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268 reviews for:
The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious---And Perplexing---City
David Lebovitz
3.68 AVERAGE
268 reviews for:
The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World's Most Glorious---And Perplexing---City
David Lebovitz
3.68 AVERAGE
Audiobook: Lighthearted memoir from a pastry chef living in Paris. Some good insight into Parisians.
Oh boy, this made me never want to go to Paris. Or at least, never live there. The food descriptions and recipes alone are worth reading the book. And it was nice to read about the oddities of this city, rather than glowing praise that you usually read.
An entertaining read about an American in Paris, but what I really want to do now is make every single one of these recipes.
"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."
This is the book the husband would have written if he lived in France. He is the person who said halfway through our trip to France that it would be a wonderful country if there were no people in it. His favorite French vacation story is the time we watched an older French woman beat a disabled British tourist with an umbrella because he didn't give his seat up to her. He learned that parapluie is umbrella from that incident.
We once had a black, female, French neighbor to whom the husband had to explain several times that while the people in our small town might in fact be both racist and sexist, what was getting her in trouble was being French. No, it wasn't ok to park in the fire lane and then cut in line at WalMart because she was parked in the fire lane, for example.
David Lebovitz had this same frustration with French people when he moved to Paris. Why are they always cutting in line? Why won't they help you in a store? Why does it take so long to accomplish everyday tasks?
This book is hysterically funny. He is a cookbook author whose new French apartment had a tiny kitchen and suspect plumbing.
Eventually he learned to adapt and thrive in his new city. He learned to cut in line with the best of them. He started dressing up to take out the garbage. That's when he knew he was home.
There are lots of recipes in this book. I even made one. I know! I'm shocked too. I almost never make recipes in books. I made the fig and olive tapenade though and it was scrumptious. I even took a picture of it as proof but it looks like a glob of clumpy black stuff on some bread. Yummy food photography is not a skill I have.
This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story
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."
This is the book the husband would have written if he lived in France. He is the person who said halfway through our trip to France that it would be a wonderful country if there were no people in it. His favorite French vacation story is the time we watched an older French woman beat a disabled British tourist with an umbrella because he didn't give his seat up to her. He learned that parapluie is umbrella from that incident.
We once had a black, female, French neighbor to whom the husband had to explain several times that while the people in our small town might in fact be both racist and sexist, what was getting her in trouble was being French. No, it wasn't ok to park in the fire lane and then cut in line at WalMart because she was parked in the fire lane, for example.
David Lebovitz had this same frustration with French people when he moved to Paris. Why are they always cutting in line? Why won't they help you in a store? Why does it take so long to accomplish everyday tasks?
This book is hysterically funny. He is a cookbook author whose new French apartment had a tiny kitchen and suspect plumbing.
Eventually he learned to adapt and thrive in his new city. He learned to cut in line with the best of them. He started dressing up to take out the garbage. That's when he knew he was home.
There are lots of recipes in this book. I even made one. I know! I'm shocked too. I almost never make recipes in books. I made the fig and olive tapenade though and it was scrumptious. I even took a picture of it as proof but it looks like a glob of clumpy black stuff on some bread. Yummy food photography is not a skill I have.
This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story
This was a fun read, with a lot of humor and delicious recipes. It made me wish I was living in Paris, shoving people out of my way and cutting them in line, all the while enjoying wine, baguettes, and macarons.
I think with every other paragraph I alternated between wanting to move to Paris right away, and remembering that I could never survive with all that anxiety. Lebovitz does a great job exploring all the ups and downs of moving to a new city - to Paris! Also, I'd never call myself a "foodie" but Lebovitz does such a marvelous job of explaining his love for food, and chocolate especially, that I was totally sucked in.
Nice. Sweet. Makes me want to go cook after every chapter. Also makes me love Paris more.
I just didn’t find this very engaging or funny. It was mostly annoying and felt like he was complaining in between trying to be funny. He just kept telling stories about trying to fit in and be a Parisian. He kept making references to Americans not understanding Parisians or French culture and then would complain about it himself which didn't make sense to me. In addition, he just randomly would throw in French words which didn't add anything to his stories. It was a quick enough read, but I didn’t feel like I took much away from reading this book. The recipes look good though!