Janice MacLeod's Blog, page 15

Book Buzz: The New Paris by Lindsey Tramuta

She had me at “Coffee?”

I’ve just spent a glorious week reading The New Paris: The People, Places & Ideas Fueling a Movement by Lindsey Tramuta, and my bucket list for Things to Do in Paris is longer than ever. This book is so great!

You may remember Lindsey from this post where she interviewed me on my Paris Letters for her blog Lost In Cheeseland. I remember the day well. It was a sweltering summer day in Paris. I had just popped my head out of the stifling Métro to take a breath of fresh air, but instead inhaled more heat and humidity. I was sweating in places I didn’t know I could sweat.

We met at Boot Café in the Haut Marais. She ordered an iced coffee. As the sweat dripped down my back, I decided to do the same. And the coffee was really, really good.

I had become so accustomed to drinking swill in Paris that I had forgotten that some places serve wonderful coffee. And this tiny tale illustrates what The New Paris is all about.

The fresh-faced Lindsey has spent the last few years seeking out a new wave of Paris-based artists who are adding a bright new energy and creativity to food, wine, pastry, coffee, beer, fashion, and design. She collected her discoveries (and stories behind the discoveries) in this new gorgeous book, which has the famed Boot Café on the cover. Nice touch!

Since the Midnight in Paris version of the city is so hypnotic to tourists, brasseries and cafés have been hesitant to evolve. They have relied on ambiance and the romantic ideas of sitting and lingering with a journal (for which I myself am guilty), and have forgotten that products they are selling are substandard and falling behind.

Lindsey explains:

“The trouble with such an internationally fetishized public image… is that the city becomes a prisoner to its own deified history, hemmed in by its former successes. Few tourist cities have the weight of such an image and heritage to shoulder. So to protect its legendary reputation, the city has historically turned inward and resisted change…. As other world capitals garnered attention in the media for innovations in technology, business, and even the culinary arts, Paris’s image as change-phobic and voluntarily disconnected from the global world was cemented even further. Mediocrity (or a bad case of resting on their laurels) in many areas of life, from gastronomy to business and tourism, had become the accepted norm—why mess with something that works?”

Some of this wasn’t entirely the city’s fault. The economic crisis of 2008 had small-business owners flailing. The world had decided on “staycations.” No one came to Paris. There was a collective nervous gulp. Many businesses had to cut back on quality to keep the bottom line from sinking. This meant purchasing from wholesale giants, using frozen ingredients, and pre-made dishes. Though the crisis is now over, some of those cost-cutting practices remain.

I’ve also noticed this low quality when touring people around Paris. We inevitably stop at a very Paris-y looking bistro. Most order the three course menu of French onion soup, boeuf bourguignon, and crème brûlée. These three items were on their Paris bucket list, and bistros are happy to comply. The onion soup barely has a sprinkling of cheese and needs a hefty dose of salt, the stew is a joke, and the crème brûlée is the same quality found at the regular grocery store (but quadruple in price). The tourists smile, savor each bite, and marvel at the glorious cuisine. 

And I’m looking at them with my brow arched thinking, “Are you serious?”

My tourists are so set on this idea that food in Paris is wonderful that they can’t actually taste how bad it can be.

But the good stuff is there. You just need to know where to look, and that’s where The New Paris comes in. I had already been to some places mentioned in the book, but was led to them through word of mouth. This impeccably researched book will lead you to the artists who are daring to evolve the realms of gastronomy, design, fashion, and (speaking from personal experience), coffee. Plus, the book has gorgeous photos of Paris, taken by the talented Charissa Fay.

As I read, I kept wondering why this book hadn’t been written yet. I suppose, like the artists mentioned in its pages, it takes a daring dreamer to take the first step. Why write about the new when people are buying into the old? Bravo brave Madame Tramuta! It’s a masterpiece.

Perhaps one day, you’ll find yourself in a Paris café she mentions in the book. Perhaps you’ll be wishing you were in Midnight in Paris, but with one sip of great coffee, you’ll be glad to be in the new Paris. It’s now available as of April 18th. Buy yours pronto.

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Book Buzz: Secrets of French home cooking revealed by Elizabeth Bard

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It’s really true. Elizabeth Bard really does reveal secrets of French dining in her new book Dinner Chez Moi: 50 French Secrets to Joyful Eating and Entertaining. It’s not just a hip and seductive tagline. Here are five secrets that popped out at me as I was flipping though this new glorious (and helpful) cookbook:

Secret #3: Salad dressing? It takes less that a minute to whip up your own vinaigrette in the bottom of the salad bowl. Toss it with greens from bottom up so they don’t get too soppy and wet. “French vinaigrette is like your favorite lip gloss; it should add the merest shimmer of flavor.”

Secret #9: Cinnamon in savory dishes. “Like wearing a red bra under your business suit, it changes everything, even though you might be the only one who knows it’s there.”

Secret #20: Anchovies. Just trust me here.

Secret #29: Le Creuset Dutch oven means a few minutes of prep, then several hours in the oven… and a meal that makes you seem like you cooked for those several hours.

Secret #30: Want creamy soup? Don’t use cream. Use an immersion blender. “I’m a low-tech cook. I don’t have razor-sharp knives, a KitchenAid, or a Vitamix, and it takes me longer to retrieve, put together, and wash my food processor than it does to chop five pounds of onions by hand.”

Genius!

And there are 45 more wonderful tips and tricks. If you’re looking for a little more je ne sais quoi in your kitchen, pick up Dinner Chez Moi. Now, I’m getting back to my anchovy-laden salad. Yumbo.

Book Buzz: How to Make a French Family

For many of us, the idea of living in France is dreamy. Life is filled with vibrant markets full of wicker baskets of cherries, bouquets of lavender, and neat stacks of multicoloured radishes. The afternoons stretch into rose-coloured evenings filled with endless glasses of wine and the laughter of friends in the local bistro.

Is it really like that?

Yes, it is.

And no, it isn’t. Life in France is also filled with linguistic flubs, cultural faux pas, and basic stuff like getting the kids off to school and trying to make new friends. Samantha Vérant tells us about the good, bad, and bitter in her new book How to Make a French Family.

You may remember her from this book:

In Seven Letters from Paris, she tells about how she fell in love with a French rocket scientist (!!!) on a whirlwind trip to Paris. After she returned home, he promptly sent her seven love letters which she ignored. Oh youth! Years later she rediscovered the letters, looked him up, and reconnected with him. The new book How to Make a French Family is what happens after their happily ever after. Here’s the summary:

Take one French widower, his two young children, and drop a former city girl from Chicago into a small town in southwestern France. Shake vigorously… and voilà: a blended Franco-American family whose lives will all drastically change.

Floating on a cloud of newlywed bliss, Samantha couldn’t wait to move to France to begin her life with her new husband, Jean-Luc, and his kids. But almost from the moment the plane touches down, Samantha realizes that there are a lot of things about her new home―including flea-ridden cats, grumpy teenagers, and language barriers―that she hadn’t counted on.

Struggling to feel at home and wondering when exactly her French fairy tale is going to start, Samantha isn’t sure if she really has what it takes to make it in la belle France. But when a second chance at life and love is on the line, giving up isn’t an option. How to Make a French Family is the heartwarming and sometimes hilarious story of the culture clashes and faux pas that , in the end, add up to one happy family.

In the book, she includes recipes and tender moments of her struggles to adapt to her new life in the south of France. For me, I’m not reading for the recipes. I’m reading because over the years I’ve gotten to know Samantha and she is a genuinely kind person. She is super supportive of myself and other France-themed authors, she’s enthusiastic about sharing our projects, and she’s just a great gal that I’m happy to call a friend.

I get warm fuzzies when I think of Samantha. You will too when you read How to Make a French Family. And anyone how includes a kitty in their author photo is already going to get my vote:

Good kitty. As you likely know from me going on about pre-ordering my new book, A Paris Year, if you buy it today (her launch day) you help the author tremendously. Much more than buying it next week. Something about stats and Amazon and the machine behind the machine. Get her new book here.

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Top 12 Anthony Bourdain quotes

Anthony Bourdain is one of those guys you don’t want to love. He’s got this dick-ish way of being that scares happy-light-friendly ladies like me. And yet, I cannot help but nod in agreement with so much of what he says. Recently, wealthsimple came out with an article on Anthony Bourdain and his view on finances. There I was nodding again. A few genius quotes from the article:

Anthony on debt:

“I am fanatical about not owing anybody any money. I hate it. I don’t want to carry a balance, ever. I have a mortgage, but I despise the idea. That was my biggest objection to buying property, though I wasn’t in the position to pay cash.”

Anthony on making big bucks:

“To me, money is freedom from insecurity, freedom to move, time if you choose to make use of time.”

Anthony on paying taxes:

“Nobody likes paying high taxes, but I don’t mind. Maybe that’s a luxury, but I don’t need to hire some hotshot to spend 12 hours a day figuring out how to chisel the government out of an extra few thousand dollars. If getting that extra money means a lot of phone calls and talking to financial analysts and lawyers, I don’t want it. I don’t want to have those conversations.”

And that’s just one article. If you’ve been following along as long as I have, you find some real gems spewed out of his gorgeous pie hole…

Anthony on Detroit:

“I love Detroit. I love Detroiters. You’ve got to have a sense of humor to live in a city so relentlessly fucked. You’ve got to be tough—and occasionally even devious. And Detroiters are funny, tough—and supreme improvisers. They are also among the best and most fun drinkers in the country.”

Anthony on Ina Garten:

“I love Ina Garten. She’s one of the few people on Food Network who can actually cook. When Ina Garten roasts a chicken, she roasts it correct. When Ina Garten makes mashed potatoes, those are some solid mashed potatoes. In many ways I want Ina’s life. I don’t want to live in her house. I don’t want to spend a weekend there. It gets weird in Ina Land . . . Oh, when Jeffrey gets home, he’ll be so happy I made meatloaf. And then he comes home and you’re pretty sure he’s not into meatloaf.”

Anthony on cheese:

“You have to be a romantic to invest yourself, your money, and your time in cheese.”

Anthony on retirement:

“I’m definitely looking forward to the day when I stop working ­– if I ever stop working. I like the idea of keeling over in my tomato vines in Sardinia or northern Italy.”

Anthony on Russia:

“On Vladimir Putin: “Russians love him. They seem to feel about him how New Yorkers used to feel about Giuliani: He may be a son of a b#@ch, but he’s our son of a b#@ch.”

Anthony on parenting:

“We know, for instance, that there is a direct, inverse relationship between frequency of family meals and social problems. Bluntly stated, members of families who eat together regularly are statistically less likely to stick up liquor stores, blow up meth labs, give birth to crack babies, commit suicide, or make donkey porn. If Little Timmy had just had more meatloaf, he might not have grown up to fill chest freezers with Cub Scout parts.”

Anthony on beauty:

“Few things are more beautiful to me than a bunch of thuggish, heavily tattooed line cooks moving around each other like ballerinas on a busy Saturday night.”

Anthony on travel:

“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body.”

Anthony on standing for something:

“If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food, it’s a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.”

This last one was so good I added it onto the opening page of A PARIS YEAR. You can pre-order here.

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The new book and an ode to a bookstore

The advance copy of my new book arrived in the post. There is nothing quite like the feeling of seeing an idea finally printed and bound into a book. An advanced copy is created early in the process to send to media folk who may want to provide quotes, reviews, feature in magazines, etc.

It’s called an ADVANCE UNCORRECTED PROOF, which means it might have a few spelling mistakes (which stops my heart every single time) and, even though the book is in full color, this advanced version is in black and white:

The book is an illustrated day book, a travel journal of sorts, that begins in January and ends in December. Each day there is a little something to learn about Paris, a sketch, or a painting. And each day tends to run into the next in theme, color-scheme, or story line. A few pages from March:

Another few…

I’m so thrilled with the black and white version that I’m sure I’ll be in pure bliss once the color version comes out in June 2017. You can pre-order it and it will be delivered to your mailbox or inbox in June 2017:

Barnes & Noble

Amazon (US)

Amazon (UK)

Indigo

Books-A-Million

IndieBound

Apple

Pre-ordering is one of the kindest thing you can do for an author.

More so than ordering the book the day after it comes out. Mais pourquoi?

Pre-orders propels the book to statistic stardom on sites like Amazon. Online booksellers rely on these stats, so naturally the author begins to rely on these stats, too. But even more than rank, pre-orders help bookstores know how many to order for their shelves on launch day, or if they want to order it at all. I remember back when I was considering writing books, I would walk through Barnes & Noble on Third Street in Santa Monica and look at where my books would live. Then I would research the books around where my book would live: Who was the agent? Who was the publisher? Clues on who to contact once my books were written. But if no one pre-orders from Barnes & Noble, the book doesn’t make it to those shelves. Quel dommage. And would-be writers of the future are left out of a golden opportunity. And no fun Francophile mail for you come June. Again, quel dommage.

Thanks to pre-orders for my last book Paris Letters, Barnes & Noble pick up the book, but they let me write a little story about how Bruce Springsteen made me a writer. So thanks Barnes & Noble! Barnes & Noble was also the scene in Paris Letters where I meet up with Ben and together we concoct our escape from our dreary lives. His real name is Paul Freeman and he’s the front man for the band The 100 Year War. A few years later we met up in Paris where he opened for a little known artist named Chris Isaak.

Sexiest video ever.

I digress. This happens when you only sleep in four-hour stints (if you’re lucky) due to a thirsty newborn. Where was I? Oh yes, the requisite author request to pre-order A Paris Year. Merci buckets.

Six Paris Letters and a delightful new print

What have I been up to beyond making a human? Painting, bien sur! Here is a roundup of the latest hand-painted letters… now, finally, listed in the shop. All are personalized with the name of the recipient.

Les Passages: A letter about the magical covered streets of Paris. Created for chilly January.

Bon Marché : This one is about the hypnotic wonderland that is the Paris department store. It was created for festive December.

Les Crêpes: A French version of Mardi Gras/Pancake Tuesday… as if you need an excuse to eat a crêpe. Created for February.

And a few Travel Letters as well…

Verona, Italy: A new perspective on balconies and the secrets behind them, plus an ode to Romeo and Juliet’s famed perch.

Flanders, Belgium: A letter about the toughest train ride I ever took.

Las Vegas, USA: Sometimes you love it, sometimes you hate it. There is nothing neutral about Vegas. It’s the black licorice of towns.

In this month’s letter for March, I turned toward one of my most beloved pastimes… cheese:

I was so very smitten with painting cheese (and thereafter eating it… the cheese, not the painting), that I made a poster of it. It’s in the shop… sent flat for framing:

Sometimes you just don’t want words, so I’ll be posting more of these Paris watercolours in the future. Until then, I’ll be indulging in my latest pursuit of getting smiles out of our new travel companion:

The grinning hath begun. Weeeeeee!

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Introducing our new travel companion: Amélie

The lovely Amélie arrived a few weeks ago. The delivery, recovery and first few days went all as expected. It’s true what all those mommy bloggers say:

You’ll know when it’s a contraction. It’s not pleasant.

You’ll be tired.

You’ll feel like a super hero afterward.

There will be a lot of photos.

Sometimes you’ll question your decisions.

Ultimately you’ll decide it was all worth it.

 

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Sneak peak at the book… and baby

That would be our baby reading the galleys of the new book A Paris Year.

Look at that gorgeous skull. Evidence that my cravings for glasses of milk is warranted.

Another close up of the book:

If you look closely between this and the book Paris Letters, you’ll notice something quirky.

That Eiffel Tower is the same drawing. In both cases I quite literally cut and paste it into place, not realizing they would both show up on the covers of books in about the same place. That Eiffel Tower… you don’t want to draw that monument too many times. Geesh. It’s the angle of the curve from top to bottom that is problematic. Speaking of curves from top to bottom…

Due at the top of 2017. I do enjoy starting the year with a new project. I didn’t realize seven months ago that this would be the project.

I haven’t shouted it to the rooftops until now, but people are starting to catch on so I suppose I should tell everyone I’m not just eating lots of cookies. Instead I’ve been completing the new book and whipping up the latest Paris Letters. All these are now avails at my Etsy shop.

This one is about Dublin and the feisty Irish:

This one is about Praiano, Italy and the romantic Italians:

This one is about a short stroll along the long Trans Canada Trail:

In keeping with the autumn theme, I did another about finding the best apples in autumn. It’s not easy in this modern age of mealy, tasteless pommes.

Now back to Paris. Here we are on Ile Saint-Louis, sitting in a café and soaking up the wave of new-project energy that happens after the long vacation of August

And a few weeks later, autumn in Paris preforms its annual costume change.

Now I’m gonna get me a glass of milk and cookies.

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Book Buzz: My (Part-Time) Paris Life

In this Paris memoir, Lisa Anselmo, who is reeling from her mother’s death, decides to run away from her life in New York and move to Paris. Of course, to afford this option, she needs to still keep her job in New York. So she buys an apartment in Paris and adopts a Part-Time Here, Part-Time There lifestyle.

Which is good if you’d like to avoid the challenges of work visas.

In Canada and the USA, you can go to France (and the rest Schengen zone) for three months, twice a year without a visa. So you can go for three, return home for three, go back for three, return home for three… and you never have to visit the prefecture and suffer their wrath. It’s a challenge to be legally living in France, even when you qualify, even when you know exactly what you’re doing, even when you can (mostly) speak the language.

I can’t speak for the fallout of Brexit and what UK visa issues that mess will bring.

(Anselmo doesn’t get into this visa business in her book. I’m just telling you because you outta know how to get thee to Paris and avoid the wrath of the prefecture.)

In her book, she talks about the good and not so good aspects of having a part-time life in a part-time apartment in Paris. There are the new friends, the food, the beauty around every corner. But in an old city like Paris, things leak, black mold is an issue, impossible neighbors can make renovations nearly impossible and certainly lengthy, and the administration is astoundingly unhelpful. She describes a real Paris: the dark side and the light.

“I used to wonder about that myself. Thought it was a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. A magical power holding together good and evil, the dark side and the light. Crazy thing is… it’s true. The Force. The Jedi… All of it… It’s all true.”

–Han Solo, Star Wars: The Force Awakens

So I’m sitting at a book signing for my book, Paris Letters, and the usual question finally comes up. A lady raises her hand and says:

“I could never drop everything and move to Paris. How can I relate to this book?”

An excellent question. People do have social, financial and emotional ties to the lives they’ve built. Though they would love to spend days walking around Paris and buying baguettes, they can’t and won’t drop everything to make it happen.

I usually answer with the practical life skills you can take away from Paris Letters, like the list I included of a 100 ways I saved money in order to quit my job and do my own thing. Sort of a financial health book with Paris as a backdrop and a hot romance thrown in for flavor. I also remind them that my move to Paris was born out of the hopelessness that happened when so many aspects of life weren’t working out. If everything I wanted would have worked out, it’s likely that I would have been that woman in the audience with my hand up.

Life is funny that way.

Anselmo’s book opens with this line: Who do you think you are?

And this question is the hidden question behind that lady’s question to me at the book signing. Who do you think you are? Taking off and leaving everything behind? Who do you think you are to not have to slug it out like the rest of us? Who do you think you are? So often the bully in our own head is the one asking this question. Who do you think you are? To spend your extra cash on a flat in Paris? To dare spend time outside our corporate cubicle confines. Who do you think you are to dare to make the dreams in your heart a reality? Who do you think you are?!

Usually, by the time we have enough strength to answer this question, we stop listening to this voice and just do it anyway. For Anselmo, it was the death of her mother that gave her the permission to go. For me, the permission came when my car broke down on a freeway in LA and I nearly had a car crash. I said, “DONE. I will be so mad if I die on the freeway coming home from work.” I gave notice the next day.

I gave it all up and went. You may be surprised to learn that one of the things I like about Anselmo’s book is that she didn’t give it all up to go. She added rather than took away. She kept her New York life but added a Paris life. It doesn’t have to be this or that. It can be this AND that. Who do you think you are? You can be an AND person, not just an OR person.

Even if you’ve got the kids, the mortgage, the tenure or health insurance that keeps you 9 to 5-ing, there are ways to augment your life to make a few of those dreams more achy dreams come true. You don’t have to disrupt everything, but chances are, you will need cash to fund the start up of your dreams, so now is always the best time to Frugal Up.

Borrowed from Anselmo’s Instagram page.

I’m going to tell you what I told Amazon about this book:

“Charming. This book feels as if Lisa Anselmo is telling you her Paris story over coffee at a café. An intimate account of learning to grieve the loss of a parent while, at the same time, striving to live your dreams.”

Anselmo’s book launched today. Buy the book and start dreaming up your own version of a part-time Paris life.

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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Birthday

Today, September 24th, is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s birthday in 1896.

He fell in love with Zelda when he was in a training camp in Alabama. She wouldn’t marry him because he couldn’t support them on his meager writer’s salary. Eventually he signed a book deal and she accepted his proposal. You can see how The Great Gatsby story line came along when you look at the true history of the Fitzgeralds.

Imagine Zelda (Daisy Buchanan) says no to his proposal. She goes on to marry some rich guy (Tom Buchanan) while F. Scott (Jay Gatsby) becomes a larger than life wonder child of the world… decorated soldier and super rich… with Leonardo DiCaprio good looks.

Then Zelda falls in love with him, wants to leave her husband, but tragedy strikes and our beloved main character is killed off, mostly because F. Scott is still miffed about her turning down his proposal in the first place. In the end, she doesn’t get him when he’s all that and a bag of chips. Take THAT Zelda, in a round about subtle-but-not-so-subtle way of writing about it in a book and calling it fiction. End of story. Cue credits.

And Hemingway (Nick Carraway) narrates the tale by the sidelines, because Scott secretly wished he could write like his pal Hemingway, so he has Nick Carraway narrate The Great Gatsby in a Hemingway-esque voice.

The Fitzgeralds and Hemingways lived in Paris in the 1920s. Many American artists and writers lived in Paris during those days simply because it was cheaper to live there. And these fellas weren’t legends yet so they needed to stretch their hefty American bucks.

Zelda never had the same level of success, which was a knotted tassel in her flapper dress, but I think it’s because of her gratuitous use of dashes. Just look at this letter:

Spring 1919

Dear Scott,

Please, please don’t be so depressed—We’ll be married soon, and then these lonesome nights will be over forever–and until we are, I am loving, loving every tiny minute of the day and night—

Maybe you won’t understand this, but sometimes when I miss you most, it’s hardest to write—and you always know when I make myself—Just the ache of it all—and I can’t tell you.

If we were together, you’d feel how strong it is–you’re so sweet when you’re melancholy. I love your sad tenderness—when I’ve hurt you—That’s one of the reasons I could never be sorry for our quarrels—and they bothered you so—Those dear, dear little fusses, when I always tried so hard to make you kiss and forget—

Scott—there’s nothing in all the world I want but you—and your precious love—All the materials things are nothing.

I’d just hate to live a sordid, colorless existence—because you’d soon love me less—and less—and I’d do anything—anything—to keep your heart for my own—I don’t want to live—I want to love first, and live incidentally…

Don’t—don’t ever think of the things you can’t give me—You’ve trusted me with the dearest heart of all—and it’s so damn much more than anybody else in all the world has ever had—

How can you think deliberately of life without me—If you should die—O Darling—darling Scott—It’d be like going blind…I’d have no purpose in life—just a pretty—decoration.

Don’t you think I was made for you? I feel like you had me ordered—and I was delivered to you—to be worn—I want you to wear me, like a watch—charm or a button hole bouquet—to the world.

And then, when we’re alone, I want to help—to know that you can’t do anything without me…

All my heart—

I love you.

Zelda

No proofreader alive would let me get away with all those dashes.

This captivating couple made their way into one of my Paris Letters, which made it’s way into the book:

You can get it for literary aficionados in your life over at my shop.

“He told me how he had first met her during the war and then lost her and won her back . . . This first version that he told me of Zelda and a French naval aviator falling in love was a truly sad story and I believe it was a true story. Later he told me other versions of it as though trying them for use in a novel, but none was as sad as this first one and I always believed the first one. . . . They were better told each time; but they never hurt you the same way the first one did.” —Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

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