Les Americains's Blog

MANY YEARS AGO Eileen and I took our first trip to Italy—the honeymoon we never had. We arrived at our Venice hotel on the wrong day, and were forced to grab the only room left on Lido. While dining at Trattoria Africa, around the corner, we noticed the locals ordering frothy drinks to accompany their blueberry cake desserts. We followed suit, and learned that the drinks were called sgroppini. Our scheduling “mistake” became a treasured memory.

Italians make their sgroppini with prosecco and...

IF YOU LIKED THE BOOK, you’ll love Maison Blanche, the house belonging to our friends Susan and David Stuart. Few people know it’s available to rent in the summers. Fair warning, though: One visit to Maison Blanche may convince you that a house in rural France is the only thing missing from your life. It did for us. Within months we had bought one of our own a few miles away, and the rest is history—or at least our history. (Read the chapter “Ah, the Country Life” from Beginning French.)

This...

I HEARD THE CLACK of the gate latch and went out to the courtyard to meet the carpeting expert.

“Super VUE!” squealed a young woman in tight jeans and a gauzy blouse. She dropped her sample books and clapped her cheeks. “Votre petite maison est très, très belle!” She teetered across the pebbled surface in impossibly high heels.

I suddenly forgot what little French I knew. I was expecting a slightly older, slightly more male carpeting expert, someone who would grunt and scowl and probably work...

EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY the Bergerac organic market, or marché bio, encircles the Église Notre-Dame. The church’s elegant spire is the pin that fixes the city to the map. Bergerac is full of contrasts. On the one hand it’s a tourist destination with a fascinating mix of architecture, and on the other it’s a workaday town with peeling plaster and a crumbling infrastructure. The view you get depends on the weather. On a cloudy day the town seems dingy and depressing. On a bright day it loo...

Lesson learned: Have your butcher cut the rabbit up for you or at least remove the head! Brown the rabbit well in the skillet—it ensures that your stew will have a deep, complex flavor. —Sara

1 three-pound rabbit, cut into 12 pieces 1/3 cup Dijon mustard 2 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil 4 ounces lardons fumes(or 4 slices American thick-cut bacon, diced) 18 white pearl onions, peeled 2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves, roughly chopped 1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary 1 bay leaf Salt and fr...

This Christmas, why not surprise your friends with a copy of Beginning French in softcover? We’re making it easy with this special 2-for-1 holiday offer: Buy one copy for $16 here and get the second copy FREE.

The reviews of Beginning French on Amazon have been nothing short of wonderful (what can we say—we have a lot of relatives!). It also won a “Book of the Month” award from industry Kirkus. The reviewer gave it a starred review and called it “a delightfully evocative farmhouse tale; as sa...

The rules were simple. Leave an Amazon review of Beginning French that two or more people marked “helpful.” Your name would then go into a drawing for an authentic market bag stuffed with French goodies.

The winner of the drawing was Maureen Alfieri, a pre-med biology instructor at the University of Pennsylvania. “I never win anything!” she exclaimed.

In her Amazon review she called the book “enchanting.” She wrote, “Read this book…share it with the best of friends.” Then she gave softcover c...

SARA HAD RECENTLY perfected the art of “French laps.” This is a routine in which the athlete paddles up and down the length of the pool in an inflatable easy chair, a glass of pastis in the cupholder. With the days getting hotter, we were thirsty for more water sports. The pool, however, had turned strangely cloudy.

“Papa?” said Sara.

“Oui, ma fille?”

“Can we go canoeing instead?”

I resisted the urge to say, Are you nuts? I’m way too old for an extreme sport like canoeing! The truth is, I was...

THIS MEAL-IN-ONE-PAN recipe was inspired by the produce at the Bergerac bio-marché. Feel free to be moved by the vegetables at your own local greenmarket (beets or fennel bulb also work well). Gigot d’agneau is now our secret party weapon, perfect for evenings when we’d rather be drinking wine with our guests than cooking. Its deliciousness is derived from the lamb, vegetables, and lemon-oregano marinade roasting together very slowly; most of the work is done before the guests arrive.

1 leg...

We’re excited to announce that Beginning French is now available in a deluxe softcover format—rich paper, beautiful typography, and French-fold covers. It contains 12 Dordogne-inspired recipes from our daughter Sara, and a handy glossary of key words and phrases from the story.

Last month the book received the covetedKirkus Starfor excellence. The reviewer said:“A delightfully evocative farmhouse tale; as satisfying as a summer evening on a French terrace, with a cool glass of rosé.”

This is...