Thought for Food

mandalay:

Another quick, fun read: Lunch in Paris. Ms. Nora thoughtfully sent me an autographed copy, knowing that I’d salivate over the descriptions of the French meals. A cute love story with accompanying recipes, set in Paris - what’s not to like? I doubt that I will ever be capable enough to handle most of the recipes in the book, but I have high aspirations to maybe try at least a few.

Yay! Glad you liked it.

poochie:

Ruby was exhusted after all the hard work so went back to bed to read Lunch in Paris, which I also happen to be reading and loving.

I yelped when I saw this post from Down Under. We went to lunch with Elizabeth’s husband Gwendal on Saturday and he reported that she’s a big hit in Oz (she’s on a book tour there now). And here’s proof, right on my Dashboard. :)

Oh and also! Lunch in Paris debuted on the NYT’s Nonfiction Best Sellers list at #31. Whoohoo!!

The Super Bowl aside, the weekend was all about celebrating Elizabeth Bard and Lunch in Paris. We attended a (standing room only!) cooking demo and reading at Brooklyn Kitchen, which she did along side Giulia Meluccia, author of I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti. My (ahem, rather handsome) boyfriend mixed a Lillet cocktail that he created based on the Boulevardier, a favorite of Julia Child’s when she lived in Paris after World War II.

Side note: he spoke at some length about proper cocktail stirring technique. “It’s more of an oscillation….” I couldn’t keep a straight face. We’re talking about STIRRING for chrissakes! But that’s why I love him.

And then all of us friends and fans of Elizabeth retired to a very lovely cocktail party at a very special space in Williamsburg….

Amanda, one of Elizabeth’s dearest friends, flew out from LA to surprise her!

A clever twist on the floral bouquet.

Slow dancing with the man she fell in love with over lunch in Paris.

And on Sunday, we said fiddle-dee-dee to our hangovers and drove out to Teaneck to visit Elizabeth’s family and pay our respects to her 6-month-old son Augustin (whatever you do, don’t call him “the sequel”!). He had quite a few fans, as you can see….

Today Elizabeth is off to on a round-the-word book tour, from Sidney to San Francisco and finally back to NYC for a bit before home to Paris. I can’t wait to read about her adventures.

It came! Wish I didn’t have a date tonight. (Well, almost.)

Lunch in Paris is climbing up the Amazon bestseller lists … and I spent a wonderful evening with the author, Elizabeth, last night. She’s an old friend of M.’s who lives in, yes, Paris, so this was the first time we met — though I’ve followed her envy-inducing blog (hello! she gets to have lunch in Paris EVERY DAY) and she’s checked in on mine, so she already felt like a friend.

My copy of her memoir has literally gotten lost in the mail, so I haven’t read it yet, but I can tell you this: Elizabeth is a joy, and wise. Our conversation ranged far and wide and deep; one thing she said to M. and I resonated like the bells of Notre Dame (I’m paraphrasing): We all have a life we think we should be living, the professional or romantic fantasy that we anxiously track and compare ourselves to. And why? You only get one crack at this. When she finally realized that, despite years of the “right” education and experience, she wasn’t going to be a (Painfully) Serious Art Critic — in fact she didn’t WANT to be — it was a step that led her to this, her first book.

Tuck that thought away somewhere safe, my friends. I will.

Elizabeth — author of the new memoir of food and romance in the most beautiful city in the world, Lunch in Paris — recently received a gift for the ages: the recipe for the traditional French cake that is served on Galette, the feast of the Epiphany. The cake, she writes,

is a dense almond cream called frangipane, tucked between two layers of puff pastry. Inside the cake is hidden a tiny figurine – la fève – originally a broad bean. He who finds the fève is king for a day – paper crown and everything.

Ah! It it the pastry forefather of New Orleans’ beloved King Cake. And her description brings back a delicious memory: many years ago, my family and I spent New Year’s Eve in New Orleans. One day, we went to a French bakery and bought a Galette cake and it was so heavenly that we ate it with our bare hands right there on the street! (Perhaps I’m exaggerating.)

And I found la fève and fell deeply in love with New Orleans and together we lived happily ever after….

(Again, I may be embellishing. Apologies. But the power of the Galette cake is just that strong. So strong that for many Carnival seasons in New Orleans I searched high and low for this very special King Cake but had no words to describe it, merely a taste memory fading by the day. And now! I can make it at home. For it just so happens that M. has some homemade puff pastry in the freezer that he demands I make use of. Only doing my part.)

Thanks to Elizabeth Bard of Lunch in Paris, I’ve spent the last 20 minutes marveling over unusual, intelligent, and beautiful kitchen- and tableware designed by Konstantin Slawinski.

A sculptural metal squiggle, dubbed the “Noooodle,” is a pasta-measuring guide that doubles as a trivet. The “Throwzini” knife block echoes the sexy curves of a magician’s assistant and magically keeps the knives in place with magnets. Graphic candles set the pace of your dinner party, moving from cocktail hour to after-dinner cigarettes (Slawinski is French, after all) to bed.

Elizabeth writes of the “S-XL” cake pan, which marks out slices in four sizes; “Is it me or does [it] seem tailor-made for judgment and humiliation? Go ahead, take the piece that’s the size of a throw pillow, I dare you.”

If you dared me to buy everything in Slawinski’s collection, I just might do it.

Distraction of the day: Lunch in Paris, a charming and addicting blog by Elizabeth Bard, an American expat living the foodie, mommy-bliss dream in Paris. She’s the author of the upcoming book of the same name, which looks utterly fabulous.