THE SWEET LIFE IN PARIS

The Sweet Life in Paris, by David Lebovitz

Let’s get one thing out of the way right off the bat: this book will make you hungry. It will make you hungry for hot, crunchy baguettes… frisee salad with melting rounds of goat cheese… and, of course, for chocolate. This book will make you especially hungry for chocolate. Case in point: I hardly ever drink hot cocoa. I generally find it to be too sweet and it’s just not my cup of tea. (See what I did there?) But after reading David Lebovitz’s rhapsodizing about Parisian hot cocoa, I had two cups at lunch that day. No, it wasn’t Parisian… but I was jonesing. David Lebovitz’s delicious writing will do that to you.

Because oh, yes, this book is delicious. From the first page to the last, it was warm, funny, engaging, absorbing, and delightful. Needing a change in his life after experiencing the untimely death of his partner, Lebovitz picks up and moves his entire life to Paris. There he explores the city through its food, tracking down the best baguettes and hot chocolate in the city. He learns to gut fish at a corner poissonerie, to avoid pushy Parisians at the grocery store, and to differentiate between confusingly named chocolate candies. He finds love again, almost has a heart attack (seriously one of the funniest moments in the book), watches the Parisians march under his window over anything and everything, and juggles government red tape and an apartment painter who seems to want to move in with him. Oh, and if great writing about a memorable city isn’t enough to entice you to read this book… there are recipes. Lots of them. And knowing David Lebovitz’s work (I have his ice cream book, The Perfect Scoop) they are all amazing. So even if you can’t go to Paris this weekend – if only! – you can have a little taste of the sweet life in your own kitchen. C’est delicieux.

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