Book Review: Lunch In Paris by Elizabeth Bard

Title: Lunch In Paris
Author: Elizabeth Bard
Publisher: Summersdale
Genre: Travel writing - with recipes!
Source: Gift from a friend

Description: This is amazing,’ I said. ‘You have to give me the recipe.’                                                                 ‘There is no recipe,’ he said, smiling. ‘I use whatever I have. It never tastes the same way twice.’         I had no way of knowing, that first damp evening in Paris, how this man, and his non-recipes, would change my life.

Has a meal ever changed your life?
Part love story, part wine-splattered cookbook, Lunch in Paris is a deliciously tart, forthright and funny story of falling in love with a Frenchman and moving to the world’s most romantic city – not the Hollywood version, but the real Paris, a heady mix of blood sausage, pains aux chocolats and irregular verbs.

From gutting her first fish (with a little help from Jane Austen) to discovering the French version of Death by Chocolate, Elizabeth Bard finds that learning to cook and building a new life have a lot in common. Peppered with recipes, this mouth-watering love story is the perfect treat for anyone who has ever suspected that lunch in Paris could change their life.

My thoughts: I really enjoyed this book. It is a true story, about how American Elizabeth comes to Paris for a boyfriend and gradually builds her life there with him. I've done a fair amount of traveling and one of my favourite things is discovering food in a new place, so it's not surprising I enjoyed how much Elizabeth talks about food in the book. Each chapter also ends with a recipe for something that was talked about, eaten or relates to the chapter. I haven't tried making any of them yet but I definitely will sometime.

The other thing that I could really identify with and relate to was the culture differences Elizabeth describes, as an American living with a Frenchman. I lived in the USA for a year and for a long time had an American boyfriend, and there are some situations Elizabeth describes which happen very differently in the USA compared to Europe which I was completely nodding in agreement with. Her boyfriend (now husband) just couldn't get his head around how certain things are done in the US, and vice versa and I could completely understand.

I think this book is very well written and incredibly well-paced given that it is autobiographical. The food is a central part of the story, which I loved, and I think including the recipes is such a great idea. I highly recommend this book, and I'm giving it 8/10 stars.