The French Ingredient - Making a Life in Paris One Lesson at a Time; A Memoir

Informationen zum Autor Jane Bertch has spent more than two decades living and working in Europe. In 2009, she started La Cuisine Paris, which has become the largest nonprofessional culinary school in France. She holds a BA in English, an MA in labor and industrial relations from the University of Illinois, and an executive MA from the French business school INSEAD. The French Ingredient is her first book. Klappentext "In this inspiring, poignant, and delicious memoir, the founder of France's largest nonprofessional culinary institute traces her journey from the American midwest to Paris, and shares how, through painstaking work, she triumphed over French elitism ... The French Ingredient is the story of a young female entrepreneur building a life in a city and culture she grew to love. As she built La Cuisine, Jane mastered the intricacies of French flirtation and bureaucracy, their intense reliance on relationships, and their hostility to outsiders. Having finally made peace with the city she swore never to revisit, she shares all she has learned. Her memoir is a love letter to France, and a master class in Parisian cooking--and living"-- Leseprobe 1 And Paris Laughed | 2006 | If you are at a café in Paris and would like lemon with your tea, you say, “Pardonnez-moi, monsieur, puis-je avoir du citron avec mon thé?” I knew this on my first visit to Paris in 1993, because I’d taken a little French, and I had a trusty guidebook with a translation section in the back. But I knew very little else. I was almost eighteen years old, and my mother took me on a weeklong trip to Europe as a graduation gift: three days in London, three days in Paris. I’d never been out of the United States before, having spent most of my life comfortably ensconced in or near Chicago. At the opulent Café de la Paix overlooking the Palais Garnier, Paris’s famed opera house, my mom and I decided to rest our feet and order some tea. The café is an institution, and was once frequented by the likes of Oscar Wilde, Émile Zola, and Marlene Dietrich. The two of us sat there trying to fit in, despite our white gym shoes practically illuminating our section of the restaurant. I requested the accompanying lemon in French, which I understood to be the respectful approach. I’ll never forget the look on the waiter’s face. I had certainly never seen a look like that in Illinois or Indiana. He narrowed his eyes and scrunched up his nose, as if I had suddenly emitted a foul odor. Pure disgust. “Pardon?” he said, his tone derisive, accusing. I reddened, horrified and terribly embarrassed. I spent most of my three days in Paris feeling that same way. All I wanted to do at that age was blend in, feel accepted, but it seemed everything my mom or I said or did elicited a version of what I came to think of as the “smell look.” From trying to navigate the métro, to buying tickets at the Louvre, to ordering a meal in a restaurant, I had the keen sense that everyone was looking at us, and that every move we made was just . . . ?wrong. After the trip, people asked what I thought. How did I feel about international travel? About London? I couldn’t even remember London. It was Paris that made an impression, and it was a traumatic one. What I thought was, I’m never, ever going back. ______ “How do you feel about Paris, Jane?” asked Tom, a manager I worked with. I was approaching thirty, and my sixth year working for an international bank’s HR department, in London. While during my teenaged trip, London had been completely eclipsed, ten years later I loved the city. I had a charmingly typical English “garden flat.” I’d made great friends. Even though the British have a reputation for being standoffish and aloof to newcomers, I’d managed to hit the jackpot in the friendship game—doubtless because my colleagues and I were all single and of the same age. I had a...

Product details

• Authors: Jane Bertch
• Publisher: Ballantine
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 09.04.2024
• EAN: 9780593500422
• ISBN: 978-0-593-50042-2
• No. of pages: 304
• Dimensions: 145 mm x 217 mm x 26 mm
• Subject: Travel