If any of you have friends in the vicinity of Paris, my husband and I will be on tour with French blues guitarist Fred Chapellier and his band next week, traveling to several small towns where the guys will perform five concerts in as many days. I hope I get to eat some wonderful food in there somewhere; I plan to take lots of photos. For the list of venues and complete schedule see Bill’s website . Oh, and if your friends do come to a show, tell them to say hi to the gal who is attempting to sell CDs without speaking the language!

Look at these crazy food experiments at WD-50.

I love the comments on this item about Serendipity 3’s $25,000 hot chocolate. My favorite one is, “Anyone who buys one of these things should be killed.”

I’m happy to report that Fairway’s rotisserie chickens, which assault the senses on every visit, taste every bit as good as they smell, and they put Whole Foods’ dusty old, overpriced chickens to shame. At $5.49 for a whole, perfectly roasted and seasoned chicken, it’s a perfect last-minute meal.

A few of us went to Blue Hill at Stone Barns yesterday. I put some non-food pictures here. (The dining room didn’t feel camera-friendly, and I hate to be that guy.) All in all, it was a perfect experience, from beginning to end. But I couldn’t help feeling like it was all too perfect, too Manhattan, and much too expensive, considering the hassle and cost of just getting to Tarrytown. I ate fresh greens with mushrooms and a poached, fried egg on top, followed by a confit of Berkshire pork and then chocolate bread pudding. All was extremely delicious and rather small. I’ll go again if someone else is treating.

I just went to that new place Bun on Grand Street. It was lousy from start to finish. It’s a nice room, but it’s freezing, as was my pho and, for that matter, the service. You can do much better for your money in that neighborhood, especially on pho.

Leland will not appreciate, but whatever: The Columbian Explosion.

Here’s a useful and timely article on carving turkey. I’m roasting my first turkey this week, and I imagine I’ll be tasked with carving it as well.

Just in time for a long, cold weekend: a technique for bread even easier than last year’s no-knead bread, which briefly took over the world.