apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Food blogger and cookbook author David Lebovitz is an American renter in Paris who inherited a narrow kitchen with a motley assortment of appliances stuffed under the slanted roof of his 650-square-foot top-floor apartment near the Bastille. “In America, if you don’t like your kitchen, you bulldoze it,” he says in his kitchen on a recent afternoon. “But renters don’t really spend a lot of money to do that in France.”

Well, that's what the editors of Madame Figaro claim in an article this week to coincide with the opening of the 14th annual Paris edition of the Salon du Chocolat, which runs until November 2 in Paris. They did a survey about the chocolate habits of their readers, finding out that 50% of French chocoholics prefer dark chocolate (despite the myth that everyone here eats dark chocolate, there are plenty of people who go for American candy bars). And their favorite moment of the day to eat a square of chocolate? An astonishing 80% said their favorite moment to eat a square of dark chocolate was in front of the TV.

For the last 10 years or so, Halloween has been mildly embraced by a certain number of French people, and it's not surprising to see pumpkin-shaped brioche and other Halloween-inspired creations at boulangeries and pastry shops around Paris at this time of year. But the holiday that is always celebrated here (as in many parts of the western, Christian world) is All Saint's Day on November 1, and yesterday at the boulangerie I noticed a little basket of traditional Corsican Pain des morts that is eaten to mark the holiday...

If you are moved by the Halloween spirit, these removable chalkboard adhesives transform whatever you have steeping in your kitchen cauldron into spooky witches' brew, just in time for the holiday...

The dessert stand has always been a tableware object of negligible necessity, a little altar for baked goods that can nevertheless be worshipped for its aesthetics, as any self-respecting collector will tell you. But this vintage lace-patterned Blaue Blume Dessert stand designed by Tina Tsang really does take the cake...

I was amused to read some commenters on Emma's post wondering if the cupcake fad was nearing an end suggest that the next big bonbon on the horizon may be the little French macaron. Because of course in Paris, it's "La cupcake-mania" that is threatening to supplant the macaron mania that has spread from the pâtisserie to the world of fashion and home décor...

Just a bit of kitchen-inspired home decor for a Monday morning -- like these teacup table lamps and teapot pendant lights from Original BTC in Oxford, England...

Black cabinets, countertops, floors and appliances come in and out of fashion in kitchen design. But what about black paint? More and more people are painting at least one wall of the kitchen dark with chalkboard paint. But in this kitchen featured in Swedish magazine Skona hem, the far wall of a mostly white kitchen is painted in a matte black...

Ever stubbed your toe stumbling into the dark of the kitchen for a glass of water or a midnight snack? Designers Ich & Kar have designed phosphorescent wallpaper to make sure that never happens again...

One of the bonuses of shopping at the farmers market is talking to the fishmonger. I like the manly fishmongers at the Bastille market on Boulevard Richard Lenoir, but they are usually too busy flirting to be of much culinary guidance. I really prefer getting advice from the team of lady fishmongers on the place Baudoyer, like the one who gave us that tip about storing fish...

This week until Oct. 19 is a national event in France -- La Semaine du Goût (or Tasting Week). Started 18 years ago, it is a week-long effort to help school children cultivate their taste buds by educating them about food. Right now all over the country, an army of professional chefs has been dispatched to classrooms to conduct hands-on workshops on this year's theme -- the construction of taste through the process of learning how to cook. And for the adults?

French collective 5.5 Designers has made a business out of selling tongue-in-cheek products designed to help us consume less by making better use of what we already have -- like their prosthetic chair seats and legs for busted up furniture...

Every time I pass a wriggling crustacean at the fishmongers' stand, I can't help think about the haunting philosophical questions posed by the recently departed David Foster Wallace in his brilliant reported essay Consider the Lobster, which first appeared in Gourmet magazine in 2004...

The French can be reserved, but at the farmers market, all bets are off. Exactly what is happening here? The cheese man on Place Baudoyer is letting his prospective customer poke the camembert...