Barbra Austin

There aren’t any foods that I particularly miss when I’m in France, but I do miss certain restaurants: Barbuto, of course, and also The Little Owl where, at lunch, a glorious bacon cheeseburger can be had.

I know it’s true what they say, that you can never go back. But I’m sure we’ll go back to l’Ami Jean, again and again and again.

La Grande Epicerie, the culinary juggernaut of Le Bon Marché is fine for one stop pantry stocking, but it’s the tiny shops, the real specialists, that I love. One of my favorites: Huilerie J. Leblanc.

For the past two years I have eaten at Barbuto almost every week, excepting, of course, those times that I was away from New York. Just a quick walk up Washington Street from my apartment, it has been my local, my go-to, my I-am-too-lazy-to-cook-tonight solution, serving the kind of food that I could never get tired of: Seasonal, loosely Italian, flavorful and fresh, with well-sourced ingredients.

Last Friday I participated in quasi-American style cookout on the rooftop terrace at Mama Shelter, a boutique hotel in the far reaches of the 20th arrondissiment. It was a beautiful evening, and not even the paunchy half naked man looking out his window across the street could take away from the stunning, flaming pink sky.

“Accro” means “hooked” or “addicted” in French. I am accro à several things: My morning coffee, the game Wordtwist (You are going down, Joe!), Advil PM, and now, pistachio ice cream with calissons from À La Mère de Famille.

The bad news is that it’s really, really hot in Paris right now. The good news is that it doesn’t get dark until 10:30, so that when things start cooling off in the evening there’s still plenty of light left.

Not that Paris isn’t beautiful in the dark…