I'll Bring the Wine: How to Never Show Up Empty Handed in Your Twenties
When I was studying abroad in Paris the spring of my junior year of college, I was required to take a beginner French class. It was taught by a woman named Alexandra, who was from the country side of France and who had a tongue piercing and who was perpetually late. I didn’t learn much French that semester. Alexandra would scribble vocabulary words in light blue dry erase marker on the board which she would point to and ask rhetorically, or rather state “you know what it means.” We never did. What the class lacked in a basic education of how to communicate, it made up for in teaching “the french way.” Classes consisted of trips to a local creperie, a morning spent at an outdoor market, a tour of the Latin Quarter, and a two-weeks long lecture on proper etiquette—an education which in some ways, was as important, and certainly more enjoyable, than a lesson on French numbers 0-60.
There are in Paris, or in France, generally—and I suppose everywhere, really—rules of etiquette, standards for being and interacting, that are specific and unspoken and which served as the crux of my French education during my brief stint living abroad there. These rules ranged from what side of public escalators to stand on to how many kisses to give when you greet someone to the exact decibel level at which you should speak when on the metro. Most importantly were two rules for arriving. Who we are when we arrive so often dictates who we will become if we stay. Thankfully, the french have devised the perfect rule for circumventing language barriers with this most crucial rule of etiquette: never show up empty handed. These here are my favorite ways of how to:
4 Drinks any 20-something can afford
pinot grigio
by Conte Fini
$17.99 a bottle on Drizly
Cabernet sauvignon
by Francis Coppola
$14.99 a bottle on Drizly
Canned cocktails
G & Ts have always been a go-to, but when Fleabag normalized canned G & Ts, I knew they were for me.
by Bombay Saphire
$12.99 on Drizly
canned cocktails
other wines I love:
and other gift ideas…
we’re not really strangers
this is the game that fosters connection. while a mutually spoken language is imperative to playing, nothing else really is, other than, perhaps an openness to others, a willingness to be proven wrong, and a general curiosity about other people.
locally roasted coffee
there is perhaps no gift that continues to give like a bag of local coffee.
Fresh or Dried flowers
because a home never feels complete without flowers.
loaf cake
simple and homemade, loaf cakes take on so many flavors and styles and are an inexpensive and easy last minute housewarming gift. See my recipe for the best blueberry coffee cake here!