Play Book Tag discussion

M.F.K. Fisher is alone in Arles, December 20, 1970: “She sat for a moment in the silence of the suddenly foreign room, looking at the quaint toile de Jouy wall paper and then withdrew from her purse a new notebook—small, pale green, spiral-bound. On the inside cover, she inscribed the words
WHERE WAS I?
in underlined capitals.”

This marvelous biography/memoir revolving around culinary legends M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard and Richard Olney, is evocative, nostalgic, balanced, and a little bit gossipy. In 1970, all were struggling with that disarmingly simple question: “Where was I?” It is both an existential question in some cases reflecting transitions in work, home, physical place, but it is also a question of the moment for each as in where have they left off and where are the headed in the future of the culinary world. This quote is from the beginning of the book, but it is revisited at the very end at which point you actually have the answers.

You can absolutely see how today’s American culinary world had its seeds planted, its evolution begun, in the coincidental gathering in Provence in 1970 of the most influential American culinary icons. Indeed, what starts with M.F.K. Fisher in 1970 ends with Alice Waters and Chez Panisse. The author, Fisher's grandnephew, had unprecedented access to primary resources plus a gift for bringing person and place and food to full life. The book starts with author's journey to Sonoma and hunting through the Fisher family archives, and ends at La Pitchoune, the Childs' Provence getaway, in search of the ghosts from 1970. In between, we cook and dine and argue and write with several extraordinary Americans. Now I need to find in my TBR Towers that memoir by Alice Waters, Coming to My Senses: The Making of a Counterculture Cook . It seems a fitting companion read.

More from M.F.K. and her trip to Provence in 1970 with her sister: “Another night, they ordered in: “Norah and I did our secret trick for strength-through-joy, and took long baths and ate in our room – a pate maison, haricots verts frais, sauce vinaigrette, and a bottle of local rose,” M.F. wrote to Gingrich, describing house pate and green bean salad. “Then we fell into bed with two Maigrets!

This so spoke to me. I have spent a lot of time traveling and visiting in France since I lived as a student in Paris in 1976. How often, like M.F.K. and Norah, I have shopped the markets when traveling in France and spent an evening in my hotel room enjoying being off my feet and reading something set in Paris or wherever I am in France? And they are often my warmest memories. The early chapter describing M.F.K. and her sister Norah traveling through France on their way to Provence, staying in slightly rundown classic French hotels, picnics of an evening in their room, spending evening reading Maigret policiers....pure nostalgia for me.

M.F.K. in Arles: “The maid at the Nord-Pinus delivered a breakfast tray every morning with a café au lait and two croissants, a small dish of butter, and a large bowl of apricot jam. Delicious. The café au lait was over-milky and oversweet, an innocent sensuality that always made her want to get back into bed and read awhile longer. Some days she indulged herself.“

Who among us hasn’t? Whether at home or while traveling? My favorite little 2 star hotel in Paris serves exactly this breakfast to your room if you so desire – well mine is hot chocolate rather than café au lait – but that’s just me.

This book is to be sipped and savored. You are taken on an extraordinary journey, beautifully structured, without any pesky itinerary disruptions for the reader. Yes, it is M.F.K.-centric but no surprise given it is her grandnephew writing this, and likely he had the most material plus personal memories to draw upon. But Childs and Beard and others are very much there. At some point there is a comment about how this book exists because this was a time when people still wrote letters and kept journals. And kept them! And were prolific letter writers! I can’t help but wonder what future historians, archivists, and writers of biography and memoir are going to find as primary sources from the current era of tweets, emails, blog posts, social media, and Instagram.

This sounds marvelous. I can "feel" your enthusiasm in your review.

Thank you. I do tend to wax a bit poetic about France.