May 7, 2009 – I went to Philadelphia last week to attend, along with about 55 other guests, the friendly Francophile ceremony by which Joanne Silver received the decoration of Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes académiques, the most prestigious honor a scholar or academician can receive from the French Government. Adding further weight to the decoration is the fact that the French ambassador to the United States, Pierre Vimont, in person came to Philadelphia to pin the palms on Joanne. The… Read more

I don’t get much of a chance to dig into the soil in Paris. In fact, there are few places in the City of Light where one can even walk on the grass. Not that I was much of a gardener before moving to Paris, but I do recognize the pleasure, at least in theory, of crouching in the soil, digging, weeding, and watching things flower, grow, take form. My planting thumb, though rarely exercised, turns out to be inadvertently green to judge from the plants on the small balcony of my apartment in… Read more

April 2009 – Gary Lee Kraut and Words Travel International, Inc., publisher of France Revisited, are proud to announce their sponsorship of the arts in Philadelphia through a significant donation to the Philadelphia Museum of Art on the occasion of the museum’s April 18 charity event entitled “Art After Dark: Vintage Paris,” a très chic soirée parisienne whose proceeds benefit the museum’s Division of Education. By donating nearly $5000 worth of Gary Lee Kraut’s book “Paris Revisited: The… Read more

Lesley Schwarzman and Laura Barton attended the press opening of Cézanne and Beyond, a major exhibit showing at the Philadelphia Museum of Art until May 17, 2009. Here is Lesley’s report. Philadelphia, March 12, 2009 – “There is more Cézanne within a 4 mile radius of the Philadelphia Museum of Art than in all of Paris,” says exhibit organizer Joseph J. Rishel, referring to the Cézanne and Beyond exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Cezanne collection at the Barnes… Read more

By Gary Lee Kraut Feb. 2009 – I didn’t come looking for Parisian dining when I set out to explore French restaurants in Philadelphia. I came instead to examine the ways in which chefs and restaurateurs present French cuisine in the City of Brotherly Love and to decide which I would recommend and return to given the opportunity. The round-up that follows is the fruit of extensive though not exhaustive investigation. Some will contend that I was more interested in the overall… Read more