Martin Lynne - Cook like a local in France: how to shop, cook, and eat as the French do

How to Shop, Cook, and Eat as the French Do

LYNNE MARTIN
&
DEBORAH SCARBOROUGH

F or food lovers everywhere who want
to shop, cook, and eat as the French do.

The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking, youve got to have a what-the-hell attitude.

JULIA CHILD

I n 2014 when Home Sweet Anywhere: How We Sold Our House, Created a New Life, and Saw the World was published, I was thrilled to see by Lynne Martin under the title. People were fascinated with the decision my husband and I made to radically downsize our life into a 10 15-foot storage unit and strike out to live abroad in vacation rentals without a home base. It became an immediate bestseller and soon attracted publishing contracts from eight foreign countries. Tim and I reveled in the heady experience of being mini-celebrities for a few weeks. Gayle King wanted us to tell her audience on CBS This Morning about the challenges of being home free; financial reporters for Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and Yahoo Finance asked us how we kept within our budget; radio listeners and other reporters pried into everything short of our sex life; and almost every interviewer asked us what were the most important challenges of living on the road for years. Luggage restrictions, language barriers, and mysterious TV remotes were all contenders, but those hurdles were a piece of buttery croissant compared with the challenges of figuring out how to feed ourselves in vacation rentals abroad.

For starters, learning how and where to shop for food in each country often proved to be more frustrating than trying to get through Ikea in a hurry. Could I trust the fish from the supermarket in those tidy packages or should I splurge and buy from a proper fishmonger, risking certain derision at my lack of the local language? Was it okay to touch the veggies at the farmers market, or would that be considered gauche? Why are there four different kinds of checkout lines at Frances Carrefour market? How do I tell the spice market guy in Marrakech how much cardamom I want?

These and a million other culinary questions bedeviled me as we moved through the world. Its not only armies that travel on their stomachs but also the Martins. Since we werent living in hotels, eating out daily as tourists do, but trying to live like locals, producing meals every day was a top priority. Gradually, the inkling of Cook Like a Local in France began to simmer. Perhaps other travelers would like to know what Id learned so they could get right to it and start cooking in their vacation rental digs without having to negotiate a steep and time-consuming learning curve.

I learned by doing, and not all of my kitchen efforts were successful. Once, I cooked with only the microwave for two days in a country farmhouse because I didnt realize that in order to crank up the induction burner I had to put a pot on it.

Living in Paris was the last straw. Here I was in the food capital of the world, and yet I was totally frustrated about cooking. I was unfamiliar with French cuts of meat, shopping protocols, and cheese varieties, and I was terribly intimidated by my slippery grasp of the French language and my inability to decipher the labels or instructions on packaged products. I was spending entirely too much time trying to shop for and create appetizing, exciting meals. I needed help.

Enter longtime friend and brilliant restaurant owner-chef Deborah Scarborough. I met my ebullient, charming pal over a table laden with fabulous hors doeuvres that she had created for a holiday party. When I tasted her flaky, buttery, savory chvre tart, I knew we would be friends forever! In the ensuing years, Deborah and I shared our passion for food and wine, and she generously bestowed her vast knowledge on her enthusiastic but non-pro friend. Deborah had joined Tim and me on several international holidays, and each adventure was more exciting because shopping and cooking together was so much fun for all of us.

Deborahs role as my guru began when I was flailing around in Paris. I was desperate to figure out how to make a meal for new French friends, and I phoned her because I had no oven and one of the two burners in the apartment had suddenly packed it in. The people were coming the next day, and I had lost my temper. I stood there looking at my tiny kitchen and its pitiful single burner hot plate and was close to screaming as I tried to figure out what on earth to do. Before you shed any tears about my plight, though, you should know that the top of the Eiffel Tower was decorating the skyline through my cute little kitchen window!

After consoling me for a few minutes, Deborah instructed me to cowgirl up and make a grocery list. Her recipe was for Hanger Steak (Onglet) with Sauted Mushrooms (Cpes), Cream, and Brandy (see page ), plus some spiced nuts and olives to start the party.

That first SOS from Paris was followed by my cries for help from other parts of France and other countries like Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Germany. I had either an equipment problem, trouble identifying mystifying ingredients, or no idea how to prepare what I did find. Deborah always had the answer. As a result, Tim and I and our occasional guests dined very well. By the way, you should be aware as youre planning your getaway that if you intend to stay in Europe for more than a month, friends and family may suddenly descend. This is another excellent reason to have your cooking chops upyoull probably need them!

Five years and many meals later, Tim and I took a break from our travels to stay put for a while in California and enjoy our family. One evening in our cute little rental house just a block from her charming Victorian home, Deborah and I reminisced. We laughed about her helping me avoid many culinary blunders overseas, and we spoke of our devotion to all things French. We realized that there were thousands of hungry Americans wandering around Europe with the same challenges I had experienced, and they deserved rescuing just as much as I did. Thus, over several glasses of Ctes du Rhne, our soupon of a book idea inflated like a perfect cheese souffl, and the recipe for Cook Like a Local in France was written.

We decided to write a cookbook for people who rent vacation properties in France and for cooks everywhere who want to produce delicious French meals easily. Travelers waste valuable time and money when a meal goes sideways, not to mention the sheer frustration of it. We wanted to give readers a clear understanding of popular French ingredients and tips on how to shop for them. And Deborahs knack for inventing scrumptious dishes would please everyone.