Herding Cats

Having run triathlons in a past life it was a rude shock that the most exhausted I’ve ever been was after shepherding my daughter’s class to Parc de Sceaux for their annual end of year picnic. Miss Clavel would have been horrified at our two straight lines and the French parents immediately understood the phrase “herding cats”, no further translation needed. After a week to recover I’m happy to report that everyone made it both there and back safely on the train, and that playing with multicoloured parachute fabric is both an international activity and still popular.

Despite the blue skies I got drenched in an unexpected storm on the way to a Substack summer party hosted by powerhouses Farrah Storr, Renée Kaplan and Marissa Cox (thank you ladies!) and arrived rather less chic than I’d intended. Faced with talking to strangers I cowered in the corner for a while but was thrilled once I actually got chatting to all the talented writers in attendance and had such a good time I didn’t notice my bedtime whizzing by.

While everyone lost their minds about the canicule (heatwave) I smugly reverted to my Aussie training: complaining makes it worse, do anything important first thing in the morning, ice-cream counts as dinner and buy groceries that don’t involve the oven to cook. It was with this last one in mind that I trundled to the market exclusively for salad and things that go well with salad. If you’ve never tossed mountain peaches, burrata and cured ham on top of lettuce with a bit of balsamic glaze I suggest you do so immediately.

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Sunday was father’s day and I congratulated myself all day that I’d sent my Dad a card in advance, only to realise at 6pm that I’d failed to celebrate my wonderful husband. Some quick kids drawings and a rushed wrapping job later he seemed quite chuffed we’d thought of him at all. On the rare occasions anyone asks me relationship advice the only thing I say is marry someone kind, it’s the best thing I ever did.

My cousin, his wife and their perfect new daughter arrived just in time to celebrate Fête de la musique, the particularly Parisian way of observing the summer solstice, and we wheeled the baby round the neighbourhood like a queen. All the acts we saw were brilliant but my favourite was the brass band belting out Madonna’s Like A Prayer in full matching leopard print.

Have a great week,

- Emily

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Cheese we’re eating this week:

• Burrata - an Italian cow milk cheese made from mozzarella and filled stracciatella and cream.

• Chêvre de Madame Moret - an ash coated goat’s cheese made by Madame Moret, the neighbour of the fromagier.

• Comté - a semi-hard cheese made from unpasteurised cow’s milk from the Jura Massif region of France, this one was aged 18 months.

All three cheeses were from Manu at Marché Maubert.

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Coffee Granita

I wanted to start a bike cart selling this in summers but I was too lazy.

• 500ml strong espresso (I did a bunch of Nespresso long coffees but make it however you like)

• 100g sugar (I like a 5:1 coffee to sugar ratio but you can play around with it a bit)

• 250ml double cream

• Pinch of icing sugar

1. Brew the coffee, dissolve in the sugar, pour into a large metal cake tray (a brownie pan is good) and put into the freezer, then scrape it all up with a fork every 30 mins or so until it freezes in big crunchy flakes.

2. Whip the double cream with a pinch of icing/powdered sugar until quite stiff.

3. Serve in small glass bowls, layering the cream and granita.

Bon appétit!

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Real Life Paris Photo

This is why we can’t have nice things.

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Recent Finds Worth Sharing:

• Who is Miss Clavel?

• I don’t know exactly why but this cap is better than any other cap I’ve ever worn.

• Turns out film photography is a super steep spending runway. Have sold all my old clothes to upgrade to a “new” 30 year old camera.

• When even the BBC is telling me I need a special hairbrush is it time to succumb to a Bonne Brosse?

• Nagi always has the answer

• 5 years in, still using this face serum