My Place at the Table

My Place at the Table PDF

Author: Alexander Lobrano

Publisher: Rux Martin/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 1328588831

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In this debut memoir, a James Beard Award-winning writer, whose childhood idea of fine dining was Howard Johnson's, tells how he became one of Paris's most influential food critics Until Alec Lobrano landed a job in the glamorous Paris office of Women's Wear Daily, his main experience of French cuisine was the occasional supermarket éclair. An interview with the owner of a renowned cheese shop for his first article nearly proves a disaster because he speaks no French. As he goes on to cover celebrities and couturiers and improves his mastery of the language, he gradually learns what it means to be truly French. He attends a cocktail party with Yves St. Laurent and has dinner with Giorgio Armani. Over a superb lunch, it's his landlady who ultimately provides him with a lasting touchstone for how to judge food: "you must understand the intentions of the cook." At the city's brasseries and bistros, he discovers real French cooking. Through a series of vivid encounters with culinary figures from Paul Bocuse to Julia Child to Ruth Reichl, Lobrano hones his palate and finds his voice. Soon the timid boy from Connecticut is at the epicenter of the Parisian dining revolution and the restaurant critic of one of the largest newspapers in the France. A mouthwatering testament to the healing power of food, My Place at the Table is a moving coming-of-age story of how a gay man emerges from a wounding childhood, discovers himself, and finds love. Published here for the first time is Lobrano's "little black book," an insider's guide to his thirty all-time-favorite Paris restaurants.

City of Pleasure

City of Pleasure PDF

Author: Alexandre Dupouy

Publisher:

Published: 2019-04

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781912740055

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After the austerity, horror, and bloodshed of World War I, France longed for joy, light-heartedness, and sexual freedom. Men and newly emancipated women alike rejected pre-war values and moral restraints. They embraced new lifestyles, and discovered a lust for extravagance, partying, and erotic experimentation that had the inter-war era known as the Roaring Twenties, or the "mad years," and Paris as the City of Pleasure. In this uncensored and fascinating photographic record of the period, historian Alexandre Dupouy pulls backs the bedcovers on Paris's eye-opening erotic life, revealing the delights of its fetish scene, its licensed brothels and gay nightclubs, the first sex shop chains, erotic photography, pornography, and much more. This is an uncensored, titillating, and utterly fascinating look at the sexual excesses of the inter-war period in what was the world's most decadent city.

Hungry for Paris (second edition)

Hungry for Paris (second edition) PDF

Author: Alexander Lobrano

Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks

Published: 2014-04-15

Total Pages: 514

ISBN-13: 081298594X

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If you’re passionate about eating well, you couldn’t ask for a better travel companion than Alexander Lobrano’s charming, friendly, and authoritative Hungry for Paris, the fully revised and updated guide to this renowned culinary scene. Having written about Paris for almost every major food and travel magazine since moving there in 1986, Lobrano shares his personal selection of the city’s best restaurants, from bistros featuring the hottest young chefs to the secret spots Parisians love. In lively prose that is not only informative but a pleasure to read, Lobrano reveals the ambience, clientele, history, and most delicious dishes of each establishment—alongside helpful maps and beautiful photographs that will surely whet your appetite for Paris. Praise for Hungry for Paris “Hungry for Paris is required reading and features [Alexander Lobrano’s] favorite 109 restaurants reviewed in a fun and witty way. . . . A native of Boston, Lobrano moved to Paris in 1986 and never looked back. He served as the European correspondent for Gourmet from 1999 until it closed in 2009 (also known as the greatest job ever that will never be a job again). . . . He also updates his website frequently with restaurant reviews, all letter graded.”—Food Republic “Written with . . . flair and . . . acerbity is the new, second edition of Alexander Lobrano’s Hungry for Paris, which includes rigorous reviews of what the author considers to be the city’s 109 best restaurants [and] a helpful list of famous Parisian restaurants to be avoided.”—The Wall Street Journal “A wonderful guide to eating in Paris.”—Alice Waters “Nobody else has such an intimate knowledge of what is going on in the Paris food world right this minute. Happily, Alexander Lobrano has written it all down in this wonderful book.”—Ruth Reichl “Delightful . . . the sort of guide you read before you go to Paris—to get in the mood and pick up a few tips, a little style.”—Los Angeles Times “No one is ‘on the ground’ in Paris more than Alec Lobrano. . . . This book will certainly make you hungry for Paris. But even if you aren’t in Paris, his tales of French dining will seduce you into feeling like you are here, sitting in your favorite bistro or sharing a carafe of wine with a witty friend at a neighborhood hotspot.”—David Lebovitz, author of The Sweet Life in Paris “Hungry for Paris is like a cozy bistro on a chilly day: It makes you feel welcome.”—The Washington Post “This book will make readers more than merely hungry for the culinary riches of Paris; it will make them ravenous for a dining companion with Monsieur Lobrano’s particular warmth, wry charm, and refreshingly pure joie de vivre.”—Julia Glass “[Lobrano is] a wonderful man and writer who might know more about Paris restaurants than any other person I’ve ever met.”—Elissa Altman, author of Poor Man’s Feast

Paris Was Ours

Paris Was Ours PDF

Author: Penelope Rowlands

Publisher: Algonquin Books

Published: 2011-02-08

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 1616200367

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Thirty-two writers share their observations and revelations about the world's most seductive city. "Whether you have lived in Paris or not, this captivating collection will transport you there." —National Geographic Traveler Paris is “the world capital of memory and desire,” concludes one of the writers in this intimate and insightful collection of memoirs of the city. Living in Paris changed these writers forever. In thirty-two personal essays—more than half of which are here published for the first time—the writers describe how they were seduced by Paris and then began to see things differently. They came to write, to cook, to find love, to study, to raise children, to escape, or to live the way it’s done in French movies; they came from the United States, Canada, and England; from Iran, Iraq, and Cuba; and—a few—from other parts of France. And they stayed, not as tourists, but for a long time; some are still living there. They were outsiders who became insiders, who here share their observations and revelations. Some are well-known writers: Diane Johnson, David Sedaris, Judith Thurman, Joe Queenan, and Edmund White. Others may be lesser known but are no less passionate on the subject. Together, their reflections add up to an unusually perceptive and multifaceted portrait of a city that is entrancing, at times exasperating, but always fascinating. They remind us that Paris belongs to everyone it has touched, and to each in a different way.

Paris France

Paris France PDF

Author: Gertrude Stein

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2013-06-24

Total Pages: 129

ISBN-13: 0871403749

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Matched only by Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, Paris France is a "fresh and sagacious" (The New Yorker) classic of prewar France and its unforgettable literary eminences. Celebrated for her innovative literary bravura, Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) settled into a bustling Paris at the turn of the twentieth century, never again to return to her native America. While in Paris, she not only surrounded herself with—and tirelessly championed the careers of—a remarkable group of young expatriate artists but also solidified herself as "one of the most controversial figures of American letters" (New York Times). In Paris France (1940)—published here with a new introduction from Adam Gopnik—Stein unites her childhood memories of Paris with her observations about everything from art and war to love and cooking. The result is an unforgettable glimpse into a bygone era, one on the brink of revolutionary change.

Half an Hour from Paris

Half an Hour from Paris PDF

Author: SIMMS

Publisher: Secret Daytrips

Published: 2023-07-10

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781843682271

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- Unmissable guide to secret destinations just moments from Paris Fully revised and updated edition, now in full colour and with two new chapters: Brunoy and Parc Saint Cloud. The spectacular medieval castle where Henry V died, Napoleon's private château, dancing in fifties guinguette cafés, a Victorian gunpowder factory - these are just some of the unexpected delights discovered by Annabel Simms just half an hour from Paris. Following the format of her small classic, An Hour from Paris, and written with the same delight in the little-known treasures of the Île de France, the revised edition of Half an Hour from Paris now presents twelve new destinations easy to reach from central Paris, each with a carefully planned walk, ample meanderings through the cultural, historical and social milieu, comprehensive practical information and clear, detailed maps.