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Joie de Vivre: Simple French Style for Everyday Living
Joie de Vivre: Simple French Style for Everyday Living
Joie de Vivre: Simple French Style for Everyday Living
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Joie de Vivre: Simple French Style for Everyday Living

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When it comes to making the most of life, nobody does it better than the French. Now, with Joie de Vivre: Simple French Style for Everyday Living, an inspired fusion of art, style, and easy-to-implement ideas, anyone can feel like they spent a weekend in the French countryside, no matter where they live.

Renowned restaurateur Robert Arbor puts a refreshing emphasis on simplicity and accessibility, explaining the rituals and traditions that comprise a typical French day. Featuring dozens of simple, everyday recipes, Joie de Vivre captures the family meals, market trips, and charming domestic settings that make the French way of life so pleasurable. In eight chapters, illustrated with 85 full-color and black-and-white photographs, Arbor details how you, too, can achieve the simplicity and relaxing life the French treasure.

Le Matin (The Morning) lays out the elements of a relaxing breakfast (as well as the secret to great coffee), and Le Potager (The Garden) describes the pleasures and rewards of growing your own vegetables, herbs, and flowers. Le Marché (The Market) and Le Déjeuner (Lunchtime) follow Arbor to the market, the butcher, and the baker before serving up a trove of delicious ideas for light lunches and snacks. Le Dîner (Supper) outlines strategies for crafting cozy family dinners; creating enchanting dinner parties of all sizes; and preparing fun, simple meals for children.

Arbor’s memories and experiences of growing up in France and his flair for casual elegance can't help but inspire the chef and decorator in everyone.

Sidebars sprinkled throughout the book offer tips and insights on how to make the perfect cup of hot chocolate, a French perspective on truffles and foie gras, the French and their love of chocolate, and why French butter tastes so good.

Joie de Vivre is a lavishly illustrated guide to the French style of living that will show you how to bring a little joie to your life.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 20, 2008
ISBN9781439106846
Joie de Vivre: Simple French Style for Everyday Living
Author

Robert Arbor

Robert Arbor, chef and owner of nine restaurants in New York and Boston, was born in Fontainebleau, France. He has lived and worked in Tahiti, Gabon, Hong Kong, and New York. He now lives with his wife and two children in New York and Flaujac-Poujol, France.

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    Beautiful story of rituals that can help you achieve the joie de vivre!

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Joie de Vivre - Robert Arbor

Joie de Vivre: Simple French Style for Everyday Living, by Robert Arbor & Katherine Whiteside.

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Joie de Vivre: Simple French Style for Everyday Living, by Robert Arbor and Katherine Whiteside. Photographs by Tam Tran. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks. New York | London | Toronto | Sydney | New Delhi.

À mon papa, à ma maman, Tam, Lucien, Henri

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all my loyal customers for their overwhelming support of my restaurants and encouragement to write this book. We have shared so many wonderful moments at Le Gamin and Les Deux Gamins. Many of you have become dear friends and I hope you will find la joie in this book from me to you.

Merci aux Cadurciens, il y en a trop pour les nommer, d’avoir affiné ma joie de vivre par votre gentillesse et générosité.

Introduction:

France and America

BONJOUR, me again, et toujours. I was born on a beautiful spring day in the town of Fontainebleau, France. It is close to Paris but untouched by urban development because of its historical past. My youth was spent going to school, playing on the banks of the River Seine, or running around Fontainebleau forest, one of the most diverse and beautiful forests in France. My papa taught me about trees, weather, and all the outdoor skills that would interest an energetic kid like me. He even knew about castles, water systems, and steam trains. I also loved helping my maman in the kitchen by cooking and licking the chocolate mousse off the spoons. I have wonderful memories of this time.

After graduating from high school, I went on my mandatory military service, which was an obligation for all French boys when they turned eighteen. I chose to serve in one of France’s overseas territories—Tahiti. There I observed and took part in eight underground nuclear tests. A more interesting skill I acquired was how to cook fresh fish wrapped in banana leaves in an outdoor oven. We buried everything in the sand much like in a clambake. I also learned how to prepare raw fish. It was just like making seviche. It is funny how cooking techniques are similar around the world. In Tahiti, I also acquired my taste for freshly picked coconuts, but didn’t quite master a way to crack them open easily.

When my military service was over, I returned briefly to Fontainebleau and then went to Gabon in the central western part of Africa on the Atlantic coast. I was in charge of delivering construction materials from the main town of Franceville to different sites deep in the jungle or out in the savanna. We were building movie theaters for the president and his family. In Africa, I once again cooked outside and waited patiently for the fire to burn just right. I learned how to marinate meat and how to use very hot spices. While in Africa, I also learned to hunt, although I didn’t enjoy it very much. I did like the cooking, though, because it was simple and agreeable and was almost always done outside on homemade stoves over wood fires.

At one of my restaurants

(Photograph courtesy of Matthew Modine)

After I left Africa, I returned home to France for a short while and then went off to Asia. Japan seemed a bit too foreign and China was too Communist, so Hong Kong seemed the perfect setup for a young Frenchman abroad. Hong Kong was Asian with an English touch and a party town with extremely fine food. However, I never learned to cook there because of language barriers. It was in Hong Kong, though, that I met my wife, Tam; she frequently traveled there for her work in the fashion business. We were married in France in 1987 and moved to New York, where Tam was working. It seemed like any other big town and not particularly exotic. The big question was: What would I do in New York City?

Being French and interested in cooking, I enrolled in the French Culinary Institute to learn the basics of restaurant cuisine. As I was the first and, then, the only French graduate, I was the center of attention for many French chefs around the city, especially Patrice Boely, who had received three stars from the New York Times for his Polo Lounge restaurant. (Patrice must also be thanked for bringing Daniel Boulud from France and helping him get his start in New York.) Patrice showed me his tricks of the trade and took me to many different kitchens. I was, for a while, the little French student who was shown all the secrets of the most important kitchens in New York.

Working in a kitchen is very hard. Cooks work while everyone else has fun, and the hours are horrendous. For two years, I worked in various French restaurants while Tam was working as a designer. My hours were erratic, Tam was traveling all over the world, and we were unable to spend much time together.

At this point, I took a job as the sous-chef at Chase Manhattan Bank’s private corporate dining room. I only had to work breakfast and lunch, with bank holidays off. This schedule was totally unheard-of in the restaurant business. It was heaven! The food was mainly Americana. Most of the time the chairman just ordered a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

At Chase, I also helped cater large functions and cooked for many world leaders. The situation was ideal because we were not concerned with food costs or with any other expenses. The kitchen was on the sixtieth floor of the Chase headquarters downtown so we had incredible views of New York. However, because I finished work at 2:00 P.M., I had lots of time on my hands to wander the streets of New York. I realized that I could never find a place to sit and enjoy a coffee or soda, so I decided to open a French-style café like the ones that I had spent so much time in when in France.

I wanted to create a place where one could read, reflect, or just casually meet with friends. It had to have the pace of a café like those in little French villages or on a corner of a Paris street. It had to be open all day with service from 8:00 A.M. until midnight and I wanted it to be inexpensive and totally French. I did a lot of research. I wandered all over downtown New York, as that had always been my neighborhood. I went from east to west and finally settled on a small storefront on MacDougal Street, just south of Houston Street in the heart of SoHo. There were not a lot of businesses in this area in 1992, just the restaurant Provence and a small deli. But this area had that quiet residential and neighborhood feeling that I was looking for. I named my café Le Gamin.

When I first opened Le Gamin, people in the business told me that I was crazy and that nobody in downtown New York woke up at 8:00 A.M. Before I opened Le Gamin, most French bistros in New York were open from 4:00 P.M. until 4:00 A.M., but now there are more places that are open for breakfast and lunch. Many of those who count as movers and shakers in the New York restaurant business came to see us to learn what made us so successful. But Le Gamin has never been equaled because it is so simple and so truly French. Now, ten years later, there are five Le Gamin cafés in New York and one Le Gamin in Boston.

I have written this book because, in my business, I see a constant flow of Americans looking for that thing that the French call joie de vivre. Americans are fascinated with how the French manage to live so well, and so contentedly, in their ordinary, day-to-day life. It’s not just about cooking, decorating, or entertaining—it’s about enjoying all the small details of domestic life. It’s about making time for family, growing some vegetables in your garden, chatting with the butcher, and cooking for your family and friends.

Joie de Vivre: Simple French Style for Everyday Living tells all about the joy I find in French home life and shows my American friends how to find this particular French style of happiness. Although I say this with all due humbleness, I truly feel that this book may help you enhance your life. I know that Americans are looking for and deserve their bit of joie de vivre, and in these pages are many tips and some advice that may help you in your search for domestic happiness. Take away what you like, make it your own, and, most importantly, enjoy what you do. Ça va, continuez!

Bienvenue chez nous.

CHAPTER ONE

Bonjour

Breakfast in France

I LOVE BREAKFAST. I even love to think about breakfast. Our house in France is in the country, so when I first wake up, I can hear the birds chirp as they wake up, too. As they sing the dawn chorus, I start walking down the stairs in that zombielike way that is universal among people when they first move around after a long sleep. By the time I reach the front door, my appetite is getting going and—with a good, strong sniff of the fresh air when I pick up the newspaper off the front step—I am actually hungry. I pause for one brief moment to enjoy the long shadows of the still-rising sun and to admire the way that the dew (la rosée) makes everything seem so fresh and new. With my appetite now fully awake, I walk to the kitchen to make breakfast.

La Récréation, a restaurant in a former schoolhouse run by our friends, Noëlle and Jacques.

A traditional breakfast is a wonderful part of the day in France. Whether I eat early or late, I always look forward to the simple pleasures of my breakfast. Some people want to eat the minute they wake up, others take a shower first and then go to the kitchen. But everyone knows that breakfast is essential. Little kids wake up hungry, students need food in the morning to function well at school, and no grown-up can go off to work happily with a growling stomach. My attitude is, since we are going to eat breakfast every day, we are going to make it nice. And anyone can do this because, however or whenever you have it, there are little basic things you can do that make breakfast a time to savor.

Let me tell you how I begin my day when the family is on vacation, living in our house in Flaujac. Since this is vacation time, each of us gets up whenever we want. For lunch or dinner, we always eat together because food has been planned to be ready at a certain time, But for breakfast during vacation we don’t have to eat together, and this makes our breakfasts very relaxed. I don’t mind telling you that I think that any kind of pressure at breakfast starts the day off on the wrong foot. A simple and pleasant breakfast lifts you right into the day’s activities with a gentle boost that’s like a pat on the back as you go out the door.

My simple, early-morning routine is something that I enjoy deeply, and I hope that my boys will someday remember these times as fondly as I do. This routine is easy to translate into your own life in America, although some of the details will change depending upon whether you live in a converted farmhouse outside Canton, Ohio, or in a high-rise apartment in San Francisco. I am probably going to tell you more about breakfast then you may have thought possible, but, really, I am positive that a good French breakfast is the key to beginning the day with a bit of joie de vivre.

The south porch where I enjoy la sieste.

When I am in Flaujac, it is usually summer and I always try to eat breakfast on the stone porch outside our kitchen. As a rooster crows from across the fields, I prepare a fragrant, crunchy baguette with butter from the local dairyman. I slather the baguette in jam made from last month’s crop of strawberries. Some days, I prefer to try some honey, fresh from the comb and purchased last Saturday from my local farmer’s market, or le marché. In fact, when eating this breakfast, each bite seems more delectable and more enjoyable to me because I know that everything was grown or made locally.

From the porch, I can look across the nearby fields and smell the wildflowers that the bees visit for nectar. The honey that I am eating comes from those flowers and smells like those flowers. I can also see fields of wheat being harvested by my neighboring farmer and I know that, eventually, this grain will become the bread that my family enjoys each morning. Knowing that the food we eat springs from local fields is a very satisfying experience, and knowing the people who grow and make the food adds immensely to that pleasure.

A typical landscape in Le Quercy Blanc.

Breakfast is the time when you can ease yourself from the relaxation of a good night’s sleep into the business of your day. As I fall into the daily routine of fixing my simple breakfast, my mind wakes up and I begin thinking about the hours ahead. I use my breakfast time as an opportunity to plan, whether I have a day full of meetings and work obligations or whether it will be a day spent with my family. My to-do list may have a few drops of coffee or a spot of jam on it sometimes, but going over this list at breakfast helps me feel a little more relaxed about the day ahead.

Another nice aspect of breakfast is that it is a very personal time of day. It doesn’t matter if you are single or if you have a family, you probably would not include someone in your breakfast time unless that person was a very close friend. I am usually a bit rumpled at breakfast so I am not happy to see just anyone appear at the table. It has to be someone I like, because I look at breakfast as a time to relax and to pamper myself and my family. I do not like the concept of business breakfasts or the so-called power breakfast, so I organize my day so that there is enough time later on to get that kind of work done. For us, breakfast is personal time.

Although all regions of France have locally made products that are part of this wake-up ritual, the basic, delicious French breakfast consists primarily of coffee and bread. It is probably one of the simplest breakfasts in the world. Of course, if an American traveler goes to an hotel in France and orders eggs or cereal, the chef will make sure that the guest has the breakfast that is desired. But truly, in my country, adults do not eat eggs for breakfast. We do enjoy eggs cooked in many different ways for lunch or dinner, but at home, the French have only coffee and bread for breakfast. This might seem strange to you, but perhaps it is better if I begin to explain this deeply satisfying part of the day by telling you a little about the breakfasts of my childhood.

Breakfast is about the fragrance of coffee and toast. When I was young, I could smell my maman making breakfast in the kitchen when I woke up. It was the best fragrance in the world because even just the smell of the toast always made me think of the satisfying crunch of the bread. I couldn’t wait to get downstairs to eat!

In France, like in America, coffee is the breakfast drink of choice. (Some adults and many children like hot chocolate for breakfast, but in my family we usually save this drink for later in the day. My favorite recipe for hot chocolate is at the end of the chapter La Pause Gourmande.) Although electric coffeemakers have been around for ages and are constantly being improved, more and more people are returning to the old-fashioned, nonelectrical ways of making fresh coffee, using either a filter or a press. In the old days, I don’t remember ever seeing instant coffee in a French household except for the Nestlé’s that was used on picnics or when taking long trips. It is still very rare for a French kitchen to boast of an expresso machine because people usually go to the local café

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