through www.parischicshopping.com). Rachel Kaplan is also the President of French Links Tours (www.frenchlinks.com) and France Wedding Planner (www.franceweddingplanner.com) A resident of Paris since 1994, Rachel has provided exclusive private tours, events and concierge services to everyone including a former U.S. President, Hollywood celebrities and Middle Eastern royalty

When the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay are on strike or closed for a national holiday, is there any place you can visit in Paris besides the Luxembourg Gardens and the Eiffel Tower? Yes, indeed there is, and what’s more it’s the kind of place that is both awesomely beautiful and delightfully entertaining. Now that’s a tall order for an art museum, but then again, since the Jacquemart-André Museum was refurbished and brought back to life five years ago, it’s been the talk of the international art world. And even those die-hard Parisians who have never stepped foot into the Louvre, love the Jacquemart if only because it boasts the only restaurant where you can eat beneath an original Tiepolo ceiling.

A house-museum, whose five thousand works of art and antiquities range from the Lower and Upper Egyptian Kingdoms to the Italian Quattrocentro to the Dutch School of Old Master painting and the Rococo of Boucher, Fragonard and Greuze, is definitely in a class by itself. The sumptuous edifice, built in 1869 by the architect Henri Parent (second runner-up after Charles Garner to the Paris Opera) was commissioned by Edouard André, the sole heir to a colossal banking fortune. (It was so colossal that in 1871, he and the Baron Rothschild ponied up-in a single week–5 billion francs in gold as a war indemnity to Bismarck, a payoff that prevented the Prussian army’s occupation of Paris).

Although André was a Bonapartist and a one-time member of the Imperial Guards, after the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War, he retired from public life to amass one of the greatest art collections in France, prepare the museum that would one day become the Museum of Decorative Arts (only second to the Victoria & Albert in London), and publish the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, still the world’s most prestigious art publication. (It’s significant that he had at his disposal twice the annual art budget of the Louvre).

There is no doubt that he was a dashing and handsome man-about-town, who like many of his class, led the life of a cosmopolitan roué, much to his family’s distress. By 1881, they made it clear that it was high time that he settle down, particularly since he was plagued by the gout.

They were soon to become even more distressed, when instead of proposing to a socially and financially endowed heiress, he chose instead, a self-made woman, a portrait painter, named Nélie Jacquemart, whose father had been a steward on the country estate of one of the wealthiest widows in France, Rose de Vatry. The childless Rose had taken Nélie under her wing. Recognized her protégée’s artistic talent, Rose sent her study first with Leon Cogniet in Paris and later in Rome at the Villa Medicis. (The Ecole des Beaux-Arts was closed to women until after World War One).

Nélie began earning her way at 19, drawing for L’Illustration, one the leading weeklies of the time, and later, dedicating her talents to making mainly society portraits of the Orleanist aristocracy who made up the social sphere of Madame de Vatry. Oddly enough, she had painted her future husband’s portrait in 1872, a work that now hangs in the boudoir where the couple took breakfast and tea.

By the time Edouard André proposed, Nélie was close to forty, had a flourishing artistic career and a handsome establishment of her own. Yet, as independent as she was, she must have been tempted by the prospect of a blank check that would permit her to make The Grand Tour at least six months of the year, and bring back a staggering array of objects, the finest that money could buy at the time. In fact, crates of antiques from abroad continued to arrive several months after her death.

A visit to the museum demonstrates that Edouard was most astute in his choice of bride, for it is clear that without her artistic knowledge, he would never have amassed the collection of Italian Renaissance paintings and sculptures by Botticelli, Uccello, Mantegna and Bellini. Moreover, it was at her behest that he built up a stunning collection of Old Masters, including three fine paintings by Rembrandt, three by Van Dyck, and one unforgettable portrait by Frans Hals, that he painted when he was eighty-years-old.

Although the André mansion (built on what was to become the Boulevard Haussmann in 1890) was complete when Nélie moved in, the excellent audioguide reveals how as the couple grew closer the house changed in layout and design. The upstairs gallery-intended to be Nélie’s studio-was arranged to hold their Italian treasures, and Nélie’s original sleeping quarters were changed, so that she could be closer to her increasingly infirm husband. Of course, it was she was responsible for handling all tradesmen, painters, cabinetmakers and art dealers, no small feat at a time when women were still regarded as chattel.

Her husband must have been grateful because he made her his sole heir, which allowed her to travel to the Far East and amass an exceptional collection of Indian and Oriental antiquities and furnishings. She in turn, abided by the wishes of his will, continuing to enrich the collection of the Jacquemart-André Museum so that it now is one of the great showplaces of the world. Thanks to private management, we can now eat Botticelli and Uccello salads under a Tiepolo ceiling, in which the artist and his pet monkey look down fondly at their new slew of admirers. Happily satiated with art, French food and wine, it’s not hard to imagine that the host and hostess, Edouard and Nélie, are still very much in residence.

If I hadn’t been on the way to the printer of my new brochure, it is likely I would have never discovered Lumen on Boulevard Voltaire. At first glance, two windows filled with costume jewellry so poorly arranged and lit, they were easy to overlook and dismiss. But as the author of Best Buys to French Chic, I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to check out jewellry priced at 20€ to 75€, max.

Twenty minutes later, I walked out with Christmas presents for a friend, as well as my assistant, and earrings and a beautiful brooch for myself. Total spent: 120€. The next day, I passed the taste test with the friend who was French–and my assistant loved and wore the earrings made with stunning Swarovski crystals.

The young sales girl in the shop told me on the QT that the jeweller was having a discreet sale of Christian Lacroix jewels, since the designer had been unable to pay for the merchandise and had become a bankrupt. While I was unable to attend the sale, I did mention my keen interest in visiting the jeweller’s nearby atelier at some time in the near future.

Last week, that time came. Eduardo Braz, who began making haute couture buttons 19 years ago, worked for 19 years for Christian Lacroix, never bothering to count the hours he put in to making the designer’s world-famous brooches, earring, belt-buckles and more. Until Lacroix’s demise, Braz employed 23 artisans; today he is down to 12 or 13. Not only did he undertake to pay for all the materials used to make Lacroix’s jewellry, but he was left with thousands and thousands of euros of unpaid orders.

He cannot help being bitter. “Monsieur Lacroix was always available when he needed me to work overtime to finish a collection,” he recalls. “But when he went broke, he never sent me a note or bothered to pick up the phone. He remained the misunderstood genius and everyone else took the blame. That’s not very chic, at all, if you ask me,” he added. Read the rest of this entry »

Today it seems that every fashion title and every women’s service magazine is pushing the best deals for the lowest prices. Elle Magazine clamors weekly on how to pick the best fashion steals from either main street, high street or vintage resources. Even Biba is preaching on where to find the best deals at Hermès, Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior–anything for 500€ or less. Still others are giving tips on where to buy clothes and shoes and bags for under 100€ and even under 50€. So is Paris becoming the new mecca for cheap chic? Yes and no.

Even after the pinning and tucking, and airbrushing of top models, most cheap clothes in Paris still look cheap and drab in the slick glossies. Unfortunately, so do a lot of expensive clothes. Other clothes are so ugly and garish, making women look like teeny boppers or gaunt ghosts, that even if they gave the fashion away this reader wouldn’t be buying.

So what’s a smart woman to do? Certainly, we’re not going to listen to the ravings of a 13-year-old fashion blogger who now gets front-row seating at the Paris collections. Certainly, we’re not going to strap on shoes that are almost as high as stilts and which seem to promise at the very least a sprained ankle, or the need for a chaise porter or two. Who can possibly walk in these monstrosities, even if they do cost more than a week’s salary after taxes? Read the rest of this entry »

Many women come to Paris wondering how French women do it.  How is it that they look so terrific and so much more fashionable than their often wealthier Anglo-Saxon sisters?

When I arrived in Paris in 1994 I had the same thought. At the same time, I didn’t imagine that my American approach to beauty and style had something lacking. Like so many women of my generation, I wanted to put brains before beauty, forgetting the old French adage: “A woman with intelligence is fine, but if she has intellect and charm, it’s even better.”

That piece of advice was told to me two years before I even thought of living in Paris, by a woman who had very little beauty, but a great deal of chic. She certainly seemed to know what she was talking about, telling me in a rather knowing way that Edith Cresson had been Mitterand’s mistress long before she became France’s first prime minister.

Still, two years later, I was off to Paris with a very short wash and wear haircut dyed jet black to hide the growing number of gray hairs, and a wardrobe of Gap chinos, jeans, and blazers, tops and skirts from Ann Taylor. My goal was to learn about Paris after all–not to conquer it.

Even when I began working with a fashion photographer for Czech Elle, it never occurred to me to get a fashion makeover. I wanted to learn how the fashion industry worked from the inside, but I wasn’t committed to being a “fashionista.”

Moreover, as I was launching a career as both an author and a tour guide, who was going to being making more and more public appearances, it slowly dawned upon me that I was going to have make more of an effort.  And so I invested in some well-cut masculine-looking pin-striped pant-suits and some Hermès scarves and Agatha pearls, and assumed that I was set for life. Read the rest of this entry »

Coco and Igor, the new movie

“How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.”  This statement, which came out of the mouth of the infamous Coco Chanel, remains a useful adage for ambitious and original talents of this world.

After sitting through a number of mediocre biopics on Chanel,  it is clear to me that even 40 years after her death in 1970, Chanel remains almost as much of a global brand and household name as Coca-Cola. When I was growing up, the only gospel I knew was the Gospel According to Saint Mathew; today, there may be more readers who know of The Gospel According to Coco Chanel, brought to you by author Karen Karbo.

If Coco Chanel came back to Paris today, she would surprised to see the store windows at 31 rue Cambon displaying bicycles, skis, jeans, open-toed platform boots and ultra-short, thigh-high miniskirts, all sporting her famous double C logo. Not only does this show a shameless exploitation of her initials, but also of her stellar reputation, one that has little to do with Karl Lagerfeld, the designer who is associated with her name today. As one savvy French image consultant opined recently: “The trouble with Karl is that he is too much of a show off.”

Yet, even if Chanel’s designs are a far cry from what they were 40 years ago, few people, except the couture connoisseur seem to care. Women, being what they are, may still judge each other by the state of their Chanel pocketbook, the style of their Chanel sunglasses, and the color of their Chanel lipstick. Read the rest of this entry »

There comes a time when the groaning board of Christmas advertising–whether it’s for the pseudo-bamboo “buche de Noël¨designed by Kenzo or a for crystal-shaped shoe created by Christian Louboutin for Piper-Hiedsick champagne–exhausts our senses and jades our palate.

This year, excess and luxury seem to be misplaced, especially when there is 10 percent unemployment in both France and the United States, and even worse conditions elsewhere.

I am all for Christmas celebrations, but should they focus on a celebration for Christmas merchandising? I still recall a Frenchwoman’s salient reminder: “Noël, c’ est la fête des commerçants.” This year, like Michele and Barack Obama, my husband and I decided not to exchange gifts. Still, I wanted to give something–something with meaning.

Thanks to the wonders of Google, I was able to download a lengthy and fascinating text on the history of Christmas, whose roots go back to the Roman Feast of Saturnalia. As we read and discussed this extensive paper, we learned about the controversy over the birthday of Jesus, the history of the Three Wise Men and the gifts they brought, as well as the history of Christianity itself, the holiday took on a whole new meaning.

I learned the origins of the word “Noël” come from the Latin word for “news.” Clearly the birth of Jesus was a newsworthy event. As a journalist and author, I was struck by the way we can use words for decades and fail to know their original meaning.

That same evening, as we savored Belon oysters and a glass of Ruinart champagne, I read Lewis Carroll’s wonderful poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter” which inspired John Lennon’s song “I am the Walrus”–an indictment of capitalism. It seemed like an apt choice when you consider the victims of Bernie Madoff, whom the jailed billionnaire had feasted on for decades. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Saturday on a foggy, drizzly day in Paris, my husband and I headed out to Versailles–the ultimate temple to excess–for a visit to a long over-due exhibition on the chateau’s creator: Louis XIV, or “The Sun King” as he liked to call himself.

Even under the gray skies of Ile de France, the château’s new golden gates, roof and window decorations, proved so dazzling that I could have used a pair of sunglasses. Talk about the king of Bling! For years, Versailles survived quite nicely without that gold-topped roof–we owe this one to France’s last President Jacques Chirac, who embarked on a campaign to restore the palace to its former glory to the tune of 130 million€. (While some of the funds are coming from the private sector, our tax dollars are paying a hefty amount as well). This was more of a priority than housing for the homeless.

It is worth noting that on his death-bed, Louis XIV did regret this kind of prodigality, telling his great-grandson the future Louis XV: “Don’t imitate me in my passion for building and for war.” Being all of five-years-old, the adorable heir soon forgot this advice, growing up to commission multiple chateaux for himself and his mistresses. Read the rest of this entry »

On a lovely winter’s day in Paris this week I had the great pleasure of attending a debate on romantic love starring the celebrated and glamorous French philosopher and author, Luc Ferry, whose book “What is Happiness?” was an international bestseller 10 years ago in 25 languages. A former Minister of Education under the Chirac government, the dashing Ferry seems to be more comfortable at elegant dinners than in the halls of a school in one of the rougher “banlieues” outside the French capital.

The luncheon debate, titled “What is romantic love today?” drew more women than any other previous luncheon speaker, including the former French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. Comfortably ensconced in the first floor dining-room of Fouquet’s overlooking the Champs-Elysées, we eagerly drank in every word of this brilliant orator, who has been married three times. Certainly, an expert on the subject of love!

The median age of the women in the room was over 50, and likely the persons attending knew almost as much as the speaker who had been invited. What struck me was how elegantly attired they all were–and it was clear that they were used to living among the cultured and monied. Luc Ferry is one of the few right-wing intellectuals in France–although he began his career on the Left. As they say in France: “Marxist at 20, Gaullist at 30.”

Ferry maintained that modern love began as late as 1840, notably with the opera “La Bohème” set to music by Puccini. Yesterday’s bohemians have led he believes to a society of  hyperconsumption–now that’s a stretch–and instant gratification. In short, their polar opposite, the bourgeois, was a saver and striver. Read the rest of this entry »

Last weekend, my husband and I headed out at 9:30 am to the Bazar de l’Hotel de Ville opposite City Hall to purchase a new espresso coffee machine. Being French, with less disposable income, he had done a thorough market review on the Internet and in the print media, before deciding to do his comparison shopping in one of the city’s leading houseware department stores. Initially, he was settled on Lavazza’s machine since that is the coffee that we drink every morning, brewing it in an espresso coffee pot that is no different than the one my mother used 50 years ago. It is both quick and ecological and easy to clean–and offers a more full-bodied coffee than any of the drip machines with filters.

My husband is half-Italian, and coffee is important to him. He only wants to drink the best. Ten years ago, his Florentine mother schlepped a Saeco machine from Italy to Paris, and for many years it held pride of place in our kitchen. We had a Sunday ritual of following a delicious meal with a cup of frothy espresso. Now the machine no longer delivers that same cup of coffee, and so my husband has buried it in the cellar.

While my husband was all set on the Lavazza machine, we ended up buying the Nespresso: a) because it was half the size of the Lavazza and easier to fit on our compact kitchen counter; b) it offered 16 choices of coffee compared to Lavazza’s paltry three. In short, despite the small size of each coffee capsule, the Nespresso offered many more possibilities for coffee appreciation. Less than two hours later, in the comfort of our home, we were savoring a rich albeit small cup of coffee, whose velvety texture and taste I am not about to forget. No Nespresso is not paying me to tell you this–they already have the world’s sexiest pitchman, actor George Clooney, and if anyone can take marketshare away from Starbucks, it is him.

The following day, I headed to the Champs-Elysées flagship Nespresso store to buy refills of the delicious coffee flavor I had so appreciated, only to find hordes of like-minded espresso junkies lined up three-deep to purchase their own refills, as well as coffee machines, and artisanal cookies flavored with almonds or oranges. It was clear that many unsuspecting friends and families were about to become Nespresso converts at Christmas. The store was sleek, handsome and brassy–a temple dedicated to coffee addicts and pleasure-seekers.

While the French are enthralled with the Iphone and the Mac, they are still keen to marry sensual pleasure with technology–hence the success of the Nespresso machine. And while Starbucks can boast serving 10 million cups since its invasion of France, I have yet to see or hear a Frenchman rave about their Starbucks moment. In fact, this Christmas, they have hired a company that offers tours in “deux-chevaux” to ride around the city with a red Starbucks cup on the roof, to gain greater visibility. How American!

Now many readers of this column are bound to think that my husband and I were suckered into buying the Nespresso, thanks to clever advertising and packaging. Perhaps. But all I can remember is the taste of that first cup of coffee served to me lovingly by my husband last Saturday after lunch, and that his sweet gesture is something I won’t forget so soon. It was a “bon moment” to be savored–a fundemental aspect to French art de vivre, and one that should and could be exported internationally.