Bernadette Machard de Gramont

As an American who grew up with a very nonchalant attitude towards mealtimes, I didn’t know what to expect when I first accompanied my now-husband on a trip to his family home in southwest France. Even though it was a decade ago, I remember the trip vividly: It was a cultural immersion that included going on trips to the open markets, nervously helping with meal preparation, and getting sideways glances for my New World table manners (a story for another time).

I came away from that trip with...

Find a trusted supplier for whole crawfish, and choose domestic varieties for the best quality.
Eating whole crawfish doesn't require utensils — your hands are your best tool.
Simply twist the head off the tail, peel the tail, and eat the meat.
Every spring, the southeastern United States welcomes crawfish season. Also known as crayfish, mudbugs, or crawdads, these little creatures are either wild-caught in rivers and marshes or farmed and harvested to end up in such delectable delights as gu...

A Manhattan is made with three main ingredients, so a good whiskey is the real star of this drink.
The Manhattan is one of several iconic cocktails from the late 19th century with a hazy origin story.
If the classic Manhattan isn't enough, try one of a variation like the Rob Roy that subs in Scotch.
"At its heart, the Manhattan is designed to make a great whiskey shine," says Heather Wibbels, Chair of the Bourbon Women Board of Directors and mixologist-in-chief at Cocktail Contessa. This magi...

Aperol spritz is a popular version of the spritz Veneziano, an Italian pre-dinner cocktail.
It only has three main ingredients — Aperol, Prosecco, and sparkling water.
Aperol is a sweet, bitter aperitif made with a well-guarded formula of orange, herbs, and roots.
Bright, bittersweet, and slightly effervescent, the Spritz — a traditional Italian aperitivo— has found massive popularity across the pond.
"For Italians, a spritz is a stimulation of the palate and gastric acid in order to have mor...

Matcha is a beverage made from grinding whole, partially shade-grown green tea leaves into powder.
It has been used for centuries by Buddhist monks to keep focus during long hours of meditation.
Matcha powder can be used in a variety of beverage recipes, from lattes to cocktails and more.
For hundreds of years, many people across Asia have enjoyed the rich green tea concoction known as matcha. Created in China during the Tang Dynasty, it was brought to feudal Japan by Buddhist monks who used ...

The old fashioned is the first American cocktail, and uses whiskey, sugar, bitters, and water.
It was designed to allow bar patrons to better enjoy the poorly-made whiskey of the early 1800s.
Today, the old fashioned is a style of cocktail that can showcase just about any spirit.
If you're into old-timey cocktails, the old fashioned is as classic as it gets. Made up of just sugar, bitters, whiskey, and water, it is believed to be the first American cocktail creation. This "alcohol-forward" co...

The Hawaiian Islands are some of the most isolated in the Pacific, meaning they’ve had eons to grow their own delicate ecosystem that only gets more fragile as technology churns and burns onward.
Oahu — home to Honolulu, Waikiki, and two-thirds of the state’s population — is only 44 miles long and 30 miles wide. Every inch of these hills, mountains, and valleys is precious. The tour and travel experiences below are sustainable, low-footprint ways to celebrate the land and sea, for kamaaina (l...

“Quesadillas are to Mexicans as the grilled cheese is to the average American,” says Chef Olivia Hernandez, owner of Austin-based Hernandez Hospitality. While her favorite quesadilla is a corn tortilla filled with Oaxaca cheese, grilled onions, and squash blossoms, in its most basic form, a quesadilla s...

In the house where I grew up, we had two living rooms: a formal one that we weren’t allowed to sit in, and the other that housed the television and, often, our overflowing toys and books. When my French husband visited my family home for the first time, the dual living room situation confused him: The house isn’t particularly large, and my parents don’t regularly host guests, so the formal living room sat empty most of the time. After some convincing, my parents gave us free rein to rearrange...

I’d never been a sandwich girl—until my first visit to France. That was when I realized that there’s no other French “fast food” as simple and as widely adored as something delicious between two slices of bread. Good baguette, an assortment of charcuterie, strong mustard, and salted butter are all readily available and fairly inexpensive no matter where in the country you find yourself, meaning an excellent sandwich is never out of reach.
When we visited my in-laws, my belle-mère quickly thre...

If you have a friend who has only recently learned how to cook, it's likely that their kitchen holds only the most essential tools. Help them expand their culinary expertise (and kitchen gadget collection) by gifting them with something from this list, where you'll find suggestions for beginning bakers ...

Wall-to-wall carpeting was on my list of “features to desperately avoid” when scouting for my last apartment. I’d been living in a San Francisco studio where the landlord had installed such a carpet in approximately 1995. On several occasions, I borrowed a steam cleaner and meticulously scoured the fabric in the hopes of getting it as close as possible to its original off-white hue, but after years of being walked upon, my efforts proved futile. (And I won’t even get into how much dirt that s...

Even though I’ve been cooking my French husband’s favorite dishes for nearly a decade, I tend to follow recipes closely with very little room for improvisation.
But maybe it's time I reconsider: When I looked more deeply into France’s gastronomic history, I found that some of the most beloved recipes were born from mistakes. (Like, an errant addition of hot cream, or a chef caught off guard without the correct ingredients on hand.) After all, a little deviation never hurt anyone!
Here are fiv...

Bread machines are great, but you can make bread without them. Combining the ingredients in a stand mixer and oven-baking is another great method. The KitchenAid Artisan Series stand mixer might be the most iconic model out there, known for its durability and performance when mixing everything from meri...

With all the gorgeous, plant-filled interior spaces I’ve seen lately, it seems like any room could benefit from a little greenery. Even science says so: NASA's famous Clean Air study shows that certain indoor plants can provide a natural way of removing toxins like formaldehyde and ammonia from the air. Other research shows that just having plants around improves focus, lowers anxiety, and increases productivity. Yet another study concluded that people experience an unconscious calming reacti...