Return to Paris FROM THE PUBLISHER
Paris, 1947: Colette Rossant returns to Paris after waiting out World War II in Cairo among her father's Egyptian-Jewish relatives. Initially, the City of Light seems gray and forbidding to the teenage Colette, especially after her thrill-seeking mother leaves her in the care of her bitter, malaisé grandmother. Yet Paris will prove the place where Colette awakens to her senses. Taken under the wing of Mademoiselle Georgette, the family chef, she develops a taste and talent for French cooking. The streets of Paris soon become Colette's own as she navigates the outdoor markets and café menus and emerges into her new, gastronomical self.
Return to Paris is an extraordinary coming-of-age story that charts the course of Colette's culinary adventures -- replete with expertly crafted recipes and family photographs. An exploration of passion in all its flavor and texture, Colette's memoir will live in the hearts and palates of readers for years to come.
FROM THE CRITICS
New York Daily News
[A] great book to curl up with...filled with workable, intriguing recipes.
Publishers Weekly
When she was a teen, Rossant, whose mother was French and father was Egyptian, moved from Cairo back to Paris (where she was born) with her widowed mother to live with her grandmother in the upscale 17th arrondissement. This book charts Rossant's years in Paris and ends shortly after her marriage to an American. Although Rossant (Memories of a Lost Egypt) came of age in Paris during one of its headiest times-the 1950s-she doesn't offer much in the way of descriptions of the era. Instead, her memoir is personal, describing her struggles with her distant mother and her stern, difficult grandmother. It was hard for Rossant to get used to life in Paris: the city was gray and lifeless compared with lively Cairo; Rossant had to hide the fact that she'd been educated at a convent in Egypt (her Jewish grandmother in Paris would've been angry); her mother seemed to be interested solely in shopping and meeting men; and she had to get used to eating an omelette aux fines herbes for a snack instead of her usual semit, the Egyptian version of a soft pretzel. By exploring the wonders of French cuisine, Rossant found her way. She shares recipes throughout the book, interspersing them among anecdotes (e.g., when she butted heads with her grandmother, the cook's pain perdu [French toast] comforted her). This is mostly a pleasing memoir, but contradictions and repetitions in the text abound. These oversights will frustrate close readers, but those interested in food will still enjoy Rossant's careful explanations of meals and markets. Agent, Gloria Loomis. (Mar.) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
When Rossant arrived at her grandmother's Paris apartment in 1947, the kitchen immediately became her favorite room. "I was immediately drawn to it, just as I had sought solace in the kitchen of my Cairo childhood." For an emotionally deprived teenager who had just been uprooted from her beloved Egyptian home, "comfort food" became just that: a rare source of consolation and pleasure in a hostile, unfriendly world. This sequel to Rossant's Memories of a Lost Egypt recalls her adolescence in post-World War II Paris. Quickly abandoned by her flirtatious and restless mother, Rossant struggled to get along with her harsh and demanding grandmaman while trying to get reacquainted with her estranged brother. At the same time, she discovered the glories of the local cuisine. Indeed, Rossant's mouth-watering descriptions of her most memorable meals are the best part of the book; her prose is sensuously alive ("wild strawberries no bigger than a nipple"), although the recipes (Roast Goose with Stuffed Neck) are not always doable for the average cook. When she describes her love affairs, however, Rossant lapses into women's magazinespeak. Still, this is recommended for larger collections where culinary memoirs by Ruth Reichl and Patricia Volk are popular.-Wilda Williams, "Library Journal" Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
In a memoir fully deserving of its moodiness, food writer Rossant (Memoirs of a Lost Egypt, not reviewed) tells of her fitful, melancholy life before she married her husband of 47 years. Rossantﾽs mother probably thought of it as freedom, her tendency to drift in and out of her childrenﾽs lives, but Rossant experienced it as treachery: all the promises that went begging, being left in the hands of stewards who might or might not have Rossantﾽs best interests in mind. From a warm childhood among her extended family in Cairo, Rossant was spirited to Paris immediately following WWII, only to wind up in the care of her grandmother, an abrupt and sarcastic woman, after her mother made herself scarce yet again. Having learned in Cairo that the kitchen was a very special place, she was thrilled by her introduction to French food, an omelet aux fines herbs that stole her breath away. And so food steadied her course through the difficulties of her youth, a way in which she could find her footing in uneasy relationships with her family and her boyfriends. Despite the melancholy that pervades the story, there is so much charm in Rossantﾽs voice—she was baffled when she was 16 that she and her friends were without boyfriends, though "we were actually frumpy, badly dressed, and not a la mode"—that you can smile through the disappointments and drear. And when she finds her focus, it shines: "I discovered that I loved gambling—the rush it gave me. I also liked the olives and slices of saucisson sec they served at the end of the gambling session." It wasnﾽt the roulette table that got the last laugh, either. At appropriate moments, Rossant inserts recipes—a friture, a tomato salad,blanquette de veau, raspberry tart—that are little stories in themselves. Never was the kitchen a more welcome port in the storm, or more nurturing, than for the buffeted Rossant, who is a sympathetic character, and all the more so for her measure of pride. (Photographs)
Home
