All tagged expat

Motivated By My Tiny Parisian Kitchen

Motivated By My Tiny Parisian Kitchen

Whitney Donaldson
expat life, eating & drinking

I like to cook. A lot. I find the repetition of certain tasks relaxing, the smells intoxicating and at the end, I have something to show for my effort. Unfortunately, I haven't always been consistent in the kitchen. 

While living in LA, I would only be motivated to cook something delicious when I knew Steve was driving down for the weekend. I'd find something online (Smitten Kitchen is my go-to). I would spend Friday evening prepping for dinner. My roommates would pull up a stool, watch me chop, mix and sauté. We'd chat and drink glass of wine, awaiting Steve's arrival.

Le Marché des Enfants Rouges

Le Marché des Enfants Rouges

Whitney Donaldson
exploring paris, wandering

Yesterday, I decided to revisit Le Marché des Enfants Rouges. It's an open air market on Rue Bretagne, 3rd arrondisement. Steve and I stopped in a few weeks back for lunch at a Lebanese stall. If you visit, you;ll see there are tons of stalls to explore - a variety of restaurants and the regular stands selling seafood, fromage, produce and more. Now that we live closer...

A Weekend Recap + The Sunday Vide Grenier

A Weekend Recap + The Sunday Vide Grenier

Whitney Donaldson
wandering, weekend, expat life, exploring paris

How we spent a nice fall weekend in Paris.

This weekend, we moved around the city quite a bit, from Rue de Pot de Fer in the Latin Quarter for a few bieres up to Montmartre for fireworks and wine and back to our brand new apartment in the Marais - mostly by bike. Both of us finally signed up for Velib, the bike share program in Paris (only 30€ per year), and it turned out to be...

Nuit Blanche 2015

Nuit Blanche 2015

Whitney Donaldson
events, expat life, exploring paris

Nuit Blanche is an all night celebration of art. This year, all the action was on the right bank, rive droite, and showcased installations that started in Hotel de Ville and moved up to north, both nord-ouest and nord-est. The event was on October 3rd.

This year's theme was climate change in anticipation of the...

Mirabelle Jam

Mirabelle Jam

Whitney Donaldson
eating & drinking, expat life

My first foray into making a confiture (jam) in France.

I've been seeing mirabelles at markets all over for the past couple weeks; I wasn't quite sure what they were. But just two days ago, I happened to stumble upon David Lebovitz's Mirabelle Jam Recipe. Not only does he give a great explanation of what they are - "tiny cherry-tomato-sized fruits that are sweet, with a rich plum flavor and little acidity" - he follows it up with...

Getting a Cell Phone in France

Getting a Cell Phone in France

Whitney Donaldson
expat life

How we got a cell phone in France. It requires lots of patience and paperwork.

We had gone two and a half weeks without cell phones. We had no way to contact each other besides the internet. We needed a lot of things to be figured out before heading into a mobile store - we needed a bank account, I needed an unlocked iPhone and Steve needed to decide which phone he wanted...

My Visit to the Laverie

My Visit to the Laverie

Whitney Donaldson
learning french, expat life

It was decided that this week, we needed to get some laundry done. Since I'm not much of a laundromat frequenter (especially in France), I needed a plan. 

On Wednesday, I stopped by the closest laverie on rue Claude Bernard and took a lot of pictures. My intent was to look at them at home along with Google Translate so I could decipher what buttons to push, how to pay and more...