Kristin Hohenadel

You don’t just see this kind of behavior at the farmers market. I love nothing more than catching a man in the supermarket cheese aisle ripping the lids off of round camembert boxes and poking until he finds one that’s fit for lunch. Why does anyone buy the inferior, industrially produced and generally not less expensive cheese at the supermarket in France? Maybe because they don’t have to ask permission before poking the camembert.

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.

It’s a cute Alsatian word for what is known in plain French as the tarte flambée — a thin-crust pizza made with crème fraîche, sliced onions and smoked lardons and traditionally baked in a wood-burning oven.

At least that’s what a French friend called it, after refusing to believe that I, an American, did not have some ancient family recipes for les cakes salées, as they are called here in France to differentiate them from sweet varieties (les cakes for short). These are no gâteaux, but savory cakes baked in a loaf pan, popular cut in cubes and served as finger food with an apéritif or packed in picnic baskets.

Alziari has been making olive oil in Nice since 1868, and back in the days when one could carry liquid onto airplanes, the beautiful 1-liter cans in Provencal colors made a great edible souvenir. You can find the famously sunny, buttery, fruity and silky olive oil in fine food stores around the world — often at a huge mark-up — but you now order direct from Alziari via their online store, with delivery to 21 countries mostly in Europe but including the U.S.

When visiting friends who like to cook and bring back edible souvenirs ask me where to shop for spices, I always send them to Goumanyat & Son Royaume, a treasure trove of high-quality spices on the rue Charles-Francois Dupuis near République…Run by Jean Thiercelin (who speaks English, by the way), Goumanyat has been in the fine food business for seven generations. This is where chefs like Alain Ducasse and Joël Robuchon shop for high-quality spices.

When I was in London last month, a friend with excellent taste took me with her on her supermarket run to Waitrose, and was dismayed to find that they didn’t have any England Preserves London Marmalade, settling for some of Prince Charles’ reliable organic Duchy Originals instead. I had never heard of England Preserves.

The French use a variety of nut oils in their cooking. One of my favorite discoveries has been pistachio oil. Extracted from pistachio nuts, pistachio oil is a beautiful bright green, with a heady aroma and a distinctive pistachio taste…Pistachio oil works best with freshly squeezed orange juice or a sweet vinegar like balsamic and a dash of honey to make a vinaigrette to dress a salad of endive or bitter greens, or roasted beets and tangy goat cheese.

The modern French chef loves nothing more than to revisit the great classics of French cuisine.

Despite the cold, rainy weather, it’s picnic season in Britain, and this romantic picnic basket for two is a British vision of a Provence-inspired basket full of so-called “continental style…”These classic baskets painted with English roses by French artist Redoute or loaded with Wedgewood china are just some of the few options available from the Picnic Hamper Shop.– Kristin Hohenadel blogging from rue Vieille du Temple, Paris, France.

I set a bunch of kidney beans to simmer on the stove the other day and forgot about them — until I noticed that the air in my kitchen was filled with a vaguely unpleasant smell.

Everyone is always asking me where to buy copper pots in Paris. And while internet shopping and the fallen dollar mean that buying copper cookware in Paris is not the bargain it once was, the act of buying copper pots is still a cherished errand for foodies on vacation who want to bring back a souvenir that will last a lifetime (and beyond).You can find copper pots in department stores, second-hand shops and brocantes. But for brand new copper cookware, your first stop should be E. Dehillerin.

When I moved to Paris, I never expected that French cuisine, known for its subtlety and refinement, would have anything to teach my palate about heat. And then I discovered Piment d’Espelette, a homegrown hot red pepper with an understated bite. The fragrant, piquant powder that is now a staple in my spice pantry begins in the village of Espelette in the southwest Basque region of France.

If you’re looking for a gift for that beloved gourmet Francophile in your life or just feel like owning a bit of French soil, check out this truffle tree adoption scheme in Gascony, France.In exchange for adopting a truffle-producing oak tree, you can either have truffles mailed to you — or sold on your behalf (you’ll receive a check at the end of the truffle season).

Marianne’s Paris apartment didn’t come with cabinets. “I didn’t want to get an IKEA like everyone else,” Marianne says. A DIY kind of gal, she started collecting empty wooden wine crates from supermarkets and wine stores, and drilled them into the wall as open storage in her kitchen.For the full house tour, go here.– Kristin Hohenadel blogging from rue Vieille du Temple, Paris, France. She can be reached at kristinh @ apartmenttherapy .

Tom’s Deli on Westbourne Grove in London is a favorite spot for a sit-down breakfast or lunch. But the full-service deli also has fresh take-out sandwiches, prepared salads, fish cakes, and baked goods — and it’s packed to the rafters with some of the best British and European gourmet food products on the market.

For anyone with an interest in cooking, a trip to the Paris brocantes — roving antique fairs that set up shop around Paris in every season but summer — is a lesson in kitchen nostalgia. From vintage kitchen canisters and coffee mills to 19th-century locked crystal sugar boxes used to store the then-precious sweet stuff, there’s always something fascinating to discover.

Bleinhem Crescent is a fabulous little London oasis for the home cook, with the Books for Cooks bookshop/café and The Spice Shop right across the street.The Spice Shop is a London institution, the city’s best address for sourcing literally any spice from anywhere in the world.The Spice Shop also ships its spices and spice blends internationally and has online ordering. But you have to walk into the shop to get the heady hit of spices that greets you when you walk in the door.

The outdoor stalls of London’s Portobello Road market have a wealth of tea-related paraphernalia, from toast caddies to tea cups in a riot of English patterns. But if you wind your way into the indoor antique shops along the road, you can also find a number of vintage kitchen items like this funny little “Household Wants Indicator” (remind you of something?) or recipe-printed blanc-mange molds from the 19th century.

One of the best ways to spend a Saturday afternoon in London is to crowd into bookstore/café Books for Cooks, a Notting Hill institution where you can browse thousands of international cookbooks and grab one of a handful of café tables to sample daily changing light meals cooked up in the open test kitchen in the back. By the time we got there at 2 pm on a recent Saturday, they were down to their last slice of coconut cake.