CHAPTER NINE

Food Is Love: The French Dinner Party

A new dress doesn’t get you anywhere. It’s the life you’re leading in the dress.

—DIANA VREELAND

YOU’VE PROBABLY HEARD OF THE FRENCH madeleine. They’re the butter “cookies” made with lemon zest and baked in scallop-shaped molds. They’re brown and crispy on the outside and soft and spongy—and buttery—on the inside. They’ve certainly arrived in America. Martha Stewart has an excellent recipe for them, using hazelnuts, and these days you can even find them at Starbucks!

In France, madeleines are actually considered to be a tea cake. You may know Proust’s famous madeleine, featured in his beloved and classic book Remembrance of Things Past: Swann’s Way. You may recall the story of how the memories of the narrator’s childhood suddenly resurface when he takes a taste of the madeleine, dipped in his Aunt’s lime flower tea.

But here’s what you might not know—in Proust’s first draft of Swann’s Way, it was not a madeleine that he dipped into his tea, but rather an ordinary piece of toast. Yes, the plebeian toast—so humble and unromantic, and not named after a mysterious French woman known as Madeleine. I’m not sure if the notion of a “Proustian memory” would be studied by psychologists and mentioned in Scientific America and find its way into popular culture if it had been a mere piece of toast.

That’s the power of a cookie. Okay, a tea cake.

And it’s also why no book on captivating a man’s heart à la française would be complete without a discussion on the seduction of sharing a meal, a dessert, a glass of champagne, and a kiss (or two or three).

It’s mid-October and I am wearing my favorite polka-dot dress and the navy jacket I bought in Toulouse. Despite the fact that the weather has turned chilly in Paris, I come upon thirty or forty men and women outside on the terrace, drinking, laughing, and flirting. They come from all over the world, and most of them have never met before in their lives, but here they are, gathered outside of Jim Haynes’s Paris apartment in the 14th arrondissement.

The soirée is hosted by Jim Haynes, world citizen. Actually, he’s a writer and a cultural provocateur originally from Louisiana, born in 1933.

This is my first time at the famous soirée, and I receive by e-mail explicit instructions: take the metro to Alesia, walk out to rue de la Tombe-Issoire, and walk “exactly thirty-nine steps.” Once at the building, enter a secret code, push the gate open, and walk down a cobblestone path through a garden. This part is quite surprising. From outside, on the street, everything feels very urban—but once you’re inside, it feels as if you’re in a charming country village with small brick buildings and little gardens.

Jim will accept the first fifty to sixty people who ask for an invitation. You must e-mail asking for a reservation, and then he will give you the directions and the code once everything is confirmed. It’s all worth it because Jim Haynes’s soirées are a part of Parisian history. Some very famous people have come through his doors over the past thirty years, including Germaine Greer, Allen Ginsberg, Yoko Ono, and Chloë Sevigny. The apartment is just down the street from 18 Villa Seurat, where Henry Miller lived and wrote Tropic of Cancer in 1934, with financial backing from Anaïs Nin, who, along with her husband, paid the rent and financed the first printing of the book.

I pour myself a glass of cabernet and say hello to a few guests and then walk up the stairs in search of Jim. I find him right away. He’s lying on the couch by the door, greeting everyone, but also resting. He’s just returned from a trip to London, and he is eighty-three, after all. Despite that, he has a young and energetic aura about him. And with his slightly shaggy mop of gray hair and big mustache, along with the turtleneck sweater, he gives off a strong beatnik vibe. Certainly, he’s been influenced by the beats, as you can see from his bookshelves and vast collection of literature. His latest release is World Citizen at Home in Paris.

Jim welcomes me so warmly, I feel as if we have known each for decades. He suggests I line up for dinner, which is a potluck cooked by a volunteer visitor from Barcelona who stands behind a long buffet table and dishes out stew from a large pot. I take my place at the end of the line with a group of friendly diners to my right and to my left. We are served a ladle of stew, and then couscous. Later, there is salad, then cheese, and finally, cake and coffee. Everything is served on china. No paper or plastic.

Once I have my plate, I walk into the room and I’m immediately swept into a whirlwind of international conversation. I meet three gentlemen—one from Australia, one from Ireland, and another one from France. We sit together with Edith, my Parisian friend, and we immediately get into a lively conversation about men and women and the future of romance. And I don’t think this is because I happen to write about men and love and romance. I think it’s the food, the wine, the lively mix of young and old, local and foreign. I think it’s the casual, slightly chaotic feel of the evening. It’s improvisational and so very alive with possibility.

WHY WAITING IN LINE IS GOOD FOR LOVE

Reflecting on that line where we all stood and waited for our stew, it’s clear to me that chatting with the visiting cook from Barcelona was a very important part of this flirtatious experience. You might think this method of waiting in line asking the cook for more or less stew seems inefficient, but I believe that this is actually one of the most important elements to the success of Jim’s soirée, because it slows down the line. That’s right, it slows down the line! You must talk while you’re waiting and there’s opportunity to talk about how you really love couscous or how you’d like just one piece of bread. And later, when all those dishes need to be washed—well, I can tell you, it was very, very festive, and I do believe the man from Barcelona may have just found the woman he will spend the rest of his life with—or at least the next three weeks!

A MOVEABLE FEAST

I think there’s a myth that French dinner parties are very staid and formal and fraught with political and cultural intrigue where if you don’t sound very, very clever and witty and know how to drop more than a few bon mots, well, then it’s off to the guillotine with you!

In fact, many French dinner parties are very casual, and quite a few are not even held indoors.

My friends Freddie and Pierre go on the BiBaCa, which stands for Biclou Baguette & Camembert (Bicycle, Baguette, and Camembert). It’s an annual bike ride through the ancient city of Rouen, just outside Paris. The idea of the festival originated in Paris, where they have Béret Baguette. Freddie’s friend Thierry wanted to have something like this for their friends in Normandy (that’s why one of the specialities of the region, camembert, was added to the name). This is an annual September event in which everyone gets dressed in vintage clothing and wears worker’s caps or straw boaters or berets, and often striped Breton tops with red scarves tied around the neck. The men will often wear suspenders, and the women seem to favor polka dots. And, of course, at the end of the bike trip, there’s music and partner dancing and food.

To begin the day, about thirty men and women meet up in the city center and then go by bike to the countryside, where they enjoy a picnic lunch on tables in a field on the banks of the River Seine in Rouen. Everyone brings something to share—wine or bubbly water; baguettes; camembert and other regional cheeses such gruyere, fromage de chévre, Roquefort; and delicatessen items, such as saucisson, andouille, ham, and rillette; as well as tomatoes, fruits, and, of course, French red wine and cider. People bring fruit and dessert. Inevitably, someone brings along an accordion or a guitar, and so the festivities include singing. The trip was originally organized to celebrate 1936, the year that employees were given two-week paid leave in France. The holiday is also a way for the French people to thank their grandparents, who fought so hard to win this freedom that the French still enjoy today.

Honestly, I can’t think of a more delightful way to celebrate one’s freedom. This is the perfect combination of food, fun, nature, exercise, fresh air, conversation, and music and a recipe for true romance.

ROMANCING THE HOME

When I asked my friend Valerie about how to create a seductive dinner at home, she explained to me that everything must be romantic, including the table setting. She suggests using a white tablecloth, but then your dress, makeup, and nail polish should be in harmony with your dishes. And of course, you’ll want to have flowers or even branches or leaves that go with your table setting, depending on the season. Here’s what she told me:

“For a night of romance without a lot of headache, it’s important to prepare most everything in advance because you don’t want to spend too much time in the kitchen.

“Begin with champagne, then serve a little appetizer, such as foie gras on toasted bread, but paté is a nice substitute, and if you want to keep it light, just serve some olives and perhaps cherry tomatoes. It’s important to keep your dinner light, because if you make something too heavy, you’ll both be asleep before you’re ready for any sort of dessert. And so, fish is always a good idea. Also, be careful with overdoing spices.”

Just as an aside, I love the salads I’ve had in France where they’ll take goat cheese and cut it into the shape of a heart and then place it in a little bed of green salad, and finally add some drops of fig flavor onto the cheese. It’s so yummy. If you can’t find fig flavor, then use real figs or some really good fig or raspberry jam.

“For dessert, enjoy an espresso and a compote of apple that you’ve prepared ahead of time, and then add a little spoonful of honey and Armagnac. Oh, and you might also enjoy a little glass of Armagnac.”

KITCHEN ESSENTIALS

Of course, when you don’t live in France some of this might not be possible to replicate, so you should make the offerings—and the evening—your own. The point is to always have a few things ready and to make the menu as easy and simple as possible. One way to do this is to keep your kitchen stocked with essentials. When I asked my French friends what they keep in their cupboards and fridges, they came up with some great suggestions, and I list them here (in no particular order):

Champagne

Can of sardines

Olive oil

Balsamic vinegar or wine vinegar

Onions

Garlic

Shallots

Paté

Eggs

Pasta

Butter

Olives

Parmesan cheese and one other cheese you really love

Good coffee

Milk

Crème fraîche (fresh cream)

Plain yogurt

Dark chocolate (practically every single French person I asked said they couldn’t live without chocolate)

Dry white wine

Sweet white wine

Red wine (Bordeaux and Burgundy)

Bread*

Bowl of fruit on table

Spices, baking powder, herbs (especially thyme and bay leaf)

Herbal tea

Mineral water

Lemons

Fresh flowers (not to eat, but essential for joie de vivre)

*If you have a day to prepare, I suggest you make Jim Lahey’s no-knead bread recipe from his book My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method. All you need on hand is all-purpose flour, instant yeast, salt, and a little corn meal or wheat bran. It’s almost like having a Parisian boulangerie in your own kitchen.

FRENCH MEN COOK

Pierre is married to Freddie. They’re the couple that went on the yearlong world tour. At home, Pierre does most of the cooking because he has a real passion for gastronomy. He comes from the southwest of France, the heart of gastronomique. He learned to cook with his mother when he was quite young and always hungry. So his love of cooking comes from that. He tells me that for him, cooking is a kind of meditation. And since he’s traveled to so many countries around the world, he’s gone beyond the traditional French ingredients and likes to include products such as fresh ginger, fresh coriander, cumin, curry, sumac, cardamom, turmeric, and nutmeg in his culinary creations.

Pierre was kind enough to give me this recipe for daube, or beef stew, saying that it’s perfect for dinner parties because you can prepare it the day before. On the day of the party you can spend time with your friends, instead of being in the kitchen, doing the cooking. The daube creates a wonderful conviviality and it’s especially great during the winter, when it’s cold outside and everyone wants to come inside and get warm. Pierre tells me that the daube is a magic dish because the more it’s reheated, the better it gets, and it can be kept in the fridge for at least four or five days. The daube is eaten with potatoes served, as the French say, in robe des champs. The literal translation is “dress that you wear in the fields” and basically means that you serve the daube with small, unpeeled potatoes.

Serve a good Bordeaux or Burgundy with your daube.

DAUBE FROM PIERRE DUBERNET (BEEF BOURGUIGNON)

INGREDIENTS

4 lbs, 6 ounces of beef to be braised (chuck) cut into large cubes

6 tablespoons olive oil

1 ¾ ounces flour

2 tomatoes

4 garlic cloves

1 teaspoon tomato paste

1 bouquet garni (mixed herbs)

salt and pepper

3 cups full-bodied red wine (Cahors type)

grated nutmeg

10 ½ ounces small onions

1 ounce butter

1 teaspoon sugar

2 tablespoons water

7 ounces smoked bacon

1 bunch flat parsley

pasta or polenta (optional)

1. Wash, dry, and cut the tomatoes into pieces. Peel and crush the garlic cloves.

2. Heat 4 tablespoons of oil in a large casserole. Brown the meat cubes on all sides. Reduce the flame and mix in the flour with the meat cubes so that they are well coated.

3. Add tomatoes, garlic, tomato paste, bouquet garni, a few peppercorns, and salt. Pour the wine and mix well while bringing to a boil. Skim off fat. Cover and let simmer over very low heat for 4 hours. Add a little grated nutmeg.

4. Peel the onions and put them in a saucepan with butter, sugar, and 2 tablespoons of water. Let simmer over very low heat, covered, until the onions are tender and a little caramelized.

5. As the onions are cooking, cut the bacon into large pieces and sauté them in a frying pan with the remaining oil. Add them to the casserole, with the onions, 15 minutes before the end of the cooking of the stew. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve with pasta or polenta.

THE FRENCH GIRL AND THE AMERICAN GI

My friend Alexandra’s French mother, Pierrette, passed away recently at the age of eighty-nine. She was a wonderful cook, and Alexandra told me the story of how her mother came to America:

“My mother was born in 1927 in north Algeria. My grandparents owned a café, Le Café de Cadix, where she worked as a barmaid. She met my father, John, when she was seventeen years old. This was during World War II and he was an American GI stationed in her town. He often came into their café.

“He immediately fell in love with my mother, and apparently, he asked her to marry him a couple of times, but she refused; and then on Christmas Eve he came to the café with gifts for everyone, including the housekeeper. My mother didn’t have a gift for him, so as the story goes she decided to give him her hand in marriage as a gift!

‘There’s nothing that can’t be fixed with a little garlic and parsley.’

“She came to the States as a war bride, not speaking any English. She told us that she taught herself to read by listening to American soap operas on the radio. She went on to raise six children. I was lucky enough to live with my parents overseas for over ten years during my childhood when they retired abroad. She loved to cook, entertain, and make clothes from scratch because they couldn’t always afford the finer things. She absolutely loved decorating houses. In her last years, because she couldn’t hear very well, Facebook became the center of her world so that she could stay in touch with everyone and write and communicate with friends and family.

“I remember, she used to say ‘the hat or the hair,’ meaning pick one thing, you can’t have the fancy hat and the wild hair, but she would apply that to most clothing and outfits in general—meaning nothing de trop (too much.) Until her dying breath, her favorite song was Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive. She always said, ‘There’s nothing that can’t be fixed with a little garlic and parsley.’

“Paella was her specialité du maison (her speciality of the house), and she actually bought all six of her children their own paella pans, years ago.

“Everything she made tasted so good because as she would always say, ‘it was cooked with love.’”

Here is Alexandra’s mother’s recipe for paella, the specialité du maison, to you, with love:

1 cup chopped fresh parsley

¼ cup fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 large garlic cloves, minced

Paella:

1 cup water

1 teaspoon saffron threads

2 cups chicken broth

8 unpeeled jumbo shrimp

olive oil (as needed)

4 skinless, boneless chicken thighs, cut in half

4 links Spanish chorizo sausage (about 6 ½ ounces)

2 cups finely chopped onion

1 cup finely chopped red bell pepper

1 cup canned diced tomatoes, undrained

1 teaspoon sweet paprika

3 large garlic cloves, minced

3 cups uncooked yellow, Arborio, or other short-grain rice

1 cup frozen green peas

8 mussels, scrubbed and debearded

¼ cup fresh lemon juice

Lemon wedges

Combine the first 4 ingredients and set aside.

To prepare the paella, combine the water, saffron, and broth in a large saucepan. Bring to a simmer (do not boil). Keep warm over low heat. Peel and devein shrimp, leaving tails intact; set aside.

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large paella pan or large skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken; sauté 2 minutes on each side. Remove from pan. Add sausage; sauté 2 minutes. Remove from pan. Add shrimp; sauté 2 minutes. Remove from pan. Reduce heat to medium-low. Add onion and bell pepper; sauté 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add tomatoes, paprika, and garlic cloves; cook 5 minutes. Add rice; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Stir in herb blend, broth mixture, chicken, sausage mixture, and peas. Bring to a low boil; cook 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Add mussels to pan, nestling them into rice mixture. Cook 5 minutes or until shells open; discard any unopened shells. Arrange shrimp, heads down, in rice mixture, and cook 5 minutes or until shrimp are done. Sprinkle with ¼ cup lemon juice. Remove from heat; cover with a towel, and let stand 10 minutes. Serve with lemon wedges, if desired.

Master one great dish and make it your specialité du maison.

FIONA’S BIRTHDAY CAKE

Everyone in France seems to know and love this very simple cake recipe. It’s been written up in lots of books, and in fact, I included my friend’s version of it with crunchy lemon icing in my second book, Bonjour, Happiness! I enjoyed it most recently while in Saclas with Kate. She served it for her daughter’s birthday and spread it with raspberry jam and placed a little edible flower on top. It was really charming. She gave me the recipe in French, explaining that the French refer to it as one-pot yogurt cake because you use those little yogurt pots to measure most of the ingredients. Clever, non?

RECETTE DU GÂTEAU AU YAOURT (RECIPE FOR YOGURT CAKE)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease and line one round cake pan.

Mix dry ingredients first, then add wet ingredients:

1 pot sugar (½ cup)

4 pots flour (2 cups)

2 ¼ teaspoon baking powder

Mix and then stir in:

2 pots of yogurt (or 1 cup)

3 eggs

1 pot vegetable oil (½ cup)

Zest of ½ unwaxed lemon

Whisk well with a wooden spoon.

Bake for 40 minutes, or until a knife comes out clean.

Cool and sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar.

Layer with your choice of jam. (We use our homemade wild raspberry jam, but I know some French who use apricot jam and it’s very good!)

Enjoy!

I am not claiming that you’ll get slim enjoying all these delectable dishes, but I do believe that they will pave the way for romance and love, friendship, kinship, and general good feelings. Don’t be afraid of food! It’s important to indulge your senses, because when you do you will find that good food, prepared with love and respect, will sustain body and soul.

French women know this, and we do, too, although sometimes I think in the interest of watching our waistlines, we’ve sacrificed one of our most charming tools we possess in our arsenal—food and its power to seduce, disarm, and simply put everyone in a good mood. Every meal is an opportunity to gather and celebrate and even flirt and fall in love.

Parisian Charm School Lesson

In France, I think more men have a love of cooking than women—and that’s because they know from experience that it leads to romance!

And isn’t it so much more romantic than a date in a restaurant? The fact is, French women don’t date very much. They simply don’t see the point in going out on the one-on-one interview-style meet-up at a pricey restaurant and then sitting across from a virtual stranger and trying to find out who he really is, how she feels about him, and whether there’s actually a possibility for a future together—all in two to three hours.

However, French women will meet men at dinner parties. And even when it’s clear there’s a romantic spark, French women still don’t date, but rather they will go for a walk or meet in the park and enjoy a casual picnic.

Dinner parties are the perfect subterfuge for meeting a new man, but they’re also the perfect opportunity for seeing an interesting man over the course of many days and nights, in a variety of venues and combination of people.

At a dinner party, you can witness how a man interacts with male friends, with other women, with children, with the elderly, and with family.

This is because French dinner parties are intergenerational and there’s a constant influx of new people to keep things lively and interesting. While many American women are intimidated by the idea of hosting a dinner party, it’s important to understand that these dinner parties are often rather casual, last-minute affairs where a homemade soup (prepared ahead of time, over the weekend) is paired with a nice salad, bread, and a dessert bought at the local bakery. Oftentimes, the dinner party is a potluck, and in those tiny French apartments, it’s okay to sit on the floor.

French women meet men in groups, rather than alone. This way, there’s lots of time and many opportunities to get to know a man in the context of friends and family. There’s absolutely no pressure to take the relationship from friendship to romance quickly. These get-togethers give women lots of opportunities to practice the art of charm, to hone their flirtation skills and to gain confidence. These dinner parties provide a kind of “charm school” for French women and while there might be some missteps when she first begins attending parties (although young girls in France are usually included in parties), over time, her sense of self-possession and élan grows.

Parisian Charm School Pratique

Even if you’ve never hosted a dinner party before, it’s never too late to hone your skills. Start small by meeting up with a group of friends at a local bistro, bar, or restaurant. Expand your core group to include interesting men. These are “practice” encounters, and it’s actually best not to include a man you’re secretly in love with at the beginning, but rather a fun male friend.

Create a monthly potluck get-together, ever-expanding the core group. Consider what activities could be the unifying purpose for the gatherings. Picnics in the park are always a good idea, and this is especially true if there’s music and dancing. Spread your wings and see what develops. Sharing stories and laughter with friends new and old—what could be more charming than that?