The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious - and Perplexing - City

The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious - and Perplexing - City
by David Lebovitz

The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious - and Perplexing - City
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Book Summary Information

Author: David Lebovitz
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-05-05
ISBN: 0767928881
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Broadway

Book Reviews of The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious - and Perplexing - City

Book Review: The Sweet Life In Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious - and Perplexing - City
Summary: 5 Stars

This is either a novel filled with recipes or a cookbook filled with paragraph after paragraph of the day-to-day antics of a single man who was a former cook at Chez Panisse in California and wanted to write dessert cookbooks, but in Paris, France. Either way, you will enjoy every page - and recipe - that David Lebovitz deemed important enough to include in "The Sweet LIfe in Paris..."

One of the funniest stories in Lebovitz's book is about one of his shopping trips, this one for over-the-knee socks. The story has to do with underwear or rather the lack of it and two flimsy paper towels. The passage is a hoot, which I had to look for, since I didn't highlight it the first time I read it (it's on pages 152-153.)

Some of the author's observations concerning the French and living in France are just as funny. When asked "How long did it take him to become fluent in French," he would respond, "Become Fluent? Even the French aren't fluent in French." To prove it, he wrote that there was an annual dictation contest where French people competed "against each other to see who can best comprehend and write down what's spoken to them - in their own language."

Since one can also call this a cookbook, it behooves me to write about the many recipes in it. Most of the recipes have to do with desserts, such as cake, cheesecake, tarts, cream puffs, macaroons, mousse, breads, snack cakes, brownies, crepes, souffles and puddings. There are also savory recipes for turkey, chicken, vegetables and pork ribs. One of the funniest "recipe" stories had to do with a batch of failed grass-green mint chip ice cream, which he tried to flush down his toilet. The toilet, which was on its last gasps, according to Lebovitz, failed to flush all of the ice cream. A friend visiting him during this ice cream experiment period used the bathroom (there was only one) and upon exiting gently suggested to David that he "might want to see a doctor."

Buy the book. Read it at night and in the morning, pick a recipe and go into the kitchen and cook or bake it. That's what I did.

Summary of The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious - and Perplexing - City

Like so many others, David Lebovitz dreamed about living in Paris ever since he first visited the city in the 1980s. Finally, after a nearly two-decade career as a pastry chef and cookbook author, he moved to Paris to start a new life. Having crammed all his worldly belongings into three suitcases, he arrived, hopes high, at his new apartment in the lively Bastille neighborhood.

But he soon discovered it's a different world en France.

From learning the ironclad rules of social conduct to the mysteries of men's footwear, from shopkeepers who work so hard not to sell you anything to the etiquette of working the right way around the cheese plate, here is David's story of how he came to fall in love with?and even understand?this glorious, yet sometimes maddening, city.

When did he realize he had morphed into un vrai parisien? It might have been when he found himself considering a purchase of men's dress socks with cartoon characters on them. Or perhaps the time he went to a bank with 135 euros in hand to make a 134-euro payment, was told the bank had no change that day, and thought it was completely normal. Or when he found himself dressing up to take out the garbage because he had come to accept that in Paris appearances and image mean everything.

The more than fifty original recipes, for dishes both savory and sweet, such as Pork Loin with Brown Sugar?Bourbon Glaze, Braised Turkey in Beaujolais Nouveau with Prunes, Bacon and Bleu Cheese Cake, Chocolate-Coconut Marshmallows, Chocolate Spice Bread, Lemon-Glazed Madeleines, and Mocha?Crème Fraîche Cake, will have readers running to the kitchen once they stop laughing.

The Sweet Life in Paris is a deliciously funny, offbeat, and irreverent look at the city of lights, cheese, chocolate, and other confections.

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