How to Eat Like You’re in Paris for the Olympics

Dorie Greenspan, a beloved cookbook author and longtime Paris resident, knows that the French way of snacking is also the easiest.

For those living in Paris over the past few years, the opening ceremony for the Olympic Games may feel more like reaching the finish line than toeing it, exhausting for organizers and Parisians alike. Spiffing up the city for the Games has been like trying to complete all of Hercules’s labors at once, with so many miles of torn-up streets, capricious metro closings, bus detours to parts unknown and monuments swaddled Christo-style.

Having spent so much energy getting ready, it’s terrific that the best way to celebrate it is also the easiest: apéro dînatoire, the French meal that’s part living room picnic, part cocktail party — and the perfect TV dinner. It’s the least stressful meal with a French name that I can think of, and it’s fun for everyone, including the host. It’s what my Paris pals will be making as they watch the Games — and what I’ll be making 3,500 miles away in my corner of Connecticut.

Apéro dînatoire is more about shopping than cooking, about buying good things and arranging them on platters. Simply. Forget Instagram-worthy boards — you want food that’s easy to reach for when you’re marveling at Simone Biles’s moves. You don’t have to set the table, you don’t have to serve, and you don’t have to be in the kitchen for long spells because no one expects anything hot or homemade, even if I always make a few dishes. Can’t help myself.