The Joie Review: April 2024
Meals with friends, travels to Italy, and beautiful Parisian apartments to spark joy and inspiration.
Bonjour!!!
As you have figured out by now, I am a bit darker and like to complain more in the winter months. And yes I know April isn’t a winter month, but it sure felt like it this year in Paris. There weren’t too many sunny cafe days but I also didn’t spend that much time in Paris, so who knows why I am even complaining. Parisian love to complain… like a lot. But we also don’t think twice about seeking out joie, which I did a lot of in April. It was a jam packed month with lots to share.
As always if you don’t have time for the stories and just want the links then scroll through for pics and on to the bottom for le notebook.
Enjoie!
Bisous xx,
Ajiri
P.s. I am considering giving my monthly joie review a little visual facelift, but don’t want to put too much pressure on myself. It will be in phases so you might see it slowly evolve in the next few months.
Out on the town…
I didn’t spend too much time in Paris in April because the children had Easter holiday. It feels like they were just on winter/ski vacation!!! French kids have two weeks off school every six weeks. Yes you read that right! But also May is packed with days off and then June has a day off as well. Basically I feel like there isn’t too much school from January through June. It’s annoying at times but we tend to follow their schedule and use it as prompts to plan trips throughout the year. So again complaining but we kinda like it.
One of my best friends was in town with her mother and we went to Gigi’s and Loulou’s for a lunch and dinner. (This is where snobby locals roll their eyes at me. Ha!) Both of these restaurants are places I wouldn’t normally visit for many reasons such as location, price and both seem fussy and touristy in my mind. But I must admit I have enjoyed myself every time and the food is always wonderful. When ordering keep in mind that the portions at Gigi are gigantic and if you are there in the evening there is always entertainment. The musicians move around the restaurant singing and playing their instruments, which is actually really fun! I heard from a friend that as the evening progresses to the hours I am rarely out, people start dancing on the tables.
Loulou’s is a popular spot during fashion and design week. I have also been to a few birthday dinners and a cocktail party in the garden. It’s probably one of the dreamiest restaurant terraces in the city. I mean sitting in the Tuileries with Louvre on one side and the Eiffel Tower on the other… beautiful. Our 11/12 year old daughters also had fun at Loulou’s because they inhaled their food then ran out to play in the Tuileries solo. As is often the case in Paris, if you are at a restaurant with an Instagrammable view of La Tour Eiffel, then you will pay for it in that bill.
Speaking of pricey places, last month, I returned to Blueberry Maki Bar, which I haven’t been to in almost 6 or 7 years. It was just as expensive and delicious as I remembered it. However I was with a friend who is half-Japanese and she didn’t like it at all. Her words were something like she felt this was unnecessary sushi abuse. We sat at the bar where the chefs prepare the sushi and I ordered the Pony (tuna, spinach leaves, avocado, spicy mayo, sesame rice paper, and sesame sauce), the Rackham le Rouge (marinated tuna, truffle carpaccio, cucumber, spicy mayo, tobiko, and chives), and the Shiso Bomb (salmon, avocado, shiso, yellow radish, violet shiso, and nori). Personally I don’t mind creative sushi rolls but I can understand a purist being annoyed by so many different mysteries in their sushi when they just want to taste good quality fish. That said, I once ordered a spicy crunchy tuna roll outside of Aix-en-Provence in a small town and “the crunch” was… doritos!!!!!!!!
Carnet de Voyage
I am still trying to figure out what is the best way for me to fold my travel stories into these monthly round ups. To leave them in or not is the question? The problem is it can get long and also maybe lost if someone is looking for a post specifically about a place I have travelled to.
For now I will share with you that in April I traveled to Florence solo for a glorious few days and then to La Crox-Valmer on the Cote d’Azur in France for a week. I also went from Italy, to Paris and then the South of France all in one day!! It was an epic day of planes, trains, and automobiles.
Sharing a few inspiring photos here and have started working on a longer dedicated post for paid subscriber with addresses and more photos.
Spotlight
I must however share the event that took me to Italy: the 4th annual Women in Food forum hosted by Cook magazine of Corriere della Sera, Italy’s biggest newspaper. It’s been almost a month and I am still in utter shock they contacted me to be a guest and speaker for such a tightly curated, invitation only event.
Women in Food celebrates women who work in food, wine, and hospitality. There are only about 50 women at the event and it’s hosted in a different city in Italy every year. The purpose is to bring women together and celebrate their work. This year’s event was hosted at Viesca Toscana in Reggello, Tuscany. It is the Ferragamo family estate, which is now open for visitors.
Fifteen awards were given to Italian women working all around Europe. I wasn’t familiar with any of them before but got to know so many of the women over the course of 3 days. I chatted a lot with Alessandra Del Favero, a chef at Le Royal Monceau in Paris, and Valentina de Santis from Passalacqua and Grand Hotel Tremezzo on Lake Como.
There were also two special world famous spotlight guests, Nancy Silverton and Donna Hay, which I was excited to meet and now can call friends. We had some magical late night chats, dancing, and a lot of laughs. Donna and I also teamed up at a pizza workshop and spent two hours cracking jokes and trading zippy one-liners.
Then nine women, myself included, were asked to speak for eight minutes using a keyword to share our life story. Our prompt was to consider Virginia Wolf’s A Room of One’s Own. My keyword was fellowship, which is a running theme in my life and a word that perfectly describes the why of Madame de la Maison. Since I was a Nigerian-Jamaican girl in Texas, friends and family always invited me into their “rooms” for fellowship and this continued through the years of my life as I traveled and got older. Now I invite many guests into my “room” and through my business, I am curating and designing beautiful objects to help and encourage others to invite people to their tables/rooms for fellowship. Hard to wrap up an eight minute speech in a few sentences but this was what I talked about.
Most of the women in “The Room” group were english speakers from around the world and included Ligaya Mishan from The New York Times, Pilar Valdes who is the private chef to Drew Barrymore, Eleanor Barnett a food historian from Bath, and Ravinder Bhogal a food writer and chef of Jikoni in London.
I appreciate Angela Frenda, the editor-in-chief , asking me to be a part of this event and all the complimentary words she shared about why she loves my work. Often people don’t consider what I do for events around food. Design yes, food no. I am not a chef or a food writer, but I love to set the scene. I have mentioned inspiring words by author Zadie Smith’s many times and probably will continue to do so. She talks about “the traditional feminine arts of homemaking” being “shamefully undervalued” and not taken seriously often. Often people think this is frivolous and not saving any live or rocket science. But I disagree as does Madame Zadie. As she say it’s as important as the work she does and the work that many others do. We all know the effects of community, connection and food for long life and mental health. As Zadie says, we are ”making a space for another person to be in.” Rooms and space for people to exist and share. Room for fellowship. She calls it “Creating an architecture for life.” Life to be lived in these spaces and these moments.
In le notebook below I am sharing some links for you to learn more about some of the wonderful women I met and Cook magazine.
Design Inspiration
About 7-8 years ago I met Melissa Regan who runs MR Agency, a real estate and location rental company with an impressive selection of properties in her portfolio. I have searched my memory but honestly cannot remember how we were introduced. When I was plotting the creation of Madame de la Maison, I sought her advice and she sent me off to spend a day with her in-laws who I mention in the book and who own a linen farm in Normandy. (Also I remember her best bit of advice was to find a good accountant…I am still on the hunt. Anyone have a good contact to share??) I was and am still fascinated with her as an expat business woman. All foreigners who decide to run a business in France should be given major kudos, hurrahs, and hair dye for all the grey hair to come.
The second year of my business, I rented one of Melissa’s locations for a wedding shoot, and I still regret not getting more images because it was winter and we had such a short window of time with the light. Sometimes I troll her Instagram for glimpses of her properties so when she hosted a porte ouvert, open house, for a new location, I grabbed my metro pass and headed to the 1st.
You can check out her website for glimpses into some really great properties or maybe you are in need of an event rental in Paris. But of course you can… you know…just buy a Paris apartment with all the French design elements that dreams are made of.
Les Mots
Last month, I started reading Still Life by Sarah Winman and was utterly blown away by how beautiful a slow book that revolves around the lives of people at a London pub and then an Italian cafe can be. Also started reading this book while I was in Florence and had NO IDEA that most of it takes place in the place where I was staying. Also it’s seredipidous that this book lines right up with my recent article about rethinking friendships and family. This novel redefines and shows how that can happen or what it looks like. However it’s the author’s way with words and descriptions that… just made me tumble into the story. Storytelling, pleasure….like sitting around a table with friends for a long meal.
Below are two quotes I love and keep rereading to myself. (And I actually want to share more than these but will space out how I bombard you with her beautiful writing.)
My friend Haskell Harris, the founding style director of Gardens & Gun, released her first book House Beautiful in March. My copy didn’t arrive till late so finally get to share it here with you.
Haskell explores what it means to make a meaningful and beautiful home as she renovates her house in Charleston, South Carolina. Along the way, she introduces us to creative women that inspire her and illustrate what it means to decorate thoughtfully. I am pretty honored she flew all the way to Paris to feature me in this book and my best friend Kim, who I went to Gigi’s and LouLou’s with and mentioned earlier in this post.
The Notebook
Gigi Paris
An Italian restaurant with spectacular views of the Eiffel Tower and musicians that walk around the tables in the evening. Note: most local Parisians don’t go to places like this because they are pricey and clearly aimed at tourists but I enjoyed it and don’t mind going with friends visiting.
15 Avenue Montaigne
75008 Paris
Website
Instagram
Loulou Restaurant
An Italian-French restaurant connected to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs with beautiful interiors and one of the best terraces in the Tuilerie Garden with Eiffel Tower views.
107 Rue de Rivoli
75001 Paris
Website
Instagram
Blueberry Maki Bar
A sushi bar in Saint-Germain with creative twists on classic sushi rolls.
6 Rue du Sabot Paris
75006 Paris
Website
Instagram
WiF- Women in Food 2024 Forum
A 2 day event hosted by Cook Corriere Magazine in Italy to celebrate and bring together women in food, wine, and hospitality. Below are a few links to learn more about some of the women at this year’s event.
Our event was hosted at Viesca Toscana, a Ferragamo family estate in Tuscany that looks like a great place to vacation. More here.
You can learn more about this year’s forum at a dedicated Cook Corriere page here.
Watch Nancy Silverton on Season 3 of The Chef’s Table. (It was impossible to link Netflix episodes but if you subscribe then they should be easy to find.)
Watch Franco Pepe’s episode on The Chef’s Table Pizza on Netflix episode 3.
I dream of staying at Valentina de Santis’ hotels the Passalasqua and The Grand Hotel Tremezzo on Lake Como, but for now I enjoy drooling over their website and Instagram.
Emiko Davies has a beautiful website where you can check out her various books and sign up for a retreat.
I look forward to visiting Ravinder Bhogal’s restaurant Jikoni on my next trip to London. She is also a columnist at The Guardian and the Financial Times and recently wrote a moving article about her miscarriage for the Sunday Times.
I have been enjoying the paintings on food historian Dr. Eleanor Barnett’s instagram account and look forward to reading her book Leftovers: A History of Food Waste & Preservation.
Anissa Helou also has a dreamy Instagram, especially photos of her home in Sicily, and I just started diving into her substack newsletter.
Loving this video of Pilar Valdes making dijon butter mussels on the Drew Barrymore show.
MR Agency
A real estate and event location rental company founded by a Californian expat.
Instagram
Still Life by Sarah Winman
You can order the book here.
The House Romantic by Haskell Harris
You can order the book here.
This post is amazing ! Thank you. Now I have several things to look into and books to read.
So many thanks for your newsletter.
Rebecca