Customer Reviews

Immoveable Feast: A Paris Christmas (P.S.)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Xmas PigggyFest in Paris

Ernest Hemingway called Paris "a moveable feast" - a city ready to embrace you at any time in your life when you feel able to return its embrace. For Los Angeles-based film critic John Baxter, that moment came when he fell in love with the only French woman who can't cook and impulsively moved to Paris to marry her. As a test of his love, his in-laws charged him with cooking the next Christmas banquet--for eighteen people in their ancestral family home. And he has been dong it ever since

As a bon vivant with an insider's perspective on the City of Light he is regularly sought out for advice on the city's best markets, restaurants, cheese shops and boulangeries-questions that lead to lengthy, anecdote-filled riffs but the question that silences him is "Where can I get a Christmas dinner in Paris?" The answer: almost impossible.

That set him to thinking about his own Paris Christmases. IMMOVEABLE FEAST recalls with great joy his growth from a nearly mute English-speaking diner to Père Noel with an apron as he passionately plans and prepares sumptuous annual feast after feast. This perfect stocking stuffer will inspire you to save at least one American turkey from extinction.

I was trying to find a book here on Amazon about French Christmas cooking when I stumbled upon this book. In fact, I thought there were some recipes in the book, but there is only a vague explanation of a couple dishes. However, that took nothing away from my enjoyment of this wonderful book!

The author's writing was very approachable, and allows the reader to run through the book. The story, however, was amazing and inspirational. It is filled with personal anecdotes from his life as he tells the journey of putting together a Christmas dinner for a traditional French family who knows their way around the kitchen. These short narratives might seem like filler to some, but I thought they were what gave the novel life, from his friend's experience of a Napoleon era wine, his trip to India for spices, and, in particular, his amazing daughter Louise.

While reading this book, Louise reminded me of the light that Pearl brought to the "Scarlet Letter." I am probably over-emphasizing her involvement in the novel, but her sophistication shines through and represents the character of France that is exhibited throughout the novel. Plus, as a 19-year-old, I am able to see how other people of the same age live in other parts of the world.

But, I digress, as the main story is just as fascinating to imagine, which in particular has inspired me to try and replicate such an event, sadly without the Roast Suckling Pig! So, if you are looking for a quick read for the weekend, with an insight into the French and their cooking, I cannot see how you could wrong with A Paris Christmas!

This book IS like a little feast. A savory narrative about French culture and cuisine, peppered with tidbits about Australia, a hint of India and a good measure of the Anglo/American influences on this writer and his love of food.
BUT, don't buy this sweet/piquant morsel based on the Amazon "Product Description." It was written by someone who did NOT read the book.
This is not "a test of love," nor a memoir of Baxter's "yearlong quest... as he visits the farthest corners of France in search of the country's best recipes and ingredients." In other words, this isn't a long culinary travelogue of France -- which would have been a blast.
The author begins to prepare his menu and assemble ingredients not over the space of a year, but during the week before Christmas, with most of the ingredients sought not far and wide, but along a 120km stretch of France's Atlantic coast.
Still, you'll enjoy this very "toothsome" book. Just don't expect the cover to reflect what's actually inside the book. (Hint: this doesn't actually depict a "Paris Christmas" at all.)

Baxter has a wonderfully eclectic mind that will start you off with a shopping list in Paris and end up in the memory of a long ago escapade with a former girlfriend, wife, or fellow writer, as he prepares a most spectacular Christmas meal for his extended French inlaws, all the more remarkable that he (an Australian) should be asked to cook the meal by a family steeped in the culinary and social history of France. The perfect holiday read, or for any winter moment, when you want to curl up and escape fora few hours, not to mention that he gives you interesting historical bits about the various items on his Christmas menu. What distinguishes this from the many other romantic memoirs of Paris now popular, is that it takes you so much further afield (as far as Mumbai, India). The only reason I was glad to get to the end was to be able to share it with others.

A rather disappointing book (I read The Most Beautiful Walk in the World first. The overall story is his preparations for and making of Christmas dinner for the French family he married into. However most of it is him telling us how little he used to know about food. Now he knows about as much as most people likely to be reading this book. It is poorly seasoned with food related anecdotes that seem more like name dropping than contributions to the story or offering of interesting asides. One idiosyncratic feature, Mr Baxter seems never to have heard a story describing a woman or group of women who believe in the medicinal power of swallowing semen that he cannot find a way to fit into the story.

This is the most amazing book being full of how to prepare a special dinner for a demanding French family. How to plan and shop for this special Christmas Meal.

The writer is soooo funny that I found myself laughing out loud. It became embrassing for my cat who thought I was having a cat fit.

This book would make a great movie by focusing upon the shopping, preparing and eating this great Christmas Dinner.

If you like Paris, food and great humorus writing buy this book

Just wanted to give a quick 5 stars to this book. I am enchanted. Reading this book has increased my desire to visit France that much more (if that's possible). MUST READ!!

Let's get a few things straight right up front. First, this book is not about Christmas in Paris. Instead, it recounts a Christmas holiday the author spent at a house that has been in his French wife's family for eons, located in the countryside quite some distance from Paris. Second, the book does not include a lot of useful or concrete information. You will find no recipes, nor even a description of the preparation of this grand Christmas dinner nearly detailed enough to allow a reader to attempt to replicate the meal. When the author does include some concrete information -- about wine for example -- he is just plain wrong. He announces that the 1998 and 2001 vintages in Bordeaux are "widely considered to be the best." Pas du tout. '98 was a very spotty vintage in the Medoc, although reputedly quite good for the merlot-based wines of St. Emilion and Pomerol; while '01, following the heavily hyped and overpriced 2000 vintage, was largely underrated in the press for quite some time and is just now garnering some respect. When author and wife locate a case of 1998 Ch. les Eyquem de Margaux offered at 10 euros at the hypermarche in a nearby town, he observes "this was one of the most respected Bordeaux of the Medoc" and that "one could easily pay 50 euros" for the wine in "a branch of Nicolas," the French wine retailer. Wrong again. Les Eyquem is a small, undistinguished estate that barely rates a mention in Cocks & Feret; and the wine should typically sell for 10 euros to 15 euros a bottle at retail -- anything more would be an astounding rip off. The author also tells us, at one point, that the oysters he bought days before his Christmas dinner will be just reaching their peak of perfection when Christmas dinner rolls around. Vraiment?

So why the four stars? Because, like a Hostess cupcake, the book somehow manages to take a hodgepodge of undistinguished ingredients and combine them into an irresistible, albeit guilty pleasure. As the author rambles on amiably about his first wife, his childhood in Australia, how he met his French second wife "Marie-Do" and pulled up stakes to join her in Paris, how he learned to love and be loved by her idiosyncratic family, the book becomes as warm and comfortable as an old shawl -- and as pleasantly nostalgic as the cheap factory made, cellophane wrapped chocolate cupcake with the white sugary squiggle on top.

It's skillfully done and the perfect book to take along to read by the fire when you're spending a winter holiday with your own friends and relations far from home.

John Baxter is a new favorite author. He writes in a warm, conversational style that is a pleasure to read. He is also writing about one of my favorite cities in the world, Paris. It is very clear that he too loves Paris. He is an insider, not a tourist. He is married to a French woman and because of this is now part of a large extended French family. Reading this book one gets a feel for what life would be like in his world. He writes with humor and a love of the people and places of France. His work is a delight.

Terrific, quick read...loved all the fun memories brought to mind as I traveled thourgh this Immoveable Feast!
Whether you have visited Paris in person or in your dreams, this is one enjoyable read.