Seven French Things That (IMHO) Oughta Get More Love

algo-eluding faves from Paris and beyond

*My apologies if you’re getting this twice. I slightly screwed up the first delivery 💌💌

Terre de Sommières

Let’s say a dinner guest, gesticulating wildly—and you’re not mad at her—knocks over a glass of red wine and the angle of impact somehow sends it spattering so that it looks as though every upholstered surface in your kitchen is covered in bloodstains. You go running to wipe and daub. But this seems like a job for the big guns, so you dial up Jean-François Clément, superstar cleaner to fancy restaurants, billion-star hotels, the Élysée and the Sénat. (You find it fascinating to imagine the stains he’s seen and really must write about this guy one day.) Clément says I’ve got three words for you: terre de Sommières. You acquire said product for €11.50. It comes in a jar that looks like it contains nutritional supplements, but it’s actually a type of miraculously absorbent clay. All you have to do is dump it on the streaks and smears. Wait a few hours and let it do its thing. Then you vacuum it up. The stuff works on everything. It’s even said to be an effective bedbug remedy. Terre de Sommières! Say its name!

Poulet à la Normande

Can’t lie, when Clémence and Edmond—friends, neighbors, outstanding cooks—invited us over for dinner the other weekend, I spent the whole day fantasizing about what they would give us to eat. It turned out to be something I’d never heard of: Poulet à la Normande, a dish of chicken braised in cider, Calvados, and cream. Edmond chose it to rep Normandy, his home region. Some recipes, such as this one from NYT Cooking, use apples. Edmond doesn’t, but he adds some mushrooms to mix. You can go with NYT Cooking, or you can go with Edmond. (🍗 🍗🍗 I will share his recipe in a separate, for-subscribers-only post.🍗🍗🍗) He and Clémence served the dish over mafaldine, just a little buttered. It was one of the great home-cooked meals of my life.

Timothée Chalamet’s Ancestral Village

Sorry, but who could resist a Paris Match article entitled, “Timothée Chalamet, enquête au Chambon-sur-Lignon, le village de son enfance.” Clearly not I. And, wow, does this article deliver, leaving no bit of Chalametiana unreported, from grandfather Roger (a pastor) and grandmother Jean-Elisabeth (a Canadian) and their arrival with five children in the 1960s to Timotheé’s visit with Kylie Jenner in the summer of 2023. “I think they wanted to go unnoticed, but it was a failure!” recalls one neighbor, who spotted the pair biking into the town center in matching hoodies during a heatwave.

Timothée’s father, Marc, admits that the family’s semi-detached house—“in sand-colored pebbledash, topped with a black-tiled roof”—isn’t much to look at, but says that Timothée’s room is exactly the same as it was during his childhood summers in Chambon, because he “likes for things to stay dans leur jus.” Aside from these fun facts, what I really enjoyed were the photo illustrations, including portraits of residents Géraldine (“She sold two pairs of children's plastic sandals to the youngest of the Kardashian sisters”) and Coralie (“She used to go to the municipal swimming pool with Timothée when they were children”). The mayor of Chambon, for his part, has two claims to fame: “He succeeded Éliane Wauquiez, the mother of Laurent Wauquiez. He knew Timothée's grandfather, who died in 1985.” Forget Kymothee. Here at this newsletter, it’s all about Chalawauqamet.

Timothée Chalamet, “immersing himself in the Lioussel stream,” via Paris Match.