Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes |  | Author: Elizabeth Bard
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Category: Book
List Price: $23.99
Buy New: $10.99
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Seller: smokymtnbooks
Rating:  47 reviews
Sales Rank: 984
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.2
ISBN: 031604279X
Dewey Decimal Number: 944.361084092
EAN: 9780316042796
ASIN: 031604279X
Publication Date: February 1, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| • | ISBN13: 9780316042796 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
In Paris for a weekend visit, Elizabeth Bard sat down to lunch with a handsome Frenchman--and never went home again.
Was it love at first sight? Or was it the way her knife slid effortlessly through her pavé au poivre, the steak'spink juices puddling into the buttery pepper sauce? LUNCH IN PARIS is a memoir about a young American woman caught up in two passionate love affairs--one with her new beau, Gwendal, the other with French cuisine. Packing her bags for a new life in the world's most romantic city, Elizabeth is plunged into a world of bustling open-air markets, hipster bistros, and size 2 femmes fatales. She learns to gut her first fish (with a little help from Jane Austen), soothe pangs of homesickness (with the rise of a chocolate soufflé) and develops a crush on her local butcher (who bears a striking resemblance to Matt Dillon). Elizabeth finds that the deeper she immerses herself in the world of French cuisine, the more Paris itself begins to translate. French culture, she discovers, is not unlike a well-ripened cheese-there may be a crusty exterior, until you cut through to the melting, piquant heart.
Peppered with mouth-watering recipes for summer ratatouille, swordfish tartare and molten chocolate cakes, Lunch in Paris is a story of falling in love, redefining success and discovering what it truly means to be at home. In the delicious tradition of memoirs like A Year in Provence and Under the Tuscan Sun, this book is the perfect treat for anyone who has dreamed that lunch in Paris could change their life.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 47
 Pleasant enough, but nothing memorable March 3, 2010
Julia Flyte
This is the account of an American woman who moves to Paris and marries her French boyfriend (who's not at all a stereotype - he's a tapdancing engineer with the unlikely name of Gwendal). It's about how she adapts to living in Paris and how she falls in love with the city and the cuisine. She ends every chapter with some of her favorite recipes, so it's part memoir, part travelogue, part recipe book.
Unfortunately Elizabeth just isn't as interesting as she thinks she is. There's too much about her - I love history! I grew up surrounded by women! I like eating! - and not enough objectively about the experience of moving to a new country. Parts of the book also felt like they had been taken verbatim from emails to her mother (eg "tonight when I came out of the Louvre I noticed them cleaning the windows").
Some of the most interesting parts for me were the way that she starts to find fault in so many aspects of the American culture. She pokes fun at American tourists and sneers at her mother for assuming that things will operate in Europe as they do in the US. Over my life I've lived in seven different countries, and it got me thinking about the way that I have adapted and assimilated. I was also interested in her views on the differences between American vs French attitudes, how what is quite acceptable in the US is seen as pushy in France and how Americans show their power by helping whereas the French show their power by blocking progress.
The integration of the recipes (more than 60) feels very natural given Elizabeth's obsession with food. (She's the kind of writer who describes walls as being the color of butter or a sweater as being the color of warm milk.) While I haven't tried any, for the most part they sound tasty and easy to follow. They are also included in the index.
While I found the book okay, I got bored towards the end, because ultimately it doesn't go anywhere. It felt like Bard wrote it because she had nothing better to do with her time. There are better books that cover similar territory. Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris is one which I recommend, or if the foodie aspect is what appeals, try The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears in Paris at the World's Most Famous Cooking School
light and entertaining, with excellent recipes February 23, 2010
Aleksandra Nita-Lazar (MD, USA)
For the lovers of everything French, "Lunch in Paris" is a nice pastime. Elizabeth Bard wrote up the story of her romance leading to a happy marriage with a Frenchman, lacing it with many recipes for French food.
Studying for a Master's degree, Elizabeth attended a conference in Paris, where she met Gwendal, a PhD student, and she let herself be seduced by his personality and lifestyle, falling in love with him and with Parisian life at the same time. She wanders around Paris, eating in typical French restaurants, making observations of differences between French and American homes, families, attitude to work... There are some recommendations of restaurants which sound amazing, and the Paris which emerges from her story is even more alluring than the one from guidebooks (and very realistic).
There are many similar books, in the boom that started with Peter Mayle - pleasant literary holidays for those who cannot go to their dream places. "Lunch in Paris" is not very original and fill of clichés, but it is written with humor and wit, and the recipes are excellent and not too hard to follow (I have tried some already: yoghurt cake, savory cake, lentils, ratatouille - and all of them worked). In fact, I think that the recipes may be the best part of the whole book. The narrative part is a bit naïve, banal and stereotypic, but it reads fast and is a pleasant distraction from everyday life.
A Transforming Lunch The Parisenne Way February 22, 2010
prisrob (New EnglandUSA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A young girl goes to Paris for the weekend. A young pretty American girl goes to Paris for the weekend and is invited to lunch by a good looking Frenchman. And, life for this young girl will never be the same.
Elizabeth Bard from New Jersey travels to London to find herself and a job. She had a major in art and finds little bits and pieces to keep body and soul together. On a weekend in Paris she finds the Frenchman. Not the man of her dreams, but a dreamy man. They fall in love, move in together and then the meeting of the families. The overwrought American parents meet the laid back French parents. Soon everyone loves each other. And, Elizabeth, well, she is still trying to find herself. She does some freelance jobs and learns to cook. She learns to order from the meat market, choose the right veggies and fruits and finds Paris is her home. Gwendall, her French boyfriend proposes and a wedding is planned. A small quiet affair, a new apartment and a new life. Elizabeth finds her place. Elizabeth has many adventures as an American in Paris, and she shares and handles them with aplomb. The upstair neighbors who won't leave. The 38 course New Years cooked by her father-in-law- one of the best meals she has ever had. Shopping for shoes and clothes, walking and exploring all of Paris, she brings this to us and we love it.
Elizabeth Bard intersperse her stories of life with recipes and they look and sound wonderful. These are recipes from her family, and then from her husband's family. I tried her chocolate pudding cake and it is delicious. She gives advice with her recipes and shortcuts that make sense. She writes in a manner that causes interest and empathy. She is bright and witty. Paris and the French are explained in a manner that should interest every American. By the way, while riding the subway never talk about your sex life, how much you detest the French, the person sitting next to you probably understands English!
Recommended. prisrob 02-21-10
A Michelin-starred restaurant meal , prepared by a sous-chef February 19, 2010
M. Holmes
To be clear, this review is a straight 3 stars.
Like many of these reviewers, I too love all things French. In no small way, it is because that is my heritage. So, I too have spent much time in Paris, and thought this book would be an entertaining and insightful read. Not quite. While Elizabeth Bard has some expressive ways of describing French tendencies, it is apparent that she thought she should do this at the expense of her American heritage. Frankly, I find that boring. Plus the addition of recipes is so cliche, that I have no interest in trying them. (I had a similarly negative reaction to Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes, but in that case I also disliked Mayes puerile writing style immensely).
What is good is that Bard's writing is amusing once you get past the opening line. Her turn of phrase is clever and reasonably well articulated. Even her story is compelling. But she provides too many intimate details about her "affair" with her then first date/now husband, and not enough details about trying to assimilate into a French family. The cultural and societal differences between the US and France are well known, as are the issues that come to any couple that is newly married. Since this is a memoir, why not explore in depth her trials and tribulations of fitting into a culturally different family? And, by the way, how about addressing his familial expectations and experiences with her American counterpart, and how the two of them transcend the familial issues? Not only is she capable of writing humorous antidotes about each family on personal level, without the intimate or belittling overtones, but more of that would have been "fascinating" to read. Not so her descriptions of sex, society, and the US vs. French governments. As others have noted, the last half is more interesting than the first half. Bard should understand the difference, if she wants her writing to grow. Her first book, is a quick read, with a cute story, but her personal details could have included a more intriguing bent. And, NOTE TO PUBLISHERS, enough already with the memoirs infiltrated with recipes!
recipes are just ok; story? so-so February 17, 2010
Venice1 (St. Louis, MO)
Like a few of the other reviewers, I though this book was boring and quite difficult to get into. I persisted and found the author's tone a bit smug and condescending. The end of the book starts to have a little heart but I never really connected or cared about the author or any other characters and I love paris and french food. Disappointing.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 47
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