Around 27 million tourists visit Paris each year, but only a small percentage of these people step outside of the city limits. A specially drawn footpath around Paris – and a new book detailing the route – aims to change this situation. Here I discuss the path and the Paris suburbs with its creator, Paul-Hervé Lavessiere, and with Baptiste Lanaspeze, the book’s editor and the publisher of a wider series of urban walks.

The idea for an urban footpath winding around Paris through its suburbs began two years ago…in Marseille! Baptiste Lanaspeze, owner of Wildproject, a militant publisher of environmental texts, had based the first of his urban walks around France’s second-largest city (where he is also based). Paul-Hervé Lavessiere, a young urbanist, was one of the first to follow the path. After meeting Baptiste, the idea of creating something similar around Paris began to germinate.

Paul-Hervé readily admits that he knew very little about the Paris suburbs before plotting his walk, and was actually based in Brussels as he drew out the pathway. As an urbanist and cartographer though, what he did know about is cities and maps. Using a combination of free mapping software, historical maps and online resources, Paul-Hervé drew out a route that he believed told the story of the suburbs and would provide numerous points of interest to walkers.

One word immediately jumped out at Paul-Hervé and Baptiste when discussing this walk; revolution. The walk circles the city, but as the two men point out, it also aims to reunite Paris with its suburbs…and with its head! The walk starts and ends in Saint Denis (right), a city named after a ‘saint’ who legend has it walked from Paris to this spot carrying his head under his arm. It was once the final resting place of the country’s kings and queens, but became a city that was chopped away from Paris after the French revolution.

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Indie Phone is a new smartphone that features an original operating system, and an individual server for each user. Creator Aral Balkan wanted an alternative to companies selling your information, but also a beautiful user experience. The phone is still in development, and Balkan plans to launch a crowdfunding campaign later this year.

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From Sweets

Kumquat Tart [Photograph: Anna Markow]

OK, you'll probably be able to find these tiny citrus fruits past March 1st, which many list as the "official" end of their growing season, but really I'm just here to remind you that kumquat primetime is, sadly, coming to a close.

If you haven't tried kumquats before, you're in for a treat. The fruits are small but intensely flavorful, with a mouth-puckeringly tart juice and a pleasantly chewy rind.

Once you've stocked up on the season's last bounty, use them up in one of these three sweet recipes.

Kumquat Tart

Sure, you can make a lemon tart year-round, but the nuanced flavor of kumquats is sure to break your dinner guests out of their winter blues. This tart starts with a flakey butter crust that's scented with vanilla bean. It's topped with a thin layer of marmalade and crowned with a rich homemade kumquat curd. Getting the kumquat flavor in and seeds out is a cinch—you cook the fruits whole and then strain the mixture through a sieve.

Kumquat Lemongrass Ice Cream

[Photograph: Max Falkowitz]

This ice cream pairs bright, citrusy lemongrass with sweet candied kumquats to create a scoop that's both refreshing and full flavored. The candied kumquats are super easy to make—just toss them with sugar and let them sit overnight. They make an ideal ice cream mix-in as their texture stays nice and chewy. Pro-tip: save the leftover kumquat syrup to use in cocktails.

Toast with Kumquat Marmalade and Goat Cheese

[Photograph: Sydney Oland]

This is a quickie marmalade, and not one that's meant to be preserved until next year. Instead, eat it now (we don't think you'll need encouragement after you try a bite.) The marmalade pairs the sweet-tart kumquats with earthy, piney rosemary, which makes it perfect as a foil for tangy goat cheese. Other ideas: layer it on toast, spoon it over ice cream, cheesecake, or yogurt.

Recipes!

• Kumquat Lemongrass Ice Cream
• Kumquat Tart
• Kumquat-Rosemary Marmalade with Goat Cheese

Gus Petro is at it again: the photographer who Photoshopped New York into the Grand Canyon is juxtaposing London's famous buildings with the rocky coast of Portugal.

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The Queensway, a 3.5-mile stretch of tracks that haven't been used since the 1950s, may be New York's next High Line. To help imagine what the potential park would look like, the Queensway Connection competition attracted submissions from 100 architects.

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VIEW SLIDESHOW: Snapshots from St. John: Tropical Eats

[Photographs: Liz Bomze]

There might not be a more idyllic tropical setting than St. John. The beaches, many of which are set in the island's National Park, feature protected bays of clear teal water that barely lap against the shore, and each one is more gorgeous than the next. You couldn't ask for better weather, either: low 80s, light breeze, consistent sunshine, and surprisingly tolerable humidity. This is what you come here for.

What is strangely lacking here is great food. When my initial search for good eats, farms, and markets didn't turn up much, I figured the resort-focused island simply hadn't garnered much chatter about the food scene. After a week here, I'm starting to think there might be a reason for that. Most of what you see are tourist-trap joints with pub-y food that's not as good as you'd find in the States. Even the local grocery stores don't have much in the way of local food.

That said, there are a few noteworthy spots—both for dining out and food shopping—that are worth seeking out. Check out the slideshow for a sample, and as always, please report back with your own good finds.

• Fish fry, roti, conch fritters, and conch chowder at Miss Lucy's
• Sushi at Caneel Bay's Beach Bar and Grill
• Local produce at Josephine's Greens at Coral Bay Organic Gardens
• Smoothies and coconut water at Our Market Smoothies

About the author: Liz Bomze lives in Brookline, MA, and works as the Senior Features Editor for Cook's Illustrated Magazine. In her free time, she freelances regularly for the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, the Improper Bostonian, and Martha's Vineyard Magazine; practices bread-baking and canning; takes photos; reads; and watches baseball. Top 5 foods: fresh noodles, gravlax, sour cherry pie, burrata, ma po tofu.

One man has mapped all of the intercity bus and train routes in America. If you're car-free and don't like to fly, it's easy enough to get to and from major cities, but rural pockets can be 100 miles from the nearest bus or train station.

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On Friday, Microsoft slashed the price of Windows 8.1 by 70% for select B2B customers. The magnitude of this price cut was surprising; all that was missing was a pitchman screaming “If you call now, we’ll throw in a free Tae Bo workout DVD — a $29.95 value!”

Reasonable observers could be forgiven for asking: is Microsoft crazy? Not really – it had to do something as Windows’ sales are sagging. In FY14/Q2, sales dropped by 6% in the division that sells Windows software (Devices and Consumer Licensing). To counter this sales drop, Microsoft did what I call a surgical discount strike. Instead of the regular $50 per unit license fee, if you act right now the price is $15. The caveat is that this discount is only available to manufacturers that preinstall Windows 8.1 on devices that retail for less than $250. This discount is directly targeted to tablet makers (to be more competitive against iPads) as well as notebook manufacturers (to take on rivals that use Google’s Chrome operating system).

Kudos to Microsoft for not offering an across-the-board price cut – the move most companies would have made. For instance, when discount airlines started entering different markets, incumbent carriers typically panicked. They’d drop fares on all of their daily flights on the city pairs served by the discount airline. But as incumbents became wiser, instead of an everything-is-on-sale discounting approach, they’d only do so on flights that departed around the same time as the discount airline. In fact, they’d often add a flight that departed at the exact same time as the new discounter. That was an intelligent surgical discount that matched what the competition offered.

The downside of Microsoft’s price cut is that it devalues Windows 8.1 by placing a highly discounted number in the minds of manufacturers that sell devices priced over $250. If you were the CEO of a company that is paying $50 a license and now see that Microsoft is charging $15 for the same operating system to select customers, what would you do? While Microsoft may be the primary option today for high-end devices, were I that CEO I’d certainly demand a discount coupled with a veiled threat to work with Google to upgrade their Chromebook OS to be more applicable to fuller functioning products. For companies that enjoy large market shares – such as Microsoft – the thought of losing a major customer over price is cataclysmic. Trust me, I’ve been in those harried meetings. Ultimately, this limited discount means that Microsoft will eventually cave and start discounting Windows 8.1 to all of its customers.

This isn’t the first time that Microsoft has rolled out a less than optimal pricing strategy. In its recent game console war, I argued that Microsoft blew it by having a highly restrictive digital rights policy and charging $100 more for its Xbox relative to Sony’s PS4. Microsoft quickly reversed itself on the DRM and, despite criticism, held steady on its $100 premium (which included a Kinect wireless motionless control). The results are telling: Sony claims that its PS4 has outsold the Xbox by nearly 2:1. Just as impressive, Sony’s goal had been to sell 5M units by the end of March but in fact sold 5.3M PS4s by mid-February.

The situation Windows faces is typical. An innovative company creates a great product that is widely adopted and highly profitable. Drawn in by dreams of high margins, new entrants come in – typically with a less functional product – and attempt to siphon off price-sensitive customers. As a result, executives at the incumbent company lose sleep due to pricing pressure and start heavily discount their product. Then the price cuts destroy their profit margins. It’s truly a timeless story with an unprofitable ending — and a moral for companies facing stiff price competition.

What Microsoft should have done is rolled out a “fighter product” – a less functional operating system (say, Windows 8.1 “lite”) at a lower price – that is targeted to lower priced device manufacturers. Even easier, perhaps discount an older version, say Windows 7, and use that as the fighter product. The beauty of this simple versioning strategy is it serves a price sensitive market without devaluing a company’s flagship product. If high-end manufacturers complain about price, they are welcome to purchase the less functional version (which they won’t because it’s not appropriate for their products).

Despite what publicists write in carefully crafted press releases, aggressive competition is rarely good for a company’s bottom-line. In these sleep-deprived “we are losing sales now” situations, managers need to resist the Pavlovian urge to “cut-prices-now.” Rolling out a fighter-version is almost always the correct strategic response to combat discount rivals.

dpaf:

via

PARKAT

[Photographs: Julie Qiu]

Raw oysters: whether or not you're a fan, you've probably made up your mind about them one way or another. But how much do you really know? Surprisingly, there are a lot of misconceptions out there about these enigmatic bivalves. With oyster popularity on the rise, it's time we set the record straight.

Myth #1: The bigger or more expensive the oyster, the better it must be.

When it comes to accurately evaluating an oyster's quality, size and price aren't big factors. According to Shane Covey, co-owner of Upstate Craft Beer & Oyster Bar, time is actually the variable that matters most. "My buying protocol is to seek out the freshest. Like any commodity that is alive, it has a shelf life and it immediately starts to depreciate in value as time passes. As far as size is concerned, I have found customers who like a bigger bang for their buck, but size has nothing to do with an oyster's flavor profile. I carry over 24 different types, and compartmentalizing them into bigger-is-better just doesn't fit."

So how do you determine freshness? Ask your fishmonger or oyster shucker about the harvest date. It can be found on the bag tag, which is a slip of paper that comes in every bag of oysters. Growers are required to provide them and sellers are required to keep them on hand.

Myth #2: Oysters are delicious, but not that nutritious.

Worried that raw oysters are high in calories, cholesterol, and heavy metals? This will help put your mind at ease. Oysters were previously thought to contain high amounts of cholesterol, but new methods of calculating cholesterol levels have actually removed oysters from the hit list. In fact, Dr. Denise Skonberg, Associate Professor at the University of Maine's School of Food and Agriculture assures me that oysters are a healthy food! "I consider them a powerhouse of micronutrients, including zinc, iron, and vitamin B12. They are definitely not high in calories; a 3 ounce serving of raw Eastern oysters has only about 45 calories. That amount has about a week's worth of the daily zinc requirement and about 5 days worth of the B12 requirement for adults. Oysters are also an excellent source of the very bioavailable heme iron."

At this rate, your wallet is more likely to suffer around oysters before your health ever does.

Myth #3: Raw oysters are not safe to eat during months without the letter R.

The enigmatic R rule is perhaps the most widely known, and most misunderstood, oyster myth of them all. Although it once served a purpose, the policy is pretty much defunct now. Sandy Ingber, Executive Chef of the Grand Central Oyster Bar helps explain why. "The warmer, non-'R' months, are when oysters spawn. Spawning oysters are not actually harmful to eat, they just aren't palatable."

The R rule once helped to give wild oysters time to repopulate. But these days, many varieties have instead been bred to not spawn at all, allowing them to be harvested and consumed year-round.

One important caveat is that warmer-than-average water temperatures have increased the prevalence of vibrio vulnificus. The pathogen, which some oysters have been found harbor, can indeed make people sick. But incidences of illness are carefully monitored by the USDA and harvesting policies have become much stricter than before. "So one, if not the most important thing for the consumer to know, is to only buy oysters from retailers or restaurants that sell products from certified waters," says Chef Ingber. Now that's a sensible rule to abide by, R month or not.

Myth #4: Eating oysters is bad for the environment.

Oyster reefs are amazing structures that provide a natural habitat for marine life and help clean our water. So by eating them, aren't we actually doing damage to the environment? The truth is that 98% of all oysters we consume are farm-raised, and much of the industry has modernized their operations to leverage sustainable aquaculture methods. Matt Gregg, owner of Forty North Oyster Farm in Mantoloking, New Jersey is among the thousands of oyster farmers along the East Coast looking to make a difference. "We're seeing a renaissance of ambitious salt-of-the-earth entrepreneurs, growing oysters in an environmentally sustainable way. Oyster aquaculture is different than let's say, tilapia aquaculture; there is no input. I don't feed my oysters anything. They actually eat a food that created the whole problem: algae. For my farm, by the time an oyster is ready to go to market, it could have filtered up to 40k gallons of water. That's just one oyster!"

While it sounds counterintuitive, consuming oysters actually helps the environment. It keeps the bivalves' biggest advocates in business, which means cleaner bays! (So eat more oysters!)

Myth #5: Oysters pair best with Champagne or wine.

Oysters and cold Champagne, Sauvignon Blanc, or Chablis are classic pairings, but by no means are they the be-all-end-all of "merroir-terroir" matchmaking. There's a growing preference for oyster and beer pairings (check out our suggestions here), but my personal favorite is well-matched selection of oysters and sake. "The brilliance of the oyster and sake pairing is that the combination brings out the creaminess and minerality of the oyster as it picks up on the similar elements in the sake," sake expert Monica Samuels explains. "In general, West Coast oysters are far more successful with sake than East Coast, as sake does have a brininess that can overemphasize the saltiness in an oyster. One great pairing is Takatenjin "Soul of the Sensei" Junmai Daiginjo with a creamy West Coast oyster with notes of melon. This sake has upfront qualities of green melon with a creamy, slightly lactic quality on the finish—they are super elegant together."

Not a sake fan? We've got a handy guide to oyster pairings right this way!

More Oyster Reading

• Knife Skills: How to Shuck an Oyster
• 5 Great Oyster Joints in New Orleans
• Where To Go For Oyster Happy Hour in NYC

About the author: Julie Qiu is an international oyster blogger for In A Half Shell. She has traveled around the world to document oyster cultivation and consumption culture, and has experienced over 250 varieties of oysters grown across six continents.

A new museum in Cape Town will consist of 42 concrete grain silos. British designer Thomas Heatherwick unveiled his plans for Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa at the V&A Waterfront which includes carving a nine-story atrium out of the concrete structures.

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It may seem counter-intuitive, but new research indicates that using your phone to catch up on work during the evening may actually hurt your overall productivity by making you less alert the next day. In short: working all the time may mean we're actually getting less done.

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Well, yes this is the third DIY of the week and believe it or not there will be another one tomorrow! I told you I spent last weekend to finalise some projects, so as promised I share them now with you ...

Oui les amis, ceci est le troisième DIY de la semaine et croyez-le ou non il y en aura un autre demain. Je vous avais dit que j'ai passé le week-end dernier à terminer des projets alors, comme promis, je les partage maintenant avec vous...

Today, a little DIY to add glitter to your everyday life. I immediately fell in love this gold polka dot journal that you have probably seen on many other blogs. Since I already had a roll of gold adhesive contact paper (the one I used for my mid century legs with brass caps), I tought that I could make my own petit journal with gold dots. So I bought a similar kraft journal with elastic for 2 € and you will see what is so simple that you can do with your children.

Aujourd'hui, un petit DIY pour ajouter quelques paillettes à votre quotidien. J'ai tout de suite aimé ce petit journal à pois dorés que vous avez très certainement vu sur de nombreux autres blogs. Puisque j'avais déjà un rouleau de papier adhésif doré (celui que j'ai utilisé pour mes pieds vintages avec embouts dorés), je me suis dit que je pouvais faire mon propre petit journal à pois dorés. J'ai donc acheté un journal en kraft avec élastique similaire pour 2€ et vous allez voir c'est si simple que vous pouvez le faire avec vos enfants.

For this DIY you will only need:
- A notebook with elastic
- Gold adhesive contact paper
- A puncher

Pour ce DIY il vous faudra simplement :
- Un cahier avec élastique
- Papier adhésif doré
- Une perforatrice

First take your journal. With a pencil draw a grid on the cover. Then mark the location of your dots with points. Do this on both sides of the notebook.

Tout d'abord prenez votre journal. Tracez au crayon à papier un quadrillage sur la couverture. Tracez ensuite l'emplacement de vos pois avec des points. Faites ceci des deux côtés du cahier.

Erase the grid and now you only have your points on the cover. With a puncher, cut your dots in the gold adhesive contact paper.

Gommez le quadrillage et il ne reste plus maintenant que les points. Avec une perforatrice, découpez vos pois dans le papier adhésif doré.

Now you can stick your golden dots on the front and on the back of the notebook ... Your journal is now all covered with beautiful golden dots! You can stop at this step but if for you too even small things make a difference and you would like for example to change the color of the elastic here's how to do.

Vous pouvez maintenant coller vos pois dorés sur la face avant puis sur le dos du journal... Votre journal est maintenant tout recouvert de jolis petits pois dorés ! Vous pouvez donc très bien vous arrêter à cette étape mais si pour vous aussi les petits détails comptent et que vous voudriez par exemple changer la couleur de l'élastique voici comment faire.

I did not like the elastic and the black ribbon so I decided to change them. For the elastic, you only have to gently detach the sheet that is on the back of the cover. Then remove the elastic.

Je n'aimais pas l'élastique et le ruban noir et j'ai donc décidé de les changer. Pour l'élastique, il suffit de décoller doucement la feuille collée sur le dos de la couverture. Ensuite enlevez l'élastique.

I chose a gilded elastic but you can choose another color. Cut it to the same size as the elastic you just removed. Replace the elastic, stick it and glue also back the sheet on the cover. If you want you can put small clips to hold the whole thing while the glue dries.

J'ai choisi un élastique doré mais vous pouvez choisir une autre couleur. Découpez-le à la même taille que l'élastique que vous avez retiré. Replacez l'élastique, collez-le et recollez également la couverture. Si vous le souhaitez vous pouvez mettre des petites pinces le temps que la colle sèche.

For the ribbon you have to remove it using a thin object like a wooden stick for example. Finally, take a ribbon in a color of your choice and glue it using the same thin object to replace it inside.

Pour le ruban il faut le retirer doucement avec un objet fin comme un pique en bois par exemple. Enfin prenez un ruban de la couleur de votre choix et collez-le toujours en vous aidant du pique pour le glisser à l'intérieur.

And voila, a new little journal with gold polka dots. To work and take notes yes ... But I think it's better when you add sparkles, isn't it?

Et voilà, un nouveau petit journal à pois dorés. Travailler et prendre des notes oui... Mais je trouve que c'est quand même mieux quand on y ajoute des paillettes, non ?

Image 2 source

Need to corral some paper? Create a simple tiered desk organizer from the most unlikely of items: picture frames and a plastic hanger! Amy shows us how:

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that must have been why your fashion has won grammys

Wut r u saying wit your ad money mr. Dave Wendy’s

Crushing it with that shirt. 

Passé simple? No problem. Irregular verbs? Bring ‘em on. But when it comes to French words on restaurant menus, I’m forever. Have you, too, settled for the steak frites because you had no clue what aïgo bouido, gargouillau and macaire mean? Well, we’re finally in luck. The new Kindle e-book A French Dictionary of Food & Drink enriches your vocabulary—and gastronomic pleasures. This book goes on sale April 1, but author P.J. Taylor has kindly offered readers of The Paris Blog a FREE download now through Sunday March 2. (What a good oeuf he is.) Here’s the US link, and here’s the UK link. Bon appétit, and merci, P.J.!

Our favorite Happy Chic designer has paired up with the original one-for-one accessories company. Jonathan Adler for TOMS includes his signature playful prints and bright colors on sandals, classics, and eyewear.

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At the beginning of the 2000s, the salary bump from getting an MBA in the U.S. was 50% greater than that from a European MBA, but over the subsequent decade the gap declined almost to zero as European companies began to view business degrees as highly desirable, say François Collet and Luis Vives of Ramon Llull University in Spain. One consequence has been a rise by non-U.S. institutions in business-school rankings, which are heavily dependent on post-MBA salaries. For example, in 1999, 9 out of the top 10 business schools in the Financial Times Global MBA Rankings were located in the U.S., but by 2010 the number had declined to 6.

[Photograph: Prasanna Sankhe]

Sometimes I worry that it's wrong to love a dish so much. But the heart wants what it wants—in this case, a big helping (or two) of biryani. And, packed with meat, potatoes, rice, and spices, it certainly makes for one of the heartiest meals in my repertoire.

There are many varieties of this dish, which was originally brought to India by the Mughals—each state has its own unique and closely guarded version. The last time I counted, there were more than 15 types (and that's on the conservative side). The most common choices for meat are lamb and goat, but chicken, shrimp, and even fish have been known to find their way into this aromatic preparation.

My recipe is for home-style Bombay biryani. Yogurt is used to tenderize the meat—usually lamb, though chicken works well, too—and a slew of spices, both powdered and whole, add layers of flavor. Each has its part to play, and roasting and grinding them gives a distinct, deep intensity to each one. Indeed, this dish is big on aroma, and I've always found that it has an intoxicating effect as it finds its way into the corners of my home.

Biryani is not a complicated dish to prepare. Time consuming, yes. But not difficult. And it's one of those dishes that's diverse and satisfying enough to be the only one on the table. Some like to embellish it with a raita (a yogurt-based salad of cucumber, onion and tomato) or just garnish it with a few onion rings and lime wedges. Either way, I always try to make a little extra, because I think it tastes even better the next day, when the spices and meat have all rested together long enough to really get along.

About the author: Denise Dsilva Sankhe is a writer and creative director by profession. But that's only when she isn't eating her way across India. She recreates this delicious cuisine in her Mumbai home, which she shares with her husband, who has long since given up his determination to have salads for dinner.

I had been holed up for six hours in a dark conference room with 12 managers. It was a group-coaching day and each executive had 30 minutes to describe in detail a cross-cultural challenge she was experiencing at work and to get feedback and suggestions from the others at the table.

It was Willem’s turn, one of the Dutch participants, who recounted an uncomfortable snafu when working with Asian clients.  “How can I fix this relationship?” Willem asked his group of international peers.

Maarten, the other Dutch participant who knew Willem well, jumped in with his perspective. “You are inflexible and can be socially ill-at-ease. That makes it difficult for you to communicate with your team,” he asserted. As Willem listened, I could see his ears turning red (with embarrassment or anger? I wasn’t sure) but that didn’t seem to bother Maarten, who calmly continued to assess Willem’s weaknesses in front of the entire group. Meanwhile, the other participants — all Americans, British and Asians — awkwardly stared at their feet.

That evening, we had a group dinner at a cozy restaurant.  Entering a little after the others, I was startled to see Willem and Maarten sitting together, eating peanuts, drinking champagne, and laughing like old friends. They waved me over, and it seemed appropriate to comment, “I’m glad to see you together. I was afraid you might not be speaking to each other after the feedback session this afternoon.”

Willem, with a look of surprise, reflected, “Of course, I didn’t enjoy hearing those things about myself. It doesn’t feel good to hear what I have done poorly. But I so much appreciated that Maarten would be transparent enough to give me that feedback honestly. Feedback like that is a gift. Thanks for that, Maarten” he added with an appreciative smile.

I thought to myself, “This Dutch culture is . . . well . . . different from my own.”

Managers in different parts of the world are conditioned to give feedback in drastically different ways. The Chinese manager learns never to criticize a colleague openly or in front of others, while the Dutch manager learns always to be honest and to give the message straight. Americans are trained to wrap positive messages around negative ones, while the French are trained to criticize passionately and provide positive feedback sparingly.

One way to begin gauging how a culture handles negative feedback is by listening to the types of words people use. More direct cultures tend to use what linguists call upgraders, words preceding or following negative feedback that make it feel stronger, such as absolutely, totally, or strongly: “This is absolutely inappropriate,” or “This is totally unprofessional.”

By contrast, more indirect cultures use more downgraders, words that soften the criticism, such as kind of, sort of, a little, a bit, maybe, and slightly. Another type of downgrader is a deliberate understatement, such as “We are not quite there yet” when you really mean “This is nowhere close to complete.” The British are masters at it.  The “Anglo-Dutch Translation Guide”, which has been circulating in various versions on the Internet, illustrates the miscommunication that can result.

Germans are rather like the Dutch in respect of directness and interpret British understatement very similarly. Marcus Klopfer, a German client, described to me how a misunderstanding with his British boss almost cost him his job:

In Germany, we typically use strong words when complaining or criticizing in order to make sure the message registers clearly and honestly. Of course, we assume others will do the same. My British boss during a one-on-one “suggested that I think about” doing something differently. So I took his suggestion: I thought about it, and decided not to do it. Little did I know that his phrase was supposed to be interpreted as “change your behavior right away or else.” And I can tell you I was pretty surprised when my boss called me into his office to chew me out for insubordination!

I learned to ignore all of the soft words surrounding the message when listening to my British teammates. Of course, the other lesson was to consider how my British staff might interpret my messages, which I had been delivering as “purely” as possible with no softeners whatsoever. I realize now that when I give feedback in my German way, I may actually use words that make the message sound as strong as possible without thinking much about it. I’ve been surrounded by this “pure” negative feedback since I was a child.

All this can be interesting, surprising, and sometimes downright painful, when you are leading a global team: as you Skype with your employees in different cultures, your words will be magnified or minimized significantly based on your listener’s cultural context   So you have to work to understand how your own way of giving feedback is viewed in other cultures.   As Klopfer reported:

Now that I better understand these cultural tendencies, I … soften the message when working with cultures less direct than my own.  I start by sprinkling the ground with a few light positive comments and words of appreciation. Then I ease into the feedback with “a few small suggestions.” As I’m giving the feed- back, I add words like “minor” or “possibly.” Then I wrap up by stating that “This is just my opinion, for whatever it is worth,” and “You can take it or leave it.”  The elaborate dance is quite humorous from a German’s point of view … but it certainly gets [the] desired results!

What about you? Where do you think your own culture falls in this regard?   If I need to tell you your work is total crap, how would you like me to deliver the message?

From the mouth of the Queen.

"Your self-worth is determined by you. You don’t have to depend on someone telling you who you are."

Source.

Via giphy.com

"When I’m not feeling my best I ask myself, ‘What are you gonna do about it?’ I use the negativity to fuel the transformation into a better me."

Source.

Via siradisi.org

"Take all the rules away. How can we live if we don’t change?"

Source.

Via kimmykael.blogspot.com

"I’m a workaholic and I don’t believe in ‘No’. If I’m not sleeping, nobody’s sleeping."

Source.

Via beyonce4us.tumblr.com

View Entire List ›

[Photographs: Will Levitt]

Some people associate the Oscars with start-studded red carpets, best-dressed lists, and endless acceptance speeches. We associate it with something a little tastier—hot dogs!

Below is one hot dog for each of the films nominated for Best Picture at this year's Academy Awards. We have everything from a dog resembling Christian Bale in American Hustle to a "Hostage Sausage" for Captain Phillips to a "Money, Money, Money Dog" that even the executives in The Wolf of Wall Street might approve of.

Check them all out below and vote for your winning pick in the comments!

American Hustle: The Mob Dog

Sweet Italian Sausage, Spaghetti Toupée, Almond Shades, Dried Apple Mustache, Scallion Mouth and Tie Made from Sliced Bread, Mayo, Sriracha and Scallion

Mob Dogs know that appearances can be deceiving, and this dog pulls off the toupee just as slickly as Christian Bale, right?

Captain Phillips: The Hostage Sausage Dog

Spicy Pork Sausage Bound in Kale Chains Stranded in a Sea of Popcorn Shrimp

A sausage dog this good would no doubt be taken hostage by just about any hungry pirate. Arggghhhhh!

Dallas Buyers Club: The AIDS Awareness Dog

Texas Hot Sauce AIDS Ribbon, Assorted Pill Condiments

A south-of-the-border-spicy dog raising awareness for HIV/AIDS. Simple and delicious.

Gravity: The Zero Gravity Dog

Hot Dog Spaceship, Hot Dog Bun Wings, Moon and Stars, Sour Patch Kid Astronaut

With this dog ship about to explode (with flavor), will this sour little astronaut ever make it home alive?

Her: Artificial Intelligence Dog

Infiniti Mustard, Wires, Microchip, LED Lights

In the future, hot dogs will be much more than just hot dogs. This A.I. Dog can talk to you, solve simple math equations, and change colors. Hot as this dog may be, it is not, however, willing to be your romantic partner. It is better at satisfying hunger than satisfying emotional needs.

Nebraska: The Cornhusker Dog

Hot Dog, Corn

Anyone traveling to Nebraska knows the real takeaway isn't a million dollars—it's a chance to see the Cornhuskers sports teams at the University of Nebraska! Cornhuskers, meet your match made in Midwestern hot dog heaven.

Philomena: The Irish Dog

Irish Potatoes, Cabbage, and a Guinness

Getting to the bottom of a complex family history can be a real challenge. Getting to the bottom of this Irish dog stuffed with crispy Irish potatoes and cabbage is about as easy as it gets, especially when you can wash it all down with hearty sip of Guinness.

12 Years a Slave

Plain hot dog

The plot of 12 Years a Slave is no laughing matter, so we've decided to leave this a plain dog.

The Wolf of Wall Street: The Money, Money, Money Dog

One Dollar Bill, Pennies

We know DiCaprio likes his money on just about everything in The Wolf of Wall Street. We are guessing he likes it with his dogs just the same. Edible? Maybe not. But who's counting?

And the Oscar Dog Goes To...

Let us know which dog you think wins this year's Oscar Dogs!

Will Levitt is a Brooklyn-based food writer. For fresh thoughts served daily, follow him on Twitter @UnderEggWill. Thanks to Sarah Wolfe for her creative input on Oscar Dogs 2014.

From Slice

Dan Jenssen [Photograph: Justin Levy/Vice]

• Dan Jenssen, a 38-year-old woodworker based in Maryland, loves pizza—in fact, it's all he's eaten for the past 25 years. I don't mean this in a hyperbolic, amusingly exaggerative way: it is literally all he eats. This would conceivably be problematic for even the healthiest among us, but Dan also has diabetes. Nevertheless, this is Dan's diet, and he consumes one 14" cheese pizza day after day. Vice writer (and Dan's friend) Justin Levy decided to talk with him about it. Apparently, Dan became a vegetarian as a teenager...but hated (and still hates) vegetables. Solution? Pizza. Nutritionists and doctors alike have tried to no avail to change his diet, but Dan is nothing if stubborn; and, contrary to what one might believe, he seems to be theoretically healthy. Read the full interview for more on Dan's pizza obsession.

• Now, you may remember that there was a bit of a hullabaloo when NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio used a fork to eat his pizza at Goodfella's Pizzeria in Staten Island. Well, the somewhat comically intense coverage of the event has finally been turned to good use—according to UPI, Goodfella's co-owner Marc Cosentino auctioned off said fork (which the former NYPD sergeant had saved in an evidence bag) for $2,500. The money is being donated to the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, and will be used to benefit the victims of Hurricane Sandy and wounded soldiers (the winning bidder also donated the fork to the Foundation).

[Photograph: Kotaku]

• Looks like Pizza Hut is jumping on Domino's anime bandwagon with their latest venture. Beginning today, a branch in Tokyo's Kanda neighborhood (which serves Akihabara, the city's geekery district) is remodeling itself as the "Otonokizaka Branch," in honor of the popular anime and manga series, Love Live! (Otonozika is the school featured in the series). From storefront to delivery motorcycles to limited-edition pizza boxes, the schoolgirls-turned-pop-idols are featured everywhere. For any Tokyo-dwellers interested in checking it out, you have until March 30th, when the campaign will end and the branch will revert to it's ordinary old self.

• Lastly, Eater shares a video tour of some of the city's greatest pizzerias: Patsy's, Louie & Ernie's, New Park Pizza, Totonno's, and Di Fara. By who, you ask? The rock band SKATERS, which is apparently composed of four guys who are very into pizza. Each place gets its own rating—watch the video to find out which comes out on top (and let us know what you think in the comments!

Watch The SKATERS Pizza Crawl

[Video: SKATERSNYC]

About the author: Kate Andersen is a Contributing Editor for Slice.

Every now and then, Paris Syndrome pops up in the media. It’s a psychological state of near (or total) hysteria, apparently brought on by tourists expecting Paris to be all poodles and pastries. From Wikipedia:

The susceptibility of Japanese people may be linked to the popularity of Paris in Japanese culture, notably the idealized image of Paris prevalent in Japanese advertising […] Japanese media, magazines in particular, often depict Paris as a place where most people on the street look like fashion models and most women dress in high-fashion brands.

It seems to me that anyone with the wherewithal to fly to another continent for a vacation would have brushed up a bit on what to expect upon arrival. Still, the fantasy of Paris as the ne plus ultra of style, architecture and café society remains. In fact, that reputation for romance and sophistication is why French continues to be a popular second language choice for students, even though Chinese, Portuguese or Spanish might serve them better career-wise. The myth of Paris serves as an ongoing public relations campaign for the French language. And ask yourself: Who doesn’t swoon when you tell them you are headed to the City of Light?

How exactly did that myth get built? The new book How Paris Became Paris: The Invention of the Modern City breaks it down in a thoroughly enjoyable read. Author Joan DeJean plops you into Paris of the 1600s (mainly). Two color prints in the book telegraph the extent of transformation in Paris, from marshy outback to the most sophisticated city in Europe. In about 1600, King Henry IV is pictured on a verdant bank of the Seine. Most of the city in the background is green and undeveloped. However, a detail from another painting, from 1640, barely resembles the king’s portrait (the image above is from 1657, but you get the idea). Here we see not only both banks of the city crowded with housing, but also the newly developed Ile St. Louis, which was designed with grid-like straight streets out of chic, pale pierre de taille—and inhabited by new breeds of Parisians: real estate developers and financiers.

This book makes Paris make sense. Why do Parisians will make out on benches in parks? Maybe because the Tuileries were the first public garden in Europe where women were perfectly free to roam around unescorted by men. Naturally, it became a place for flirting. Why are Paris stores so emulated by the rest of the retail world? Maybe because this is where indoor retail for luxury items was born (previously, merchants went to the homes of their wealthy customers). How has Paris, despite its majority of jeans-clad residents, maintained a rep as the fashion capital of the world? This was where the first fashion magazine was published, spreading Gallic fashion to other countries via the newly invented fashion plate. And finally, why are the words boulevardier and flaneur known worldwide, making Paris synonymous with round-the-clock café culture? The city’s streetlights—again, a first for a European city—made it possible for people to stay out late at night without fear of thieves.

How Paris Became Paris takes a holistic view of the city, offering not just dates and decrees, but illustrating social trends via the theatrical plays and expressions that came into vogue to illustrate them (think nouveau riche). The book gives you more than ideas on how the city went from armpit to world capital. It explains a lot about Paris of today—both the real thing, and the fantasy that can lead some people to literally freak out.

[Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Editor's Note: Welcome to the third year of The Vegan Experience! All month we're exploring the vegan lifestyle, from dining out to eating in, developing a slew of delicious recipes for vegan appetizers, snacks, and entrees along the way. For more posts in the series, check here!

Building up a strong vegan pasta dish isn't all that different from building a non-vegan pasta dish. Here, the pasta is, of course, the star. The rest is just made up of a few supermarket staples—plum tomatoes, lots of garlic, olives, and bread crumbs—that, with just a bit of care and attention paid to concentrating and layering their flavors, can be transformed into something remarkably complex and intense. But before we get to the specifics, I've got a story to tell.

I've been watching a lot of Dexter recently, a show that focuses largely on the theme of coming clean about dark secrets; it's inspired me to admit to something that anyone who has known me for more than half an hour will find deeply disturbing. Are you ready?

I've started running.

That's right. Now, I never really got into the vegan thing with my health in mind, and that's really not what it's about at all, but in the interest of getting my mom and wife off my case and—ok—with the added side benefit of hopefully not being such a lazy lard-butt in the future, I've started running three days a week. I downloaded that Couch to 5K app and everything.

The first couple of weeks were rough; I was using the same sneakers that I bought over a decade and a half ago when I fooled myself into thinking I might play sports in college.* I had to blow dust off the insoles and discovered that the rubber treads had hardened so much that I may as well have strapped my cast iron pans to the bottoms of my feet.

*I ended up fulfilling my Physical Education requirements by acing pistol class and making a decent showing in something called "Ropes Adventure," a not-so-subtle euphemism for "that class where you get to jump on trampolines and play with parachutes"

Things have been getting easier with each outing. My shin splints are gone (thanks to a new pair of shoes), and my wife even surprised me with a brand new runner's wardrobe. Apparently, wearing the same pair of yellow shorts to run in a half dozen times between our laundry sessions—shorts that you only own because they mysteriously turned up in your clean laundry junior year of college—along with knee-high black socks (the only kind I owned) is not a sexy look. Who would've figured?

She also sagely pointed out that shorts, a t-shirt, and New York winters don't exactly mix. Being a creature of the cold I would've protested, but the look in her eyes was even frostier than the streets, so I wisely decided to pick a different battle for a different day. The next day, I was gifted with four new pairs of shorts, a set of long running pants that are made of some thin-but-warm material so slick and slippery** that they make me feel like I'm wearing nothing at all (but running in a pleasantly warm forest glade), a half dozen of those short socks that hide inside your shoes while wicking away all that unpleasant foot sweat (I'd like to shake the foot of the person who created this modern marvel of engineering), and not one, not two, but three layers of equally slick upper body coverings.

**My guess is that the only reason they don't use it to coat the inside of non-stick skillets is because it must be as flammable as it is slick.

I'm glad my wife is here to lead me in the right direction, because layering clothing is something I know absolutely nothing about. But there are a couple other types of layering that I'm pretty good at—namely flavors and textures. This dish employs a whole lot of it.

As the "triple garlic" in the name suggests, the first layer of flavors is all about the garlic. Have you ever noticed the diversity of flavors that garlic can produce based on how you prepare it? There's the sharp, pungent bite of barely-cooked garlic; the sweet, caramelized flavor of sautéed garlic; and the deep, rich aroma of slow-cooked garlic. We're gonna pack all three into one bowl.

I like sun-dried tomatoes as much as the next guy, but I prefer the intense sweetness and juicier bite of tomatoes slowly roasted in the oven until they're just about half dry. You can do this with regular beefsteak tomatoes, but cherry or plum tomatoes are consistently sweeter year-round and cook much faster, to boot. I split mine in half and spread them out on a foil-lined baking sheet (cut-side-up so they dehydrate faster), scatter them with a ton of thin-sliced garlic and a few sprigs of thyme, drizzle the whole thing with olive oil, season with salt, and let them cook slowly over the course of an hour and fifteen minutes in a low oven.

You'll be sorely tempted to pick off the roasted garlic chips from the tomatoes as soon as they come out of the oven, but remember to save at least a few of them for the pasta down the line.

Next layer of garlic flavor? Sweet and caramelized. I find that the best way to get there is to smash garlic cloves with the side of a knife, which ruptures their cell structure and releases all of those flavorful aromatic compounds and precursors locked within. Then I slow-cook them in a pan of olive oil, turning them and letting them gently sizzle until they're completely tender and richly browned. Not only do you end up with garlic cloves that are tender enough to be chopped to a near paste, but you also get oil that's deeply flavored and ready to coat every piece of pasta in the bowl.

The oven-dried tomatoes are wonderful, but I also wanted to ensure that I get a bit of intense tomato flavor and acidity in every bite, so I completed the sauce by cooking down some tomato paste, red pepper flakes, and oregano, before whisking in some white wine.

It'll look broken and greasy at first (like the photo above), but don't worry, we'll fix that before we get to the end.

Finally, we get to the barely-cooked sharp garlic. If you ever thought that bread crumbs were only around to be used as a breading for your eggplant Parm or as a crunchy topping for your mac and cheese, then you probably haven't read Russ Parson's piece on the magic of bread crumbs in The Los Angeles Times.

He's right: when you make them right (read: starting with fresh bread, pulsed until not-too-fine in a food processor, then sautéed in really good olive oil***) and add just a couple of flavorful elements—minced garlic and chopped parsley do well—you end up with a topping that adds far more than just great texture. At our place, bread crumbs go head-to-head with grated hard cheese as the pasta topping of choice.****

***or butter, if you're not vegan-inclined
****I had to physically wrestle the bowl of toasted garlicky crumbs out of my wife's hands to ensure that I'd have enough left for the rest of the pasta.

With three layer of garlic and two layers of tomato flavor in place, just a couple of small touches finish the dish off: sliced Kalamata olives and thinly sliced scallions.

I like to use a thick, tubular, ridged pasta for this dish, like rigatoni or penne rigate, the better to catch that flavorful, garlicky oil in. The key to fixing that greasy looking sauce? Pasta water. I drain my pasta about a minute before it's done cooking, reserving a half cup or so of its starchy water before adding it all to the pan with the sauce (along with everything except the bread crumbs) and bringing it to a hard simmer over high heat.

As you toss and stir the contents of the pan, the pasta finishes cooking while the mechanical action of the simmering and tossing, along with the starch in the pasta water helps the sauce come together and emulsify. What was once greasy and broken-looking becomes creamy and pasta-coating.

This is the kind of dish that's exciting with every bite, a mix of tender, chewy, and crunchy, with intense and complex flavors all coming through distinctly.

Sure, the type of layering my new running wardrobe offers has its advantages—for one thing, it can be un-layered—but until Uniqlo invents a pair of shorts***** as delicious as they are functional, I'm going to claim victory on this round.

*****Insert an "eat my shorts" joke here.

About the author: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is the Chief Creative Officer of Serious Eats where he likes to explore the science of home cooking in his weekly column The Food Lab. You can follow him at @thefoodlab on Twitter, or at The Food Lab on Facebook.