Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes
February 10th, 2010 | 
- ISBN13: 9780316042796
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
In Paris for a weekend visit, Elizabeth Bard sat down to lunch with a handsome Frenchman–and never went home again.
Was it love at first sight? Or was it the way her knife slid effortlessly through her pavé au poivre, the steak’spink juices puddling into the buttery pepper sauce? LUNCH IN PARIS is a memoir about a young American woman caught up in two passionate love affairs–one with her new beau, Gwendal, the other with French cuisine. Packing her bags for a new life in the world’s most romantic city, Elizabeth is plunged into a world of bustling open-air markets, hipster bistros, and size 2 femmes fatales. She learns to gut her first fish (with a little help from Jane Austen), soothe pangs of homesickness (with the rise of a chocolate soufflé) and develops a crush on her local butcher (who bears a striking resemblance to Matt Dillon). Elizabeth finds that the deeper she immerses herself in the world of French cuisine, the more Paris itself begins to translate. French culture, she discovers, is not unlike a well-ripened cheese-there may be a crusty exterior, until you cut through to the melting, piquant heart.
Peppered with mouth-watering recipes for summer ratatouille, swordfish tartare and molten chocolate cakes, Lunch in Paris is a story of falling in love, redefining success and discovering what it truly means to be at home. In the delicious tradition of memoirs like A Year in Provence and Under the Tuscan Sun, this book is the perfect treat for anyone who has dreamed that lunch in Paris could change their life.
Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes
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I dug in eagerly to “Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, With Recipes,” and found my mind wandering all over the place. This is a memoir but it reads like a romance novel. “When Gwendal left for work on Monday, I was on my own. I lay in bed, looking at the ceiling and listening to the weekday sounds. In the courtyard I heard a television, some high-pitched voices, and familiar theme music. It took me a minute to place it…” etc. etc.
I guess everyone could write a book. Here’s my start: “On Wednesday morning, the alarm went off. I lay in bed for a minute, thinking about my day. Then I got up, walked into the kitchen, and turned on the light. Nobody else was up yet. I picked up the remote and turned on the news. A car drove by…”
The recipes that are scattered through the narrative seem pointless, for things like ratatouille and fettucine alfredo that break no new ground and don’t put you “in” Paris. Not sure what I expecting, but something with more heft than this.
Recommendation: I started it, put it aside on my nightstand to read “another time,” picked it up and put it down several more times, and just don’t want to finish it. Sorry for the harsh review.
Rating: 1 / 5
Elizabeth Bard has written a charming memoir with recipes. It’s a sweet love story of her husband, food and Paris. Being an American living in Paris is not an easy transition but Bard has embraced it joyfully. Her good humor comes through in her writing. The joy of her new French husband, shopping for food and eating in Paris and the cultural differences are all told in her humorous and self-deprecating style. I enjoyed reading this book and found myself laughing out loud.
I’ve tried her recipe for “Gwendal’s Quick & Dirty Chocolate Soufflé Cake” and the “Yogurt Cake”. Both were very good. Most of the recipes are not complicated and the ingredients should not be hard to find in US grocery stores.
Rating: 4 / 5
This is another book about an American moving to France that follows what has become a standard format – relate a short incident, add recipes, repeat many times. This particular book features a neurotic driven New Yorker moving to Paris and discovering the pleasures of the local produce markets, the butcher, and the bakers. And her recipes really sound very good though I have not tried making any of them yet – lacking easy access to Parisian produce markets, butchers, and bakers.
Besides finding the book formulaic, I was frustrated that many of the incidents were almost, but not quite, interesting. I always wanted just a little more background, or some indication of what happened immediately afterward, or more details about the people involved. The skeleton of this book is quite good, but it needs a little more meat on its bones.
Most of the vocabulary of the book is at the standard adult level, with just a smattering of easy French thrown in for local color. I will admit, however, to being stumped by the word “diaoresis” that occurs in Chapter 13.
Rating: 3 / 5
I really looked forward to this book coming out and I rushed out to buy it right away. I enjoy a good memoir mixed with recipes a la A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenburg. I anticipated this book would be even better, I mean it is set in France! and we all know how yummy French food is!
Therein lies the problem. We all know about the boulangeries, the pain aux chocolat, the framboises, and on and on and on. SO cliche! If I had a dollar for every book about France that mentions these things I’d be a millionaire. Come on, we get it already! tell us something new!!
What I did like about this book is the author’s ability to show us a hidden Paris. She obviously has a love for art and antiquity so she seeks out the unusual and describes it well. That I enjoyed. The story of meeting and falling in love with her husband was okay.
The politics- is there any possible way this author could have resisted inserting her wacky liberal politics into this book? What is the point of talking about the politics of 2001-2005 in a book that is supposed to be about love and food? When will the entertainment industry realize we do not care? The public just wants to be entertained! And for someone who lived in France on 9-11 to be lecturing about US politics and war is beyond hubris.
If I could remove certain tired and parts of the book this would be much more entertaining. The recipes are average but there are many ‘expected’ French recipes too. A little more creativity would go a long way with this book.
Rating: 3 / 5
I chose this novel because it sounded like a light romance with food. I was pleasantly surprised to find it informative and useful as well as a pleasant, entertaining read.
Elizabeth Bard tells of her courtship with Gwendal, a frenchman who eventually becomes her husband. The relationship goes a little slower than is implied from the back of the book, as Elizabeth commutes to see him from London for several months. Eventually she takes the plunge and moves in with him full time, gaining the love of her life but also gaining Paris and France as part of the deal, for the good and the bad. The food, she loves. The amazing things that come from Gwendal’s tiny kitchen with a bare refrigerator and two portable burners astound her. The fact that she cannot work in France and that she is very isolated, not so much. The writing is witty and inviting. I found the anecdotes of ordinary life in Paris to be compelling.
I’ve never been particularly interested in visiting Paris before reading this memoir – it always felt overrated to me. But after reading this account of the day to day aspects of France, the little and big, I was left with a definite desire to experience Paris for myself. The little tidbits about differences between French and American culture were illuminating and are filed away in the back of my brain for reference. The French phrases dropped within the text were always given context and explained, expanding my extremely tiny French vocabulary a hair. She writes vividly about the frustration and triumphs of living in a new place, with a new language, finding herself unable to complete transactions at first due to a failure of vocabulary. What is the French word for parsnip, anyway?
Gwendal felt curiously offstage for most of the memoir, which keeps it in my mind from being a romance of any kind. Perhaps it’s not so curious but in fact a close reflection of the truth, that most of Elizabeth’s thinking and writing time would be when Gwendal was away at work. Perhaps that’s just an artifact of the challenge of writing about real people without overly invading their privacy. It was interesting to feel his sensibilities become more American over time as Elizabeth’s became more French.
Each chapter is followed by 2-3 recipes, generally food that was either mentioned as something made or eaten during the story. I decided it would be remiss of me to review this book without trying any of the recipes, so, as a grand sacrifice (wink), I decided to whip up “Gwendal’s Quick and Dirty Chocolate Soufflé Cake” (Gateau au Chocolat). It took longer than the 20 minutes I expected (in retrospect she said, _bake_ not _make_) but this simple concoction of chocolate, coffee, eggs, sugar, and salt was everything she said it would be – easy, sophisticated, and fabulous. The other recipes look wonderful, too: mostly everyday, non-fussy recipes that open up new windows of cooking technique, though some are longer and more formal. I have several more marked to try. The narrative makes them more interesting and special than a typical cookbook, where you often have some trouble getting a sense of what an unfamiliar dish will be like. Here, her descriptions of making and eating and enjoying them go a long way toward making each recipe more approachable.
As a standalone piece of literature, the proper rating is probably 4 stars – delightful, worth reading, but not Great Literature. As a hybrid memoir and cookbook, I think it is quite successful. I give it an extra half star for exceeding my expectations, and a final half star for the delicious and simple chocolate soufflé cake that is definitely a keeper for my repertoire. I recommend it and plan to keep my copy close at hand.
Rating: 5 / 5