Bard falls in love, consumes delicious food and alternatively battles and embraces French culture in Lunch in Paris. A simple concept, but one foodies, travel buffs, romantics and the French crazed will enjoy. Each chapter is punctuated with several recipes, which I must admit, not being much of a cook, I usually skipped over.
An American in London, Bard begins a fling with a Frenchman – hopping on the Eurostar after work each Friday for a weekend in Paris. Eventually her romance with Gwendal becomes more serious, she moves there and they become engaged. Hilarious accounts of cross-cultural marriage incidents ensue:
“Gwendal is expanding his range in English. Although he is used to giving straight-laced scientific papers at international conferences, his colloquial English is a mix of spaghetti Westerns, Fred Astaire and early Beatles lyrics. One evening when I was making dinner, Gwendal decided to scrub down the bathroom. He emerged with a bottle of Ajax in one hand and a sponge in the other. “That was some dirty bathroom,” he said, leaning against the door like John Wayne surveying the landscape from the porch of a saloon…
I have to censor myself. I never noticed the way I spoke English until I had someone mimicking me like a parrot. My vocabulary is a disorganised closet full of fifties slang and phrases plucked from my favourite nineteenth-century novels… I’ll be on the phone… gossiping about an old friend. “I don’t know what she thought of him, but clearly he thinks he’s the cat’s pajamas.”
“The cat’s pajamas,” said Gwendal later that night. “Can I use that?
“Not unless you want to get your ass kicked.””
Lunch in Paris is not the book for you if you’re on a diet. It made me crave wine; a couple of glasses of it seemed necessary while reading about Bard’s journey. It made my stomach growl. It made me want to bake. The following is one of many passages from the book that provoked my hunger:
“When le dessert finally arrives, it looks like an innocent upside down chocolate cupcake, accompanied by a small cloud of freshly whipped cream. But when my spoon breaks the surface, the chocolate centre flows like dark lava onto the whiteness of the plate. The last ounce of stress drains from my body… the menu says Moelleux au Chocolat Kitu.”
Light, funny and mouth watering, Lunch in Paris is a satisfying trip through France.
Links:
Coffee-Stained Pages 
Oh yummy! That´s some dessert! ;D The books sounds better than I expected, although it makes me wonder about my own vocabulary which I mostly picked up from movies and books.
Damn me and my diet! LOL Sounds like a fun read though 🙂
Looks like a lovely book! I love the cover!
This book reminded me of another book that I read sometime back called ‘We’ll always have Paris’ by John Baxter which is a memoir of the author (who is Australian and who is married to a French lady) during his time in Paris. If you haven’t read it, you can try it. It is really nice.
I think I’ll avoid this for the time being, as I’m trying to learn healthy eating habits 😛
I don’t know if I have time to read this before we leave in a few weeks, but it looks fun. Plus I am going to have hard enough time skipping all of the wine in France as it is!