Elizabeth Bard author of Lunch in Paris on food, love and writing a second book

Authors interview Authors:

This week, Laurel Zuckerman talks with Elizabeth Bard, the author of NYT's bestseller Lunch in Paris: a Love Story with Recipes. Elizabeth recently moved from Paris to Provence where she is juggling work on a second book with the delights of young motherhood.

Laurel Zuckerman: Are you sad that Valentine's Day is over? How did you celebrate it?

Elizabeth Bard: I’m a real sucker for Valentine’s Day. I’m usually back in New York in mid-February, and I love those chalky candy message hearts and guys on the subway with single red roses in cellophane. My husband was 4,000 miles away in Provence, so I made a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner for my parents: seared scallops, ginger-garlic broccoli rabe and sweet potato puree.

LZ: Does love really smell like bacon?

EB: It does to me! The first dinner my French husband made for me was an impromptu pasta with veggies and lardons. What better way to start a relationship?

LZ: Before you wrote Lunch in Paris, did you think of yourself as a guru of food and love? What's that like?

EB: Wow, guru – big word. I hope Lunch in Paris captures something real about what it means to build a life in another culture. I don’t think I’m so much a leader as a very respectful follower. As an American, I follow generations of women who all came from somewhere else. They learned to cook with new ingredients, speak a new language, navigate a new culture. My Jewish grandmother learned to make spaghetti sauce full of pork ribs from the Italian ladies she met on line at the butcher shop during WWII. I’m pleased to add my story to theirs.

LZ: Your first book was a NYT bestseller. Does this make the second book harder to write?

EB: I'm a recovering control freak, so that it makes it hard to take my hands off the first book and start living, cooking and writing the second one. Our recent move to Provence has given me a whole new world to explore – suddenly I’m this city girl hanging her laundry in the sunshine! I travelled a great deal last year; I think chronic jetlag is my body's way of telling me I need to stay put for a while, enjoy our new life. Hike up a mountain. Make sure my peas and tomatoes are planted right side up!

LZ: How does being a young mother affect your work? (Does THAT make it harder to write?)

EB: Our son, Augustin, was 3 weeks old when I received the galleys for Lunch in Paris – I edited the manuscript with him asleep in my arms. Being a mother sets up a whole new dynamic within family relationships – not always easy – I know I’ll end up writing about that at some point. I tend to procrastinate less, because I have fewer hours and more to do. Even though my current work is so intertwined with my family life - our intercultural and culinary experiences - my writing is a space that’s all my own, and I’ve always needed that.

I’m really looking forward to Augustin being my little sous-chef in the kitchen. Licking spoons, making a mess!

LZ: Where are you from originally? Was it always your dream to live in France and write, or was that something that just happened?

EB: I grew up with my mother in Northern New Jersey and spent weekends with my dad in New York City. I spent my childhood in museums – I’m kind of an old soul – I always felt good in old places. I was meant to do my Junior Year Abroad in France, but as an English Lit major, I took a detour to Scotland instead. I ran back to Europe as soon as possible after graduation – lived in London on and off for 5 years. I was instantly seduced by Paris, and as the first line of the book attests, by my French husband! The combination of beauty, history and joie de vivre was irresistible.

LZ: Do you think that we can dream our own fates, bring something into being by imagining it?

EB: People who know me will tell you I almost never let reality get in the way of a good story. For most of my life that’s made me a dreamer, a dilettante, even - in my own head - a failure. But every once and a while we catch up to our dreams and make them real. I feel that way about Lunch in Paris. I don’t regret a single turn or leap I’ve taken – though I often made myself crazy with worry along the way. I think most of us wish we had more appetite for risk, not less.

After nearly a decade in France, I’m very much aware that the way we dream is cultural, as well as personal. It’s possible that I will live in France for the rest of my life, but I’ll always cherish the unique American “Just-Do-It” optimism that says that our dreams are possible, valuable.

LZ: Your Lunch in Paris blog contains all kinds of wonderful recipes, among other things. What's your favorite? Something that impoverished writers can make in their tiny Paris kitchens?

EB: I sound like a broken record, but it comes back to bacon! My favorite solo supper is sautéed haricots verts with lardons and a roasted sweet potato topped with plain yogurt. When fig season comes around I often make myself a salade chevre chaude – Bibb lettuce topped with goat cheese toasts, fresh figs and walnuts.

LZ: What are you working on now? Can you tell us about it?

EB: Baby, book and the move to Provence made 2010 a pinch-myself-everyday wonderful, drop-dead-busy year. I’m hoping to spend more time at home in 2011. I adore keeping the blog and Facebook page. My dirty little secret as a writer is that I’m a terrible journal keeper, so I know these online diaries will serve as a valuable aide memoire for the next book. This spring I’ll be getting down to the serious business of Provencal cuisine. I’m surrounded by wonderful cooks and gardeners – and I’ve got everything to learn!

LZ: Could you recommend a terrific place to eat/drink/work or just hang out for writers in Paris?

EB: I'm a cafe hopper myself. I wrote most of Lunch in Paris sitting in Kabyle cafes on the rue Faubourg de Temple. As long as the café crème was hot, I had an extra flaky croissant from Les Delices du Parmentier (right outside the Goncourt Metro), and I couldn’t understand a word that's being said around me, I could concentrate beautifully. When I needed a treat I would head to La Bague de Kenza, on the rue St Maur, the best North African bakery in Paris. The pastries are gorgeous, and there’s a tearoom as well. It’s a few doors down from La Cisternino, a terrific Italian co-op – great products (and prices!), so I’d often pick up some prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella on my way home.

***

For more with Elizabeth, see our conversation about the best and the worst of Paris !

Elizabeth Bard is an American journalist and author based in France. Her first book, Lunch in Paris: A Love Story with Recipes has been a New York Times and international bestseller, a Barnes & Noble "Discover Great New Writers" selection, and the recipient of the 2010 Gourmand World Cookbook Award for Best First Cookbook (USA). You can follow Elizabeth’s continuing culinary adventures on: