Jamie Schler

In 1988, I brought my French husband home to the U.S.; as well travelled as he was for 30 years old, this would be his first trip to the States.

Shortly after our arrival, we made our first visit to the local supermarket, one of several national chains in...

A great cookbook is like a good friend: it is ever-present, reliable and trustworthy, offering unequivocal pleasures, comfort when comfort is needed, joy in the everyday.

There's a show on French television that I love: Rendez-vous en Terre Inconnue, Rendezvous in an Unknown Land. The host of this astonishing program takes a French celebrity, a singer, actor, director or comedian, to an unknown destination (unveiled while they are sitting in the airplane) to spend two weeks...

I recently wrote a piece published on Huffington Post bewailing the deluge of junk food posing as the home baked and home cooked on so many American food blogs, the glamorization of gaudy sweet treats concocted from industrial, packaged, processed foodstuffs for a large reading public. I wondered...

Information spreads, food cultures merge, and awareness grows. America has embraced the green, the local and the seasonal, organic is all the rage and farmer's markets are the latest trend. Culinary discoveries surround us, new cuisines and exotic ingredients now a simple shopping trip or internet connection away. There has...

Each and every year, as we inch towards that most passionate of holidays, Valentine's Day, we begin the search for the most special gift or treat to offer our dearly beloved; we begin shifting through recipe after recipe looking for the most extravagant, drop-dead gorgeous, romantic meal -- okay, who...

France is the most popular tourist destination in the world -- attracting a whopping 78.95 million foreign visitors in 2010 alone even in the middle of a world economic crisis. Her gorgeous countryside, her museums and châteaux, a rich cultural heritage and history; from Aix-en-Provence to the wild, rugged coast...

The decorations have all been taken down, wrapped carefully up and returned to their hiding places, the evergreen has been dragged out to the compost and every scrap of crumpled wrapping paper and discarded ribbon has been gathered up and thrown away. The last of the holiday leftovers have been...

As the holidays approach, I, as is the custom, have begun making my list for Santa -- or whomsoever is behind the windfall of gifts (well, windfall is rather an exaggeration) that come my way each Hanukkah and Christmas season. Although...

Call me a skeptic. Maybe it is because I have what some refer to as an iron gut. I can eat anything. Anything. Never sick. Or maybe it is because I've had the runaround one too many times, a doctor trying to convince me that one son or the other...

Who can deny the power and persuasion of...

La pause déjeuner has always been a veritable sacré moment in every Frenchman and Frenchwoman's day. I was introduced to and initiated into this ritual before I married into a French family; every day at noon, my future husband's parents would see out their last client, lock up the shop...

Everyone, it seems, is jumping on the food blogging bandwagon: famous chefs and tv personalities, professional food writers, stylists and photographers. But most food bloggers are just plain, ordinary folk simply passionate about cooking, baking and eating. It begins small, posting the special, homey recipes passed down from generation to...

August 15 is holiday in France. A religious holiday celebrating the Assumption of Mary, it is now a day on which families and friends gather for festivities with a somewhat less than religious bent. We awoke bright and early to the joyous ringing...

It has been raining relentlessly across Europe and the summer has been no summer at all. We step outside, jackets thrown over our sweaters, umbrella unfurled, and walk into centreville, head bowed against the chill wind. We watch in dismay as the few...

My husband and I just returned from our great adventure: one fabulous week biking along the Canal Nantes à Brest. What was once inhospitable territory had become navigable, a route from Nantes through Brittany's interior and reaching out towards Brest, a swathe cut...

If given the choice, my husband and sons would have me bake exactly the same sweet treats every single time: our youngest, the persnickety one, would be happy with the most basic of brownies or a simple chocolate chip coffee cake over and...

I miss him. It's as simple as that. No long, rambling stories recounted, no wisps of nostalgia or idle memories rekindled. I simply miss my brother. As ALS Awareness Month comes to an end in the United States and begins in both Canada...

And a Recipe for Traditional Far Breton

Each month as I sift, measure, fold and pipe out perfect little domes of batter and whip up deep, dark chocolate ganache for my French macarons, my husband, French himself, storms through the kitchen, ranting...

How many days into Passover do you get tired of the same old same old? Matzoh smeared with jelly, canned coconut macaroons and packaged sponge cake? These are the holiday foods of my youth and I wonder if, over all of these years,...