My first three trips to France came over the course of about five years and the length of each trip increased about five-fold from one to the next. First, one month with about 20 students for a Winterim term in Paris. Next, just six of us from the same university returned for the inaugural year of our school’s study-abroad program, a semester at the Université de Dijon. Then came my cooking school adventure, which I thought would be ...
It’s Mother’s Day today, at least back in the United States (the French will celebrate la Fête des Mères in two weeks). So what I did I do to honor the day in Paris? I took a walk through Père Lachaise cemetery. Not out of some grim impulse to acknowledge the eleventh Mother’s Day since my mom passed away. But because it felt like the right kind of soulful environment ...
I spent a few minutes trying to come up with a more clever title for this post but figure it pretty much speaks for itself. Whether you've been there on your honeymoon or for a study-abroad term, if you backpacked-it in a hostel or lived it up at George V, even if it was one of those horrid if-this-is-Tuesday-it-must-be-Belgium "highlights of Europe" tours--there's surely a buzz of delightful nostalgia that hits you at the mention of Paris. Or maybe you have yet to ...
Ah to have been in Paris this past week! It would have given me the opportunity to toast—in person—my mentor Anne Willan for the honor bestowed on her latest book at the Gourmand Cookbook Awards. Instead I raised my coffee cup generally France-ward to salute this book that represents a lifelong passion for, and curiosity about, not only food we eat today, but chefs and cooks who came before us. If any cookbook author deserves the nod of “prolific” it’s surely ...
My husband and I still remember that first meal we had at Rover's. It was August, 1988. We were both having grumpy weeks, didn't like our jobs, whatever the grievance. So we played hooky that lovely sunny day and walked onto the Bainbridge ferry to escape a bit, wander Winslow, explore the beach. Then a huge treat that evening to cheer us up even more: dinner at Rover's. They had a larger outdoor patio then, it was years before the renovation ...
I didn't want to break the spell. When I left Seattle to go to cooking school in France, it was a major adventure, a big step into an unknown future, a dream come true. Belongings that I wasn't taking with me went into long-term storage, since this was to be an open-ended trip of at least nine months (ended up being 2 1/2 years). The last thing I wanted to do was break the momentum and serendipity of my time abroad with splashes of my ...
It strikes me as interesting that I have my liberal arts education in Tacoma, Washington to thank for my introduction to North African cuisine. Indirectly, I suppose, but it was a University of Puget Sound winterim study program of a month in Paris that had me exploring the bustling, colorful byways in and around Paris' Rue de la Huchette where there's a convergence of international cuisines, Moroccan among them. Of course the ...
Back in early November of 1990, I was into my second year in France for an extended stay. Earlier, in college, I'd had a couple trips to France as part of my studies--once for a month, the following year for a semester at University of Dijon. But this was my post-college, what-the-heck-was-I-thinking-getting-a-math-degree? exploration of the culinary side of my aspirations. I'd signed on for a stagiaire ...
I can't say how many times a food story I've written, or recipe I've developed, has come with a story of my mother. My favorite is this one, which ended up getting picked up by Saveur's online offerings and has, in the long run, become one of the most popular posts on my blog. Which I'm proud of not at all for the number of visitors it represents. But instead for the fact that each person who landed ...
This past weekend, at dinner with friends, some random course of conversation brought up a crazy story that I told the group. It was something I hadn't thought about for a while, but they loved the story and urged me--repeatedly--to write more about stories like it. It'll have be another time that I tell you about the round-trip flight from Seattle to London for just one night. But it did remind me that I have racked up some interesting, unusual experiences over the years. ...
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