Customer Reviews

Tarte Tatin

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

 

 

In "On Rue Tatin" Susan Loomis talks about what she doesn't quite describe as her love affair with France: how she studied cooking in Paris, how she worked there, how she and her husband bought and refurbished a house in the northern part of the country. In "Tarte Tatin," she sets up her own cooking school at home, and continues the story of her life as an expatriate. For some reason this volume read a little long to me, and I think perhaps it's because there wasn't much new in it: I would have loved to hear more about the vagaries of setting up her own business -- and in a foreign country yet -- and less about, say, the smelly dog the family didn't keep, or her toddler daughter announcing that she was "going to Pehwis (Paris)." Baby talk should be spoken only by babies; it should never be duplicated! And what's understandably cute for parents isn't always as entertaining for the rest of us. I probably would have enjoyed hearing less about Ms. Loomis' family and more about dealing with her customers, or her experiences in the kitchen.

Still, there's a lot of charm and just pure enjoyable escapism in reading about life in a French village, and as always, the recipes included at the end of each chapter are a real bonus. The book is definitely worth a look, although it's not as enchanting as its prequel.

Very disappointing, the only good thing in it is the food. It's terribly condescending and author's ego is all over the place. But the most annoying part is that while it claims on the back that this is a book about a cooking school and anyone about to open a small business should read it, this is not the case at all. She only talks about the school a bit at the beginning and then we are just left with her life, her view of the French, which is not very exciting, and an awful lot of adjectives.

I've read and own a couple of Susan Loomis' books, including "On Rue Tatin" and her "Great American Farm Cookbook." I really like both a lot. "On Rue Tatin" paints an interesting look at how she and her husband embark on a new life in France. I expected that "Tarte Tatin" would be a sequel to this story and in some ways it is but there's an edge to this book that I don't thin is in her first book about moving to France. This book repeats a lot of what's in the first book but without the same spirit. This book also seems to leave out some information. For instance, her husband is a sculptor and yet she doesn't mention this until almost the end of the book (she makes references to his work but never identifies what it is). Although she writes kindly about him, there's an edge her that makes him seem marginalized, secondary to her. I read last night that they are now divorced and after reading this book I wasn't surprised. In fact, I wonder if that doesn't explain some of the edge here. At some points this book seems to devolve into lists and some of her comments about her neighbors and vendors at the farmer's market just seem unkind and maybe unfounded. For instance, she suggests that French men aren't manly enough since the own small dogs instead of Huskies. If she'd pointed out that this was probably because she was a US American, I don't think I'd have a problem but the way she writes sounds judgmental and ethnocentric. I do think the second half of the book is better than the first and she writes movingly of what is was like to experience 9/11 in France. However, my advice is to stick with "On Rue Tatin." It's a better book and you will like her better (I think...I guess I will see what I think if I reread it someday).