Over the past few years I have grown very fond of Europe. Italy and France to be exact. I fear am happy that it has now turned into a full blown obsession. How can I tell? For starters….
- I walk by snails sliming up the sidewalk and I think, "Mmmm, they would make a wonderful dinner with garlic and butter sauce"
- The $2 Morton salt used to be a staple in my kitchen…now I only use $10 Fleur de Sel
- I have articles of clothing that now require an additional description of where I have worn or bought them, like my Paris raincoat or my Italian leather gloves
- My ultra modern electric automatic drip coffee maker has been downgraded to a French Press
- Daily breakfast has gone from cereal and coffee to a croissant and cafe au lait
- I used to buy a no name brand of olive oil on sale in my local supermarket…now I won’t buy anything less than First Cold Pressed Extra Virgin Olive Oil from my favorite Italian deli
- My Joy of Cooking and Martha Stewart cookbooks(that suited me fine for years I might add) have been replaced by Barefoot in Paris and Patricia Wells’ Trattoria
- I now have a collection of beautiful scarves. I wear them often…to feel like a stylish Parisienne(of course they are all my Paris scarves)
- Even though I live in Suburbia where the winters are cold and we get feet of snow…I often dream of trading in my car for a Vespa
- Instead of sleeping in on the weekends I find myself up at an ungodly hour, flicking through the channels to watch Samantha Brown’s Passport to Europe
- In my wine shop, I blatantly ignore bargain after bargain from Australia, South Africa, California, Oregon and Germany as I dash off to the France and Italy regions. It’s as if those other places don’t even exist
- I am always dreaming, wishing and excitedly hoping that my blog will have the honor of being an ‘expat’ blog.
C’est obsession, non?