What filming a TV segment about Texas food taught us about the small things you leave behind
We ended up on European television — sort of
We filmed an episode of a food culture series for Arte, a Franco-German public broadcaster that’s something like a European PBS (If you’re in France, you can watch it HERE). It was fun. It was tiring. And they filmed the inside of our refrigerator, which I was absolutely not prepared for. (We also just bought a gigantic American fridge, so we are officially a walking stereotype.)
I tried to speak French on camera. The producer gently suggested that maybe English would work better, and they’d add a voiceover. Fair enough — I tried.
The show explores how different foods reflect culture, then finds people from that culture living in Europe to see how they adapt those recipes and share them locally. This episode focused on Texas — and we got to represent. We’ll share the link when it airs!
Fajitas in France: a scramble we didn’t see coming
For the segment, we decided to make fajitas — and immediately realized we’d never actually tried to recreate this particular corner of our home cuisine in France. The scramble was real.
First: finding the French equivalent of skirt steak. (It’s hampe, and your butcher will know exactly what you mean.) Next: figuring out tortillas without lard — not a thing here, so we used duck fat, which worked beautifully. Then came the spice problem. French cooking uses so little heat that the language doesn’t really distinguish between types of chilis — there’s basically one word for all of them. I can name five varieties off the top of my head without thinking.
We ordered a tortilla press. We thanked every star in the sky that we still had a cast iron skillet — the one we shipped from the U.S. our first year, at absurd cost, but absolutely worth it. We dug out our cup measurements for the margaritas (I refused to convert to metric on principle), and we tracked down a Mexican grocery store that ships dried chilis for the marinade.
Juliana cooking her first Tex-Mex tortilla — on a crêpe drum. You might spot Benoit the Baguette’s human counterpart in the background.
The moment the chips-and-dip bowl made me stop
As we pulled everything together, our French friends gathered in the kitchen — laughing, sipping margaritas, learning to press tortillas. I set out chips and salsa, and that’s when it hit me.
Back in the U.S., we had a chips-and-dip bowl. A gift from friends. Bright, fiesta-striped — wide and shallow, with a central well for salsa so everyone could reach from around the table. It came out every spring, every time the frozen margaritas started flowing. When we moved, I left it behind. It was heavy, impractical. I thought: it’s just a bowl. They have bowls in France.
They do have bowls in France. But not that kind of bowl. And not really that kind of moment — the communal chip-grab, the salsa in the center, everyone reaching across each other while something sizzles on the stove. I used two regular bowls. It was fine. But standing there in our French kitchen with our French friends, I felt a small, specific wave of missing something.
I wished I’d brought it.
“They seem unimportant during the excitement of moving. But eventually, you want to share your own traditions — or just reconnect with them.”
What to actually bring when you move abroad
People ask us this question a lot. And the longer we live here, the clearer the answer becomes: bring the things that hold your rituals.
Not the practical things — you’ll figure those out. Bring the pie plate for your grandmother’s pecan pie at Thanksgiving (France has tart pans, not pie plates). Bring your measuring cups for the recipes you’ve made a hundred times. Bring the board game your family always plays at Christmas.
These things feel unimportant in the middle of a move. They look silly next to the logistics of visas and shipping containers and finding a school. But one day you’ll want to make the familiar thing, share the familiar moment — and you’ll realize that the object is what makes it possible.
My life is genuinely fine without the chips-and-dip bowl. But the longer we’re here, the more I value the small ways we stay connected to the life we came from while building something new in this one.
If a move is in your future: bring the things that let you bridge both worlds. You might not miss them right away. But one day, you just might be really glad you did.
Baguettes and butter foreva — Raina ❤️
