Lunch in Paris

Lunch in Paris

A love story with recipes

Synopsis

Part love-story, part wine-splattered family cookbook and part hilarious fish out of water story.  Elizabeth Bard's memoir of falling in love with a Frenchman and moving to Paris - not the Hollywood version, but the real Paris, a heady mix of blood sausage and irregular verbs - is a delicious culinary comedy of errors.  Battling fish guts and bureaucracy, Bard discovers that learning to cook and building a life as a stranger in an even stranger land have a lot in common: How do you put the recipe (or 5-year plan) aside and learn to experiment?  Can you develop a taste for the new without leaving yourself behind?  Will 'Just do it' taste better with a dash of joie de vivre?

As this fish out of water is forced to revise her standard recipes for love, pleasure and succes, Bard introduces us to bustling markets, bad-tempered butchers and heavenly chocolate shops as she learns to live, eat - and cook- like a true Parisienne.

Including recipes, entertaining tips, and the real reason why French women don't get fat, Bard's story is a funny, frank and mouth-watering adventure for the home cook, the gourmet traveller and any woman who has ever suspected that lunch in Paris could change her life.

If you were a fan of Almost French, this is a book you won't be able to resist.  After all, Lunch in Paris has all the best ingredients - love, laughter, Paris and fabulous recipes.

About the Author

Elizabeth Bard is a journalist and art historian based in Paris.  Her writing on art, travel, design and digital culture has appeared in The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Washington Post, Wired, Time Out and Fodor's.  She also writes a popular blog about life in Paris for The Huffington Post.

Review

Lunch in Paris is a light-hearted memoir of a young American woman learning about love, life, cooking and the French culture.

It is a very easy yet entertaining read.  Like most memoirs, the book is at times a tad indulgent (no pun intended).  But with it's unique format - whereby each chapter recounting the author's experiences is concluded with several enticing recipes - keeps the reader hungry for more (again, no pun intended - well, perhaps a little).

My single criticism of Lunch in Paris is the lack of food photography - as I believe that every good cook book must contain an abundancy of mouth-watering images of the recipes it contains.  However, this is a memoir and I liken it to reading someone's diary or blog which, along with the author's story, also happens to be sprinkled with some great recipes.

Possibly not the greatest love story ever told, but definitely a worthwhile read about the meeting of two cultures.  So if you have ever travelled to a foreign country - or are planning to do so in the future - then you will appreciate Elizabeth Bard's anecdotes.

 

 

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