Colette Rossant - Return to Paris: A Memoir

Praise for Return to Paris

Rossant explor[es] the wonders of French cuisine [and] shares recipes throughout the book, interspersing them among anecdotes. Those interested in food will enjoy Rossants careful explanations of meals and markets.

Publishers Weekly

Rossants mouth-watering descriptions of her most memorable meals [are] sensuously alive.

Library Journal

[D]elightful. The highest praise I can give this is to quote the words of distinguished American food critic Homer Simpson: Ummm! Fo-o-o-od. Gooood!

The Washington Times

This second part of Rossants memoirs continues the tradition of interspersing text with recipes for dishes both simple and complex, from pain perdu to a whole goose and its artfully stuffed neck.

Booklist

Rossant writes with such engaging warmth and humanity that the reader is instantly drawn into the rites of passage of a schoolgirl in Paris, whose mixed heritage is difficult but whose love of food ripens into the fruitful loves of a grown woman.

Betty Fussell, author of The Story of Corn and My Kitchen Wars

[F]illed with evocative prose and delightful recipes. [Rossants] love affair with food blossoms into human love in this beautiful and passionate tale of life on the cusp of adulthood.

Joan Nathan, author of The Foods of Israel Today and Jewish Cooking in America

We must be grateful to Colette Rossants narcissistic mother. She drove her daughter to the kitchen for companionship. Return to Paris is a brilliant coming-of-age food memoir set in the then gastronomic capital of the world. Ive never read anything that so beautifully evokes how a palate is cultivated.

Patricia Volk, author of Stuffed

Praise for Apricots on the Nile

This is the kind of writing about food that stimulates your senses and connects you to the important traditions of the table. I am enchanted by this memoir.

Alice Waters

Also by Colette Rossant

Apricots on the Nile: A Memoir with Recipes

Washington Square Press
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 2003 by Colette Rossant

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

For information address Atria Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

ISBN: 0-7434-3967-8

ISBN 13: 978-0-7434-3967-1

eISBN 13: 978-0-7434-4281-7

0-7434-3968-6 (Pbk)

First Washington Square Press trade paperback edition April 2004

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Manufactured in the United States of America

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A postcard from Paris: To Jimmy with love, Colette

Return to Paris

Departure

The windows in my study are wide open; I am looking down at the garden. The cherry tree is in full bloom and from above it looks like a very light white cloud. I remember when we planted it thirty years ago. Juliette, my daughter, wanted a small cherry tree for her birthday. We planted what we believed was a miniature cherry tree. To our surprise it grew nearly sixty feet high and produced great, dark Bing cherries. Juliette loves the tree and thinks that when and if we sell the house, she will cut down the tree and use its wood to make furniture.

The mailman has just delivered a letter, which I hold in my hands. I am not sure I want to open it. I know in my heart of hearts the news will not be good. I am a witch, as I always tell my children; I am sure that this letter bears no good news.

I go back to my desk, letter still unopened. I can hear my grandchildren laughing on the floor above, and as I sit down at my desk, I take out my mothers old photo album and gaze at a photograph of her. She is so beautiful in her long dress. Her train is artfully arranged around her feet. She carries an enormous bouquet of cascading flowers. There are also pictures of my handsome father and of my grandmother, elegant in a large hat and a long dress, holding on to my grandfather and staring boldly out with icy eyes.

I remember my French grandfathers round belly, a pince-nez perched on his nose and a mustache of which he was very proud. I remember walking with him in the park, holding his hand; his picking me up on our walk in the summer to grab hazelnuts from the tree in the back of their summer house. There is a lovely picture of my husband and me when we first met. I look so happy and French; he looks so American!

My grandfather is dead. He died the last month of the war. My mother is also dead. I want to cry.

I open the letter and read the doctors note. The biopsy is positive. I have breast cancer. Could I call him right away to make an appointment for surgery? I stand there, silent, and then turn back to the photo album to take one more look. I find a picture-of me on the deck of the boat taking me from Egypt to Paris. I look forlorn and sad. I close the album and remember.

I am standing on the bridge of a Greek ship, which will take us to Marseilles, looking down at the pier. The noise is deafening, and people are running and passing baggage, crying out in Arabic: Be careful turn right No, I mean left . You idiot! Why cant you be more careful! as they are loading possessions and themselves onto the deck. Families are gathered in a corner saying goodbye to those leaving. Most of the passengers look young. I imagine that, like me, they are going to Europe to study The war has been over now for nearly two years and the Mediterranean, which had been mined by the Germans, is now declared safe. I am going back to Paris with my mother to attend a lyce and to see my brother, who has spent the war years in France. We are going to live with my maternal grandmother, who has raised my brother. I am excited to go back to France where I was born, although quite sad to leave my Egyptian grandparents and Egypt, where I have spent eight wonderful years.

My mother was French and my father Egyptian. For the first six years of my life we lived in Paris and summered in Biarritz with my maternal grandparents. But in 1937 my father became quite ill with lung cancer. After a successful operation we were summoned to Cairo by my Egyptian grandfather. He believed that my father would recover if the family surrounded him. We arrived in Cairo, greeted by a noisy, affectionate, extended Sephardic Jewish family. We settled down in my grandparents apartment on the ground floor of their four-story house, surrounded by a large garden with a resplendent mango tree planted, my grandfather liked to say, when I was born. The life of the household revolved around my grandfather, a stern but loving man, and my grandmother, a diminutive woman who ruled the household and her brood with an iron fist. My voluptuous, attractive mother, happy to be relieved from her duty of taking care of a sick husband, made herself the toast of Cairo society. As for me, I spent my time roaming the house, usually ending up in the kitchen where Ahmet, the cook, prepared meals that reflected the complex cultural makeup of the family. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen, tasting Ahmets food and listening to the kitchen gossip. Warm spices, pungent herbs, exotic fruits, and the alchemy of hands became part of my daily life. Within a year, though, my life was shattered for the first time. My father died. A few months later, my mother decided that her best life was elsewhere, and left me with my grandparents for the next four years. I was devastated and heartbroken. Ahmet and his kitchen became my only solace as he enveloped me with love and food.