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We recommend the books listed below. Please click through each book to order from Amazon.
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The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious - and Perplexing - City
American baker Lebovitz, alumnus of California's famed Chez Panisse, moved to Paris following his partner's untimely death. There he found a culture whose rituals and courtesies mystified him. It took him a while to get used to personally greeting every clerk and shopkeeper, to consuming every morsel of food using both fork and knife, and to coping with an uncommonly wily bureaucracy fond of enforcing self-contradictory regulations. He discovered the social necessity of pressing every wrinkle out of his clothes, even from his jeans and his towels. Recipes dominate the text, many of them Lebovitz's signature chocolate dessert creations. Some of these pastries display their Parisian provenance, an absinthe cake in particular standing out. But he also includes popular Mexican mole and crispy pork carnitas, about as exotic to most Parisians as one could imagine. An annotated list of food and equipment sources brims with good information. --Mark Knoblauch
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| The Patisseries of Paris: Chocolatiers, Tea Salons, Ice Cream Parlors, and more
Parisians know that a perfect pain au chocolat or wild strawberry tart is among life's greatest pleasures. But which patisserie has the most intensely flavored macarons, the most sophisticated chocolates, or a croissant that is truly beyond compare? In the pages of The Patisseries of Paris, you'll find the most enticing sweets in Pairs. You'll discover what time of day Parisians in the know get items as they come out of the oven, the museums with the most stylish cafes, and other charming spots for light meals. This is the essential guide for anyone who wants to experience French culture, bite by delicious bite.
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| The Crawfish Family Band * La famille d'écrevisses musicales
With The Crawfish Family Band / La Famille d'écrevisses musicales, Todd-Michael St. Pierre offers a bilingual slice of the joie de vivre that is life in Cajun Louisiana. Take a musical trip with Cayenne et sa famille through the bayous and byways criss-crossing our great state in English et en français cadien.
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| French Essence: Ambience, Beauty, and Style in Provence
The author of My French Life returns with a breathtaking, full-color tour of the culture and style unique to Provence.
Ten years ago, Vicki Archer and her husband began restoring a seventeenth-century olive farm in Saint-Remy-de-Provence, resurrecting the ancient orchards and renovating the farmhouse. The story of Archer's dream come true is an enchanting one, captured on the pages of her debut book, My French Life. Now fully at home in this magnificent corner of the world, she brings us a guide for celebrating and re-creating Provençal ambiance.
A lover of architecture, art, furniture, and décor, Archer knows that the best interiors are inspired by the heart as much as the mind. French Essence is designed to spark both, with gorgeous photographs of lush gardens, timeless interiors, hauntingly beautiful village lanes, and inspired aesthetic details. Sumptuous cuisine and charming shops are also essential features of the tour, giging all readers the chance to vicariously savor the sensuous pleasures and effortless chic of this region. Reminiscent of Frances Mayes's lavishly illustrated books, In Tuscany and Bringing Tuscany Home, Archer's captivating words and scenes open the doors of inspiration for all who cherish the French way of life.
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| Entertaining in the French Style
Lovers of all things French will delight in these stories and recipes deriving from both the French city and countryside from Paris to Provence to Saignon, a tiny medieval town in the Luberon Mountains. Beautiful photography illustrates the pleasure of a well-laid table, whether an intimate breakfast or a dinner party with friends. Entertaining in the French Style gives readers a glimpse into the everyday lives of French artists, farmers, chefs, and cheesemakers, of regular French couples and families, and the central roles of both food and setting in capturing the nuanced romantic notion of entertaining with French influence.
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| Dimanche and Other Stories (Vintage International)
A never-before-translated collection by the bestselling author of Suite Française
Written between 1934 and 1942, these ten gem-like stories mine the same terrain of Némirovsky's bestselling novel Suite Française: a keen eye for the details of social class; the tensions between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives; the manners and mannerisms of the French bourgeoisie; questions of religion and personal identity. Moving from the drawing rooms of pre-war Paris to the lives of men and women in wartime France, here we find the beautiful work of a writer at the height of her tragically short career.
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| Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure
Liberty, equality, and fraternity are all well and good, a champion of French culture once remarked. But, he continued, what made France truly superior to its neighbors was the French passion for wine, which "contributed to the French race by giving it wit, gaiety, and good taste, qualities which set it profoundly apart from people who drink a lot of beer."
The commentator may have had a point; after all, write Don and Petie Kladstrup, it was a well-known fact that Adolf Hitler did not like wine. Still, their leader's teetotalism notwithstanding, the Germans showed no distaste for French wine when they invaded France in 1940. Indeed, among the first acts of the occupying army was to seize great stores of wine, sending tens of thousands of barrels to the Third Reich and ordering the conversion of thousands of hectares of vineyards into war production.
Some French vintners, the Kladstrups write in this enjoyable study, went along with orders. Many others, however, including the heads of distinguished houses like Moët et Chandon, engaged in daring and dangerous acts of resistance wherever they could. The Kladstrups fill their pages with memories of the wine war from both sides of the struggle, stories sometimes somber, sometimes amusing, that commemorate those "whose love of the grape and devotion to a way of life helped them survive and triumph over one of the darkest and most difficult chapters in French history."
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