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• Title: A Pig in Provence: Good Food and Simple Pleasures in the South of France
• Author: Georgeanne Brennan
• Publisher: Harcourt Books
• Year of Publication: 2008
• Pages: 209

When I went to Paris for a week in 2007, I had difficulty finding any restaurant that served Provençal food. But even if I had been successful, I would have had trouble figuring out how to pay for it. Money was tight, but I managed. So regrettably, I left France without ever having tried rustic French food. Instead, we ate Chinese food, Italian food, German food, lots of crepes, baguettes, and croissants. Everything was delicious, but nothing was Provençal.

Reading Georgeanne Brennan’s A Pig in Provence was like taking a trip to the South of France without ever boarding a plane. The book is separated into eight chapters, each with a related recipe at the end. Brennan and her first husband moved to the South of France in the 1970s, intent on raising goats and making homemade goat cheese for income. They were both graduate students from California, making the move with their baby in tow. They managed to make not just money from their goat cheese, but friends as well.

Most of the chapters are about how and what Brennan learned about food from her friends in Provence. Whether it was the real way to make bouillabaisse (fish soup), pistou (French pesto), aioli (garlic mayonnaise), or tomato tarts, it all revolved around tradition, local ingredients, and community.

Though A Pig in Provence is Brennan’s personal story of her experiences in Provence, she managed to make it much less about her and much more about the place. Her descriptions and explanations were wonderful and complete. The only things I was left wondering about were questions about her personal life she never explained, and that’s quite alright.

Last night we tried one of the recipes: An Aioli Feast. We boiled potatoes, carrots, beets, green beans, a few eggs, and poached some salmon. Then we crushed four cloves of garlic and sea salt with a pestle in a mortar, mixed in three egg yolks, and added a cup of olive oil very slowly. To eat, we dipped all of our food in our aioli, including a baguette from the store. It was simple and delicious! 4.5/5

• Title: French Milk
• Author: Lucy Knisley
• Publisher: Touchstone
• Year of Publication: 2007
• Pages: 193

French Milk is a graphic novel about a 22 year-old New York girl (the author) and her trip to Paris for five weeks with her mother. This graphic novel is styled as a diary, with fantastic visuals and occasional photographs of the real thing.

I approached this book with a bias. I took a trip to Paris when I was 22 years-old, too. The trip included a stop in London for five days, a ride on the EuroStar to France, and a week in Paris. It was an amazing experience, and I want to go back.

Reading French Milk helped me remember the little things I loved and the excitement of Paris. The food, the art, the culture was refreshed in my memory because of this book.

The author’s personal style didn’t hurt, either. Her diary was open, honest, and was successful in making me care about her characters.

The only complaint I had with this book was that the structure was difficult to adapt to at first. I was expecting French Milk to resemble the comics the author posts on her journal, something akin to Persepolis, the only other graphic novel (series) I’ve read cover-to-cover. However, once I got used to it, French Milk was effortless to enjoy. 4.5/5

• Title: Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone
• Editor: Jenni Ferrari-Adler
• Authors: Steve Almond, Jonathan Ames, Jami Attenberg, Laura Calder, Mary Cantwell, Dan Chaon, Laurie Colwin, Laura Dave, Courtney Eldridge, Nora Ephron, Erin Ergenbright, M.F.K. Fisher, Colin Harrison, Marcella Hazan, Amanda Hesser, Holly Hughes, Jeremy Jackson, Rosa Jurjevics, Ben Karlin, Rattawut Lapcharoensap, Beverly Lowry, Haruki Murakami, Pheobe Nobles, Ann Patchett, Anneli Rufus, and Paula Wolfert
• Publisher: Riverhead Books
• Year of Publication: 2007
• Pages: 260

Eating alone is not a regular occurrence for me anymore, but it does happen occasionally, and it did happen a lot when I was in college. I expect it will happen more in the future. 

I have a love/hate relationship with eating alone. I like that I can be selfish when choosing foods when I’m alone, especially since my partner is very picky when it comes to fruits and vegetables. (He is trying new things lately despite his aversion to them. I’m very grateful to him for that.) This is also one of the reasons I love eating out: I can be selfish without being alone. (I’m envisioning the deliciously sour and potent lemon tart I had at Thomas Keller’s Bouchon in Yountville, CA, a dessert reserved for selfish occasions.) When I’m eating alone, I dislike the fact that I have no one to share my joy with, no one to cook for besides myself, no one to Ooh and Aah at my efforts, no one to talk to.

These short stories encompass those feelings through many different voices, some with more love than hate for eating alone than others (and vice versa), and all with different experiences and reasons for eating alone.

As a collection, this book is lovely. The stories can be read individually or in one fell-swoop. I adopted the latter strategy, and I enjoyed it very much. I felt as though I was being let in to these authors’ lives, voyeuristically watching them alone in their homes or out to eat, being let in on the secret of their habits. It’s terribly interesting, and I almost feel guilty for enjoying it. Almost. 4/5

• Title: Alice Waters and Chez Panisse: The Romanic, Impractical, Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food Revolution
• Author: Thomas McNamee
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Year of Publication: 2007
• Pages: 351

I don’t remember what exactly drew me to this book, other than the cover and the title, but I was drawn to it one day when we were in the bookstore looking for the Bouchon and French Laundry cookbooks. I didn’t get it then, but when I saw it at the ALA Annual Expo in Anaheim for $5 (2 for $10, actually), I had no other option. I had to get it.

Truth be told, I never heard of Alice Waters or Chez Panisse before reading this book. Before this summer, I was pretty ignorant of the foodie scene. I always enjoyed eating, and I sometimes enjoyed cooking, but I was pretty uninformed. Then I was given a copy of Phoebe Damrosch’s Service Included less than a week before our reservations at the famous Per Se in New York City in May. I hadn’t even known much about that restaurant or its proprietor, Chef Thomas Keller, before reading Damrosch’s book. I finished that book in a couple of days, just in time for it to intensify my dining experience at Per Se. And it really did!

I had an image of what to expect at the restaurant thanks to Damrosch. What may have otherwise been completely overwhelming and intimidating became an immensely pleasurable journey through food. I hadn’t known much before, but my eyes were now opened. I wanted more.

Luckily, shortly after that experience, I spent four weeks in California. (Food tastes very different in California.) (more…)