Chez Moi

Laura Calder is one of Canada’s most charming Food Network hosts, proving herself witty, engaging, an excellent teacher and a great deal of fun. Laura’s passion for cooking and writing about food shines through in her elegant cookbooks. Dinner Chez Moi is menu-based and seasonal, offering multiple options and mix-and-match menus, which gives cooks as many ideas for meals as there are days in the year. Dinner parties, Laura says, are not stuffy and difficult ordeals; rather, as she puts it, “In my world, ‘dinner party’ just means eating with others. It can be as simple as an omelette or a baked potato, but if I’m not stuck eating it alone, that’s party enough for me!” Dinner Chez Moi is a book for anyone who wants to cook for people they love. Detailed plans and menus deliver thoughtful advice and guidance, with a light touch. Photography is as lovely as in French Taste, with a fresh and elegant design.

By the author of the award-winning Around My French Table and Baking: From My Home to Yours, an irresistible collection of radically simple desserts from French home cooks and pastry chefs.

At forty-three, Myriam has been a wife, mother, and lover—but never a restauranteur. When she opens Chez Moi in a quiet neighborhood in Paris, she has no idea how to run a business, but armed only with her love of cooking, she is determined to try. Barely able to pay the rent, Myriam secretly sleeps in the dining room and bathes in the kitchen sink, while struggling to come to terms with the painful memories of her past. But soon enough her delectable cuisine brings her many neighbors to Chez Moi, and Myriam finds that she may get a second chance at life and love. Redolent with the sights, smells, and tastes of Paris, Chez Moi is a charming story that will appeal to the many readers who fell in love with Joanne Harris’s Chocolat and Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate.

Tips, tricks and recipes to make your feasts and fetes more French, from the New York Times bestselling author of Lunch in Paris and Picnic in Provence When Elizabeth Bard, a New Yorker raised on Twizzlers and instant mac and cheese, fell for a handsome Frenchman and moved to Paris, she discovered a whole new world of culinary delights. First in Paris, then in a tiny village in Provence, Elizabeth explored the markets, incorporating new ingredients and rituals into her everyday meals and routines. After 15 years of cooking in her own French kitchen, making French friends-and observing her slim and elegant French mother-in-law-Elizabeth has gathered a treasure trove of information that has radically changed her own eating habits for the better. She realized that what most Americans call "dieting"-smaller portions, no snacking, a preference for seasonal fruits and vegetables, and limited sugar-the French simply call "eating." And they do it with pleasure, gusto, and flair. With wit, sound advice, and easy-to-follow recipes, Bard lets her readers in on a range of delightful-and useful-French secrets to eating and living well, including hunger as the new foreplay, the top five essential French cooking tools and 15 minute meals popular throughout France, and the concept of benevolent dictatorship: why French kids eat veggies, and how to get yours to eat them, too. Whether you're ready for a complete kitchen transformation or simply looking for dinner party inspiration, Dinner Chez Moi is a fun, practical, and charming how-to guide that will add a dash of joie de vivre to your kitchen-and your life!

Living like a true Parisienne starts at home. Interior designer Sarah Lavoine sees the quintessential Paris apartment as a stylish sanctuary from the stresses of life. Covering each room in the home, Lavoine explains her approach to using color, highlights the indispensible elements of each space, and suggests how to add unforgettable details in order to create a restful and chic environment. With vibrant interior photographs and charming hand-drawn illustrations, ChezMoi is a design handbook that introduces contemporary French style, accented by French-girl-next-door advice on everything from fashion to beauty to cooking to shopping. Moreover, Lavoine's in-the-know list of Paris addresses allows visitors to traipse through the arrondissements like locals--or even purchase items from abroad. With her original and useful advice, Lavoine reveals how to create a truly French, meaningful, fulfilling lifestyle, no matter where you live.

When Julia Child told Dorie Greenspan, “You write recipes just the way I do,” she paid her the ultimate compliment. Julia’s praise was echoed by the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, which referred to Dorie’s “wonderfully encouraging voice” and “the sense of a real person who is there to help should you stumble.” Now in a big, personal, and personable book, Dorie captures all the excitement of French home cooking, sharing disarmingly simple dishes she has gathered over years of living in France. Around My French Table includes many superb renditions of the great classics: a glorious cheese-domed onion soup, a spoon-tender beef daube, and the “top-secret” chocolate mousse recipe that every good Parisian cook knows—but won’t reveal. Hundreds of other recipes are remarkably easy: a cheese and olive quick bread, a three-star chef’s Basque potato tortilla made with a surprise ingredient (potato chips), and an utterly satisfying roast chicken for “lazy people.” Packed with lively stories, memories, and insider tips on French culinary customs, Around My French Table will make cooks fall in love with France all over again, or for the first time.

Traveling to be reunited with her family in the arctic, 10-year-old Margaret Pokiak can hardly contain her excitement. It’s been two years since her parents delivered her to the school run by the dark-cloaked nuns and brothers. Coming ashore, Margaret spots her family, but her mother barely recognizes her, screaming, “Not my girl.” Margaret realizes she is now marked as an outsider. And Margaret is an outsider: she has forgotten the language and stories of her people, and she can’t even stomach the food her mother prepares. However, Margaret gradually relearns her language and her family’s way of living. Along the way, she discovers how important it is to remain true to the ways of her people — and to herself. Highlighted by archival photos and striking artwork, this first-person account of a young girl’s struggle to find her place will inspire young readers to ask what it means to belong.

A collection of recipes from Daniel Boulud, the chef at Café Boulud in New York City, for a variety of French-American dishes, with explanation of basic and advanced cooking techniques.