{"id":30087,"date":"2022-03-27T15:09:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-27T22:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/?p=30087"},"modified":"2022-03-29T16:09:33","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T23:09:33","slug":"book-review-my-place-at-the-table","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/book-review-my-place-at-the-table\/","title":{"rendered":"My Place at the Table: A Recipe for a Delicious Life in Paris"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em>My Place at the Table<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Book written by Alec Lobrano<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"399\" src=\"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/restaurant.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-30090\" srcset=\"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/restaurant.jpg 800w, https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/restaurant-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/restaurant-768x383.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br>As Audrey Hepburn once famously said \u201cParis is always a good idea,\u201d and among those who have taken this advice to heart is the American food writer Alec Lobrano. In his delightful, witty, and at times moving memoir he recounts his 35 years in Paris, where \u201cfood would become my muse, my metaphor, and my map for making a place for myself in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/alec.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-30089\" width=\"298\" height=\"472\" srcset=\"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/alec.jpg 360w, https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/alec-189x300.jpg 189w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 298px) 100vw, 298px\" \/><figcaption>Photograph of Alex Lobrano (circa 2014) courtesy REUTERS\/Christian Hartmann<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">The author arrived in the city as a fashion reporter, though he knew and cared little about the subject and as a colleague pointed out, his French was a \u201ctrain wreck.\u201d This rebuke comes after he talks his bosses into letting him do a story on the legendary cheesemonger Henri Androu\u00ebt, whom he tells that his cheeses should be nailed to the walls of the Louvre. He nonetheless writes a compelling piece about Monsieur Androu\u00ebt and his wares, then one about oysters, and he earnestly sets out to learn more about the food around him. His landlady, a countess, wisely advises him, The first thing you\u2019ll have to learn is how to decipher a cook\u2019s intentions.\u201d A clerk at his local post office tips him off to exciting new restaurants opening around the city.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr. Lobrano soon makes a name for himself as a food critic, with a knack for sniffing out Parisian chefs who in the 1990s were ushering in something of a revolution by combining French haute cuisine, bistro dishes, and rustic regional cooking. At the same time, he learns the ropes of Parisian life, including the obligatory payoff to a crabby concierge, who remains undeterred in her disdain for him. He holds his own during a soulless meal with Giorgio Armani and defies him by asking the waiter to spoon garlic sauce onto his mushrooms, despite the designer\u2019s protestation that \u201cgarlic is so vulgar.\u201d At a dinner party in the hotel particulier of Madame la Baronne Marie-H\u00e9l\u00e8ne de Rothschild he overcomes his native shyness and makes small talk with Princess Caroline and Yves Saint-Laurent. As he good-naturedly recounts, he also offends one of the guests by referring to her handsome young husband as her son, and his hostess reprimands him for cutting the head off a camembert, a faux-pas at a Parisian dinner table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/cover-inside.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-30088\" width=\"215\" height=\"321\" srcset=\"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/cover-inside.jpg 360w, https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/cover-inside-201x300.jpg 201w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 215px) 100vw, 215px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>With Bruno, his partner of many years, Mr. Lobrano shares the meal he ranks as the best he\u2019s ever had in Paris, at the Michelin three-starred Restaurant Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athen\u00e9e. Reading his astute perceptions of this meal and many others he\u2019s enjoyed over the decades, it\u2019s easy to appreciate why he\u2019s such a respected critic. We are quite willing to indulge him with a few excesses. His description of \u201ca soft, creamy chicken-liver terrine that was as earthy and satisfying as sex in a barn\u201d makes us more curious about the encounter that inspired this simile than about the food, and a \u201cdessert with the soft skin of an elderly man\u201d just does not seem very appetizing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He soars when he describes a meal of apple soup and roast chicken in a farmhouse kitchen in Normandy, or recalls sitting around a bistro after hours to drink Riesling with an Alsatian chef, \u201cthe first real friend I\u2019d had with whom I could talk about food.\u201d Their talk of choucroute garnie, with sausages from a butcher near Colmar, homemade foie gras, and flammekueche makes us want to linger over a meal in Paris, and instilling such longings, of course, is Mr. Lobrano\u2019s stock in trade. Should we wish to partake, he includes a list of his 30 favorite Paris restaurants at the end of the book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Audrey Hepburn once famously said \u201cParis is always a good idea,\u201d and among those who have taken this advice to heart is the American food writer Alec Lobrano. In his delightful, witty, and at times moving memoir he recounts his 35 years in Paris, where \u201cfood would become my muse, my metaphor, and my map for making a place for myself in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":30088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1186],"tags":[6261,52],"class_list":["post-30087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-review","tag-alec-lobrano","tag-paris"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>My Place at the Table: A Recipe for a Delicious Life in Paris - Traveling Archive<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/book-review-my-place-at-the-table\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My Place at the Table: A Recipe for a Delicious Life in Paris - Traveling Archive\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As Audrey Hepburn once famously said \u201cParis is always a good idea,\u201d and among those who have taken this advice to heart is the American food writer Alec Lobrano. 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