In a French Kitchen: Tales and Traditions of Everyday Home Cooking in France

A delightful celebration of everyday life in France through the lens of the kitchens and cooking of the author's neighbors, who, while busy and accomplished, still manage to make every meal a sumptuous occasion.

Even before Susan Herrmann Loomis wrote her now-classic memoir, On Rue Tatin, American readers have been compelled by books about the French's ease with cooking. With In a French Kitchen, Loomis--an expat who long ago traded her American grocery store for a bustling French farmer's market--demystifies in lively prose the seemingly effortless je ne sais quoi behind a simple French meal. French cooks have the savoir faire to get out of a low-ingredient bind. They are deeply knowledgeable about seasonal produce and what m lange of simple ingredients will bring out the best of their garden or local market. They are perfectly at ease with cracked bowls and little counter space.

In a French Kitchen proves that delicious, decadent meals aren't complicated. Loomis takes lessons from busy, everyday people and offers tricks and recipes to create a meal more focused on quality ingredients and time at the table than on time in the kitchen.

Susan Herrmann Loomis is a France-based, award-winning journalist, an author and cooking school proprietor with nine books to her credit, and a professionally trained chef. Among her books are On Rue Tatin, a narrative about her life in France, with recipes, which won the IACP Award for Best Literary Food Writing for 2002. Loomis contributes to many publications, including Cooking Light, Metropolitan Home, France Today, and Gastronomica. She has lived in France for nearly twenty years and operates On Rue Tatin, a cultural and culinary cooking program, from her fifteenth-century home in Louviers, France, where she lives with her two children.