Mastering the Art of French Eating: Lessons in Food and Love from a Year in Paris

There was no experience, I thought, quite as wonderful as being an American in Paris.

In France dining is meant to be a special, pleasurable part of the day; food offers not only fuel for the body but also a connection—between the people who have joined you at the table, between the generations who have shared a recipe, between the terroir (the earth) and the culture and cuisine that have sprung from it. Separate from cooking, the very act of eating is in itself an art to master.

I’ve always felt there are two states of existence: being in Paris and being out of it.

Sometimes, I thought, living in Paris was like living in a museum—beautiful and poignant and untouched by time.

They say there are as many recipes for crêpes in Bretagne as there are people who make them,

But thinking of Julia reminded me of the important things in life: the essential humanness of sharing good food with the people you love, even when you may be in a place you don't love very much. Somehow everything tastes better eaten with your favorite dining companion. I looked up at Julia in her kitchen on rue de Loo. I hoped she would keep an eye on things until I returned.

I wondered if Julia ever dreamed of a house, a place that didn't get packed and unpacked every thirty-six months, a place where she knew every creak of the floorboards, where she could reach for the kettle and make a cup of tea without turning on the kitchen lights, where the children she never had left small, muddy footprints in the hallway, a place drifting with the happy ghosts of countless meals cooked by her own hands. A permanent place. A home.

And yet each move was a stark reminder of the things that couldn't be packed into boxes and sent on a transport ship: contacts, friends, inspiration, the daily routine that was my life.

When you love someone, you want to share with that person the things you enjoy most in the world.

Without love, my work felt a bit meaningless; just as when I cooked for myself -- the food never tasted as good.

Insomnia. It was like a foreign movie I never wanted to see, filled with dark images that ran on an incessant loop through my exhausted brain.

Of course, it still sailed next to me, that parallel life—it would always sail next to me—as full of joy and challenge as the one I was living. I thought of it sometimes, pale and chilled—lit by a satellite moon, not the sun of reality—a ghostly ship charting a route to what might have been, while I remained on the course of what was. *

Now, I was unemployed in Beijing, and my former ambition seemed like the pollution that smudged the sky, a great green cloud composed of a billion different particles of fear and uncertainty. Without a career I hardly knew who I was anymore.

In 1944 the Confrérie established the Château du Clos de Vougeot as their headquarters, restoring it and in fact improving upon its former austerity, creating luxurious banquet rooms where monks had once lived in spartan simplicity. (In the monks’ former dining room, re-created as part of the château’s museum, long wooden tables, benches, and a pulpit hinted at their austere lifestyle; one brother would read passages from the Bible as the others ate gruel in enforced silence.)