Author: Heather Robinson

I have to admit it, I like to save things. So when my friend Ann Mah and her publisher’s at Penguin were kind enough to send me an advance copy of her new book, “Mastering the Art of French Eating,” I did what any perfectly illogical person would do, I put it aside…in wait of the perrrfect…moooment (please tell me I am not the only one to do this)…when I was in desperate need for a truly excellent read. 

That is, until yesterday, when I was snapped to by an email from Ann, excitedly announcing that the day had arrived and that the book was available in stores! Well, obviously, now is always the perfect moment, so, fortified with a navette à la fleur de la lavande and a piping hot cup of joe, I turned the cover and dove in…

Now, wait a second. Let me just say something first. This is going to sound snobby and perhaps I am snobby on the following subject: I don’t usually read “expat” books. Why? Let’s just say that having a dream and following it to Singapore/Hawaii/Paris does not a writer make. 

But Ann is a writer and a really fine one at that. Not only is she the author of the novel “Kitchen Chinese” but her articles have appeared in such choice venues as The New York Times, Condé Nast Traveler (excuse my slight whimpers of jealousy), the Huffington Post, etcetera…

The premise is as follows–Ann is finally able to spend a three year stint in the city of her dreams, Paris, when Calvin, her diplomat husband, is transferred for a year in Baghdad, leaving her alone in the City of Light. Now, it is harder than one might think being an expat, yes even in Paris and yes, even if Ann already had plenty of experience in moving from country to country. It would take as strong a woman as she is not to fall into a whimpering series of “Whyyyyy?”‘s…a strong woman like, say, Julia Child? Ah ha. Inspired by Julia’s efforts to document la cuisine française in the legendary “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” and fueled by her own insatiable curiosity, she decided to visit ten different regions to get to the heart–the how’s and why’s plus the je ne sais quoi’s–of each area’s signature dish. 

One of the trickeries of travel writing is that it has to strike a real balance between dreaming and learning. Kind of a “feet on the ground, head in the stars” type of thing (and a key reason for my afore-mentioned snobbery is that I find most expat books rely solely on the latter with little of the former). Not so here. Already in the very first chapter on the steak-frites of Paris, I found myself gobbling up so much that was new to me and I lived there for four years! And yet it is tasty going down, I will tell you that. I dare you, I double dare you to try to read just the introduction without continuing on…

As you can see, Kipling can’t put it down.

If I sound like I am gushing, it isn’t just because Ann is a friend (and she truly is so lovely that it is little surprise that she collects new friends wherever she goes) but also because I have been really trying to get back to reading for the sheer joy of it and “Mastering” really fits the bill. Like a hungry man at table, I have to keep telling myself to “slow down, slow down” and…enjoy the meal.

“Mastering the Art of French Eating” by Ann Mah is Ben-approved.

to read an excerpt, please click here

Available on Amazon and itunes (although the quality of the book itself is lovely) as well as other online sources or by all means…go to your local bookstore! 

Don’t believe me?

“Excellent ingredients, carefully prepared and very elegantly served. A really tasty book.”

–Peter Mayle, author of “A Year in Provence”

*Oops! Perhaps because I am a hopelessly lazy cook, I forgot to mention that there is a recipe at the end of each chapter. And while I WON’T be attempting to make my own andouillet any time soon (and give Ann mega-props for getting down to the guts of that chapter–ahem–I most certainly will be making the cassouelet this winter…*

Have an absolutely delicious weekend everyone!

I am taking a little break from my quasi-mystical ravings about a certain village that seems too beautiful to be true in order to share something tiny but that pleases me to no end.

We are being pulled into the time of year when the light is at its most spectacular in this corner of Provence. Every evening there is a silent show, each slightly different, as the sun bows down with the grace of a prima ballerina’s final curtain curtsy.

My favorite aspect (and I know that I have written this before) is when those last rays seem to pull sideways with the rake of skeleton fingers across each surface. It can be surprisingly revealing. 

The other evening, Remi was passing by the window in front of my desk when he paused and stared. “Look at that…un cadran solaire.” What was he talking about? I went to the window and sure enough on the wall directly opposite were the faint scratchings of what had once been…a sundial.

While I love to guess time based on the shadows created by a large iron hook further down the same wall, the real thing and had been there all along. And I have been looking at that exact wall every day for nearly two and a half years!

Arles can be sneaky like that, offering up little gifts when you are least expecting them. Something akin to making the baby in you gurgle with the jangle of time’s keys, I would guess.

As I type the sun is warming up with pliés for this evening’s performance but already I can begin to discern that scraggly half-mask, carved who knows when and for whose benefit. 

Just as I was getting ready to hit publish for the above, I had an idea. For as long as we have lived in this apartment, I have been fascinated by a small window built into one of the massive outer shutters. As we are so high up off the ground, when you slide the panel back, you can’t see the ground nor the sky really. So what was its purpose? To spy on the neighbors? Well, I think I have a solution. Our little sundial is what you look towards, exactly. So this little window very may well have been installed as the easiest way to tell time from a 17th century clock. 

Neat, isn’t it?

Evidently it was.

As we rounded each corner, giving way to a different bit of lovely more glorious than the last, I sighed.

And waved a little hello at our picnic spot in the valley below (follow the road to the intersection of vines on the left, olive groves on the right, under the big tree).

Surprisingly, for such an utter patch of bijouterie, there were still corners untouched…

…But oh there were secret signs that Crillon le Brave was most definitely appreciated by a certain few.

Remi and I know Provence…quite well, I would say and yet this discovery reminded me of another and knocked me breathless. 

Literally! I was snapping like a mad turtle to the point of hyperventilation so there will be more to come…

Until then, yep, follow that good light, the one that makes you happy and have a fantastic weekend.

To listen to:

I love the luxury of other. A pool-ball click to change your track and send you sprawling, groundless into unhewn ground.

So it is for me with rain since living in Provence, the sunny South of France, where folks flock from around the world just to soak in a nearly 365 big bolt of blue. Can you imagine that it can be tiresome to have that same ceiling perpetually overhead, no matter how stunning the view? It can. 

And so I delighted in wrapping myself in a rain shroud during our recent trip to the safari tent. Up in the mountains where air can fog to trip up and fall down. We had just returned from a hike where at one point we were so deep in the woods that I was awaiting to bubble pop into Narnia, when the skies thundered an announcement over the PA that we would not, actually, be straying from the tent at any point today save for two highly ambitious hoverings over the barbecue.

Droplets pelted the tent roof like clacking typewriter keys, writing new stories.

It was such a climate shift that I felt a little lost and nearly nervous. So I just listened. And watched. Until I started to enjoy this land-fall swimming enough to turn Automatic Pilot off with a mindful fingernail flick.

There is freedom in such pounding rain when you have no where that you have to go and no how that you have to be.

Just to listen to rough music, so sweet to the mind.

Mes sincères remerciements to the exceptionally talented:

George Snyder at 1904 

and

Suze at subliminal coffee.

for inspiring me in general and today’s post in particular.