Bard - Lunch in Paris: a delicious love story, with recipes

a delicious love story, with recipes

ELIZABETH BARD

LUNCH IN PARIS

This edition published in 2011 by Summersdale Publishers Ltd.

First published in the USA in 2010 by Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Group, Inc.

Copyright Elizabeth Bard 2010

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced by any means, nor transmitted, nor translated into a machine language, without the written permission of the publishers.

The right of Elizabeth Bard to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Condition of Sale
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

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eISBN: 97808576532220

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Praise for Lunch in Paris

From cassoulets to croquembouches, via her tap dancing frog, Elizabeth Bard writes about food and Paris with passion and wit. A must-read for Francophiles and food lovers

Karen Wheeler, author of Tout Sweet and Toute Allure

Romance on the front burner its Eat, Stay , Love with a side of spiced apricots

Adriana Trigiani, author of Very Valentine

Delicious, romantic, and sexy, just as the title indicates. I devoured this book with all the gusto I would bring to a plate of steak tartare with pommes frites

Giulia Melucci, author of I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti

As charming and coquettish as Paris itself , Lunch in Paris reawakens our tired hearts and palates with a deliciously passionate journey through the city of lights

Nani Power, author of Crawling at Night and Feed the Hungry

A love story is always delightful, and one with recipes is also useful in the long run, part and parcel of a real French relationship

Diane Johnson, author of Le Divorce and LAffaire

In this charming memoir, Bard searches for her new identity by balancing her love for two countries. She discovers the common denominator that will give her life meaning: food If you enjoyed the Julia Child romance that made the Julie & Julia film so entrancing, youll love this voyage into the gastronomic soul of the French complete with luscious recipes

USA TODAY, Carol Memmott

sweet and heartfelt with delicious recipes

PEOPLE STYLEWATCH

[A] delicious story about falling in love over food in France

HARPERS BAZAAR

In this pleasant memoir about learning to live and eat la franaise, an American journalist married to a Frenchman inspires lessons in culinary dtente [Bards] memoir is really a celebration of the culinary season as it unfolded in their young lives together both sensuous and informative

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

[A] charming narrative penetrating insights quickly add a subtle complexity that will captivate readers She pleasantly details her joys and obstacles provides poignant revelations about cultural differences A cozy, touching story

KIRKUS REVIEWS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elizabeth Bard is an American journalist and author based in France. Her first book, Lunch in Paris: A Delicious Love Story, with Recipes has been a New York Times and international best-seller, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick, and the recipient of the 2010 Gourmand World Cookbook Award for Best First Cookbook (USA). Bards writing on food, art, travel and digital culture has appeared in The New York Times , the International Herald Tribune, Wired, Harpers Bazaar and The Huffington Post . You can follow Elizabeths continuing culinary adventures on www.elizabethbard.com .

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Serendipity brought me to my agent, Wendy Sherman, an expert guide and buoyant presence from the first day. To my editor, Judith Clain, and the dream team at Little, Brown I cant imagine finer or more caring partners in this process.

A good book can always be better, and this one is, thanks to careful reading, editing, tasting (and the occasional cooking lesson) from friends near and far: Sarah Kaplan, Betsy Levine, Amanda Gordon, Afra Afsharipour, Diego Valdarama, Mayur Subbarao, Elizabeth Calleo, Kelda Knight, and Katherine Prewitt. A special thank-you to Courtney Rubin, friend and mentor, without whom I might be a writer, but certainly not a professional.

Final thanks go to Mom and Paul, charter members of the Benevolent Parent Society, who believed in this and so much more.

And of course, to Gwendal. Tout simplement, lhomme de ma vie.

AUTHORS NOTE

Certain names have been changed to protect peoples privacy
(poor Gwendal, he didnt get that lucky).

CHAPTER 1

COFFEE, TEA, OR ME

I slept with my French husband halfway through our first date. I say halfway because we had finished lunch but not yet ordered coffee. It turned out to be a decisive moment, more important for my future happiness than where I went to college or years with a good shrink. The question was posed lightly: It looked like rain. We could sit it out in a caf or, since his apartment was not far, he could make tea.

I was not fully aware at the time that American girls in Paris are sluts by definition, willing to do sober what British girls will only do drunk. It seemed like a simple choice; I like tea.

Mind you, I am not that girl. (Or at least, I wasnt.) Im not the girl who swings from the chandeliers and screws men because she can, fixing her lipstick in the rearview mirror of a cab hailed at dawn. Im the girl you call Wednesday for Saturday. The girl who reads Milton for fun and knows a fish fork when she sees one. A flirt maybe, but in that harmless, nineteenth-century, kiss-my-hand-and-ask-me-to-waltz kind of way. Mostly, Im a thinker, a worrier. Since Im also a New Yorker, you can take that last bit up a notch. Its not that theres no free spirit in me. But its a free spirit with a five-year plan.

As the waiter added up our bill with a ballpoint pen on the paper tablecloth, I took another look at the handsome stranger sitting across from me. Gwendal. Gwen-DAL. Had I been pronouncing his name with the emphasis on the wrong syllable all afternoon? Oh well.

He was tall, with thick dark hair that just touched his collar. A wayward strand stuck straight up on the top of his head; it had probably been that way since he was five. His turtleneck sweater was the color of warm milk. On the empty chair beside him was a stiff navy blue cap, the kind worn by boys selling newspapers on the snowy streets of Chicago in 1932. Though it was only one in the afternoon, I could already see the rising shadow of his beard. I was trying not to stare, but his hazel-green eyes seemed to be exactly the same color as my own.