Kim Sunée - Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love, and the Search for Home

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For my family

T his book would never have become what it is today without the love and encouragement of so many people. I want to thank David Black for responding quickly to a late-night message one December evening and for introducing me to Joy Tutela, a woman of many talents. Thank you, Joy, for your enthusiasm and fierce loyalty. You continue to amaze me every day.

To my editor, Amy Einhorn: thank you for your wisdom and patience, and for generating so much enthusiasm for this book. Thank you for making my first author-editor experience unforgettably delicious.

No book comes into the world without a hardworking group of passionate and intelligent people. At Grand Central Publishing, thanks to the brilliant team of Emily Griffin and Les Pockell for taking me over the finish line. For fully supporting this book from the beginning, Id like to thank Jamie Raab, Karen Torres, Martha Otis, and Jennifer Romanello. Id also like to thank Erica Gelbard and Bill Tierney, who love to eat and cook as much as I do. And thanks to Judy Rosenblatt, Susan Richman, and Jill Lichtenstadter for their support and enthusiasm. In production and copy, thanks to the very patient Tareth Mitch, Tom Whatley, Allene Shimomura, and Sona Vogel.

Thanks to the delightful Anne Twomey for her wise and intuitive art direction, to Louise Fili for her gorgeous cover design, and to Mark Yankus for the back cover photo.

To those who read early drafts of this manuscript at James Nolans writing workshop in New Orleans, many hurricanes ago, especially James Nolan and Melissa Phipps Gray.

A special thank-you to Frances Mayes for her generosity and suggesting more comfort food. Grazie mille.

To Rachel Beardsley and Charles Walton for astute and enthusiastic recipe testing and tasting. And for honoring my grandfathers crawfish bisque one spring afternoon (yes, we really did stuff three hundred heads) and helping to get it oh so close, thanks to Donna, Rachel, Erin, Robbie, Catie, Lolis, and Charles.

I want to thank my first set of parents, wherever they may be, who loved me enough to let me go, and Mom and Dad, who loved me enough to not leave me behind. And I want to thank my family: the Hoppes, Keims, Tuckers, Cieutats, Baylisses, Suzy, and Josh, for sharing the stories and recipes; Grammy and Poppy, for their love and always having something good for us to eat.

Mes remerciements Olivier Baussan et Laure Baussan.

Thanks to Jan, for the very special gift of her friendship, and for always making me laugh. And to Florent, for teaming up with the most amazing woman to create an even more amazing gift to the worldlittle Olivia. To Brigitte et Herv, who were there for me, even in the loneliest of times. To Charlotte, a woman of many cities and words and silences.

A Olivier Grignon, mes hommages les plus sincres. Vous tes, entre autres, la posie et vous mavez fait comprendre que je ne peux pas tout dire, pas cette fois-ci en tout cas.

Thanks to my extended family at Cottage Living, and at Southern Progress Corporation, for allowing me to do what I love every day. To my personal cheerleaders, Martha Johnston and Jake Reiss of Alabama Booksmith, and James Schwartz.

To Val, for gently guiding me through the Amazon and helping me on my way home again.

To Dorie and Michael Greenspan, for always allowing me a little bit of paradisea room (and kitchen) of my ownwhen I need it most. Jean Anderson, for her guidance and sound advice on the quirky ways of food science and the even quirkier ways of the food world.

And last, but never least, thanks to Charles Walton for so much more than I can ever thank him, including his patience, enthusiasm, and intuition, and for not saying anything when I was in the final drafts and drinking way too much Lillet Blanc, and for always caring and styling the food, even a plate of pickles and barbecue.

T rail of Crumbs is a memoir. I have changed some names and the timeline of several events to protect certain individuals privacy, not in an attempt to make light of the truth, but to enlighten it.

In the end, this story is as much mine as it is theirs.

Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. In yourself right now is all the place youve got.

Flannery OConnor

Here before me now my map, of a place and therefore of myself, and much that can never be said adds to its reality just as much of its reality is based on my own shadows, my own inventions.

Over the years I have taught myself, and have been taught, to be a stranger. A stranger usually has the normal five senses, perhaps especially so, ready to protect and nourish him.

M. F. K. Fisher, Map of Another Town

L et me start by saying where I am. Ive always thought that knowing this much may help me understand where I was and, if Im lucky, to better know where it is Im going. Luck. I know something about itit got me out of an orphanage in Asia and across the waters, through various port cities, to right here, in France, where I am.

Looking out onto the foothills of the High Alps, in a damp Missoni bathing suit, Im sitting on a cane-seat chair that once belonged to the father of the man I love. The father is long dead, of cancer, too much alcohol, and not enough tenderness. Hes buried in a monastery high in the hills of Ganagobie, just a few kilometers from here. Olivier, my companion of nearly three years, is somewhere on the property. I hear his voice every now and then as he goes from room to room discussing colors with Ariane, the artisan from Carcassonne he has hired to repaint the walls of the entire house before the end of summer.