by Scott Ferguson
Fans of French cooking will know Patricia Wells and be eager to pick up her latest work. She is, after all, the author of nine other books on the subject (most recently last year's Vegetable Harvest). However, it is only the most dedicated fan who will also know that her husband, Walter, was an editor at the International Herald Tribune from 1980 to 2005.
This is the story of those 25 years, told in two voices and capturing the great pleasures the two have shared in living a life many of us have barely dared to dream of. Its start was tentative, as both had jobs with the New York Times when they decided that Walter should accept an offer from the International Herald Tribune for a two-year stint in Paris, the paper's headquarters. So, bravely, if a bit unsurely, they set off on their adventure. For Patricia, that meant she was without employment and needed to find something to replace the job as food writer she'd had at the Times. They also didn't speak much French. And the French are noted sticklers on proper language usage and the proper following of certain "rules." For instance, one rule is what they call "The Orange Juice Trick." After dinner, everyone retires to the living room for Cognac and cigarettes (it is France, after all). After a while, small glasses of orange juice are served, and then everyone goes home. It's a rule; everyone knows what serving the orange juice means. And why, during the 1980s, French women only wore patterned pantyhose in black and never in navy blue is completely beyond me, but it also is a rule.
Of course, Patricia did finally have to get a job. First she wrote short pieces for various American publications. Finally she decided to work on the project that would for years connect her name with Paris and food: the Food Lover's Guide to Paris, published in the United States in the spring of 1984. The story of that research makes one yearn to have been with her in those years. Monday they would map out where they would go for the week, and then Tuesday to Friday they would hit the streets—often exactly that, as she and her research assistant did lots of walking. They made their own Food Lover's Law: No matter how good it was, you could only take one bite! What they didn't eat went into a sack and was most often given to the homeless or eaten for their own lunch, if where they chose had less than adequate food.
The early 1980s also saw the rise of nouvelle cuisine, which led to a lightening of the heavily sauced food of classic French cooking. It also led to such scenes as a large bone-white plate "carefully arranged with half a dozen peas and a single scallop." There was, in the long run, an up-side to this as younger chefs found themselves "freed from the rituals and rules of classic cuisine, all the while intent upon preserving the techniques and the discipline."
While food is the central focus here, this is really the story of two newlyweds learning to be a couple at the same time they learned to live in a new and exotic country. Even learning to drive in Paris was an unusual experience, as Walter says: "The basic rule is simple displacement: Where my car is, yours cannot be." And having three cars stolen also adds to the drama. One, a 1975 911S Porsche, was taken from a locked garage.
It is in the last third of the book that the dreamlike life really kicks into high gear, for it deals with the purchase of their farmhouse in Provence. As Walter describes it: "The house is a mas, a farmhouse that is modest in its size but whose hillside site is grander than a chateau's." It was here that Patricia developed her own style of cooking, which would reflect her "philosophy of cuisine: Keep it fresh, keep it simple, respect the seasons, and allow the integrity of the ingredients to shine through. Follow the elementary rule: 'What grows together goes together.'" Those who have used and adored her cookbooks through the years understand how much she has adhered to those rules.
Real estate leads to remodeling and gardening and kitchens. There are some great pictures of walls coming down and rooms being expanded. It's somewhat like being able to turn the pages in a family photo album with both Walter and Patricia narrating the story as we go along. Patricia's cooking school was opened in Provence in the fall of 1995, and later was expanded to include sessions in her Paris kitchen as well. The income from these schools and the proceeds from her cookbooks now "pay the rent." They take up to 100 students a year, and some years have a waiting list of up to eight times that.
A touching portrait of Julia Child emerges also. Patricia credits Julia with teaching her a very important life lesson: "Never stop learning, never stop asking questions, never lose that naïve curiosity or youthful enthusiasm for life."
Perhaps as a bonus for those of us who find it difficult to wait for Patricia Wells' next cookbook, she has included 30 recipes, ranging from a Seduction Dinner Polenta, to Fettuccine with Vodka and Lemon, to—perhaps the most decadent—Scrambled Eggs with Truffles. (Of this latter dish, she notes, "You end up with a luscious, creamy golden mass. Of course these can be made without truffles, but they won't be the same.")
In the end, this is the story of an adventure—an ongoing adventure—and a love story. So kick off your shoes, settle down in a comfortable chair, pour yourself a nice glass of your favorite sipping wine, and enjoy. And, as Julia Child so often said, "Bon appétit!"
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