Customer Reviews

Vie de France: Sharing Food, Friendship, and a Kitchen in the Loire Valley

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In 1996 having celebrated his sixtieth birthday in Maine, renowned chef James Haller, wary of the kitchen, decides to R & R in the French Loire Valley. He and friends rent a seventeenth century home in Savonnieres. Six people including James would stay the entire month that they have leased the property for while other friends will come by for shorter duration.

The house combined the best of history with much of modern day convenience. The company was companionable both those staying in the house and the locals whose fresh foods at the markets provided James an invigorating regeneration and though he planned not to cook one meal the motivated chef was soon doing all the cooking.

Though the recipes are what readers might expect from the author-chef, the key to this uplifting biographical month is how important friendship is to the human condition. France furbishes the atmosphere that rejuvenated a tired James. VIE DE FRANCE: SHARING FOOD, FRIENDSHIP, AND A KITCHEN IN THE LOIRE VALLEY is an inspirational toast to the stimulation of camaraderie that is a human need in order to live precious life to the fullest.

Harriet Klausner

If you feel the need to experience France, but cannot afford it, just pick up this book, read it, and you will instantly be transported there. I read it quite often.

It's hard to know where to begin critiquing this dreadful book, but suffice it to say if my middle schooler had turned this in as a "What I Did On My Vacation" essay, I'd have failed him.
From the completely uninspired writing style to the astonishing errors in French spelling and terminology to the unsavory and repetitive recipes, it's just one big, sophomoric exercise.
Readers, I dare you to count how many times "Chef" Haller writes "I sautéed [sometimes with the accent mark, and sometimes without] some green beans in olive oil and a bit of garlic." How about that recipe for "French toast" that he repeats verbatim twice? Does a real chef actually use "cheap red wine that we bought just for cooking"?
I don't know whether to blame him or his editor, or both, for the remarkable number of spelling errors (framboisse, fois gras, marguez) or the factual mistakes ("We drank a bottle of Badouit, a local mineral water"; "cassoulet actually comes from the Provence region"), but someone should take the rap.
Take all this phony "knowledge" gleaned by an absolute amateur on a one-time, one-month trip to France and pair it with a penchant for walking readers through recipes as though they were in Montessori school ("First I chopped last night's turkey into bite-sized pieces and put those pieces into a large cast iron pot I found on the second shelf of the pantry" - OK, I fabricated that, but that's what it's like reading this guy), and you have one big snore of a book.

I'm a fan of these types of travel books, and while I bought this one with no recommendations other than Amazon users' reviews, I was thorougly happy with my purchase. It was a lovely read, I felt like I was there in France with them, it just made me happy and mellow. A wonderful escape from reality.

This is a thoroughly entertaining and interesting account of the author's month in France. He and his friends had a great time, just as I did when I read it. His comments and observations make me want to rent the same house sometime. I re-lived the year I lived in a different part of France.

I just finished reading it and I was charmed. The book, a day by day description of a monthlong visit to the Loire Valley, is funny, interesting, touching and hopeful. I feel like I've just had a wonderful vacation with good friends. Reading it also made me want to try some of the delicious meals described in the book. Mr. Haller makes it sound so easy for anyone to be a terrific, creative cook. I envy him his ease. This is a perfect book for a lazy afternoon read.

I could sense the intense friendship of Chef Haller's fellow sojourners, I envied their enjoyment of his brilliant cooking, and I could feel the Loire Valley sunshine that beamed from every page.

Charles J. Ippolito, M.D.
(New York City)

You can almost taste the buttery brie and smell the crisp baguettes baking in chef James Hallers book, "Vie de France".

Haller and a group of friends rented a lovely home in Savonnieres a small town in the Loire Valley for a month. The beauty of the area, availability of fine fresh food and warmth of good companions inspired Haller to share the time he spent in the region.

In "Vie De France", Haller describes how he and his friends enjoyed their days, looking for antiques, exploring the marketplace and soaking up the atmosphere.

Haller is an award winning chef and author of several cookbooks. He loves to eat, cook and shop for food. He relishes food and this radiates throughout the book. In each chapter, he shares mouthwatering morsels of the food he feasted on. He describes dishes he made using fresh, local ingredients and dishes he enjoyed at casual cafes and fancy restaurants.

Haller walks you through the marketplace where he selects from four aisles of cheeses. You will pick from the freshest vegetables displayed like jewels. The butcher cuts your meat to order as you wait. In the patisserie the variety of breads, candies and pastries delight the eye. It's hard to decide between a "crusty round pain de compagnes" or a hearty wheat bread.

Back in the kitchen, Haller prepares tasty dishes using natural, healthy ingredients like creamy French butter, olive oil, herbes de Provence and garlic. The delicious recipes he makes are interspersed throughout the book. Recipes included range from the simple - french toast baguette with an apricot sauce to the more complex - turkey cutlets stuffed with a mushroom pilaf in a white wine and sorrel cream sauce. Other recipes included range from the common - grilled meat and a nice green salad to the more unusual - baked snails in butter, lemon and parsley.

The dining experience usually includes a fine red wine and a dessert. Desserts range from light to rich. A decadent creme caramel ends a simple soup and salad meal. Chocolate with hazelnuts tops a meal of sausage and red wine ragout. An apricot lavender tart completes a roast chicken stuffed with cassoulet. A table of menus at the beginning of the book makes finding the recipes easy.

In "Vie De France" Haller will create his moroccan olive salad or fresh tomatoes in basil dressing for your enjoyment. You will tour the countryside perhaps stopping for a glass of red wine at the local cafe. You may stop at the antique shop and find a special piece of pottery or pay a visit to the patisserie and pick up a fresh baked apple tart. You will savor the fresh food, beautiful views and good friends.

Lee Mellott

This is a great little travel book about a group of Americans spending a month in a rental in the Loire Valley. It is fun and easy to read. It is a book about the adventures of this group of fun loving Americans encountering their new environment. It is refreshing that this is not a book about people thinking and reporting that everything they see is great and the best in the world. It does not have a jaded attitude, just a sympathetic one. It is a story of people enjoying themselves, wanting to learn but yet never losing themselves. It does not look down on the new people they have met. It is not a sermon about France. It does not have an attitude of superiority that this is the way you must see France. It does not look down on those who may be less adventurous and less traveled. It is just a fun book about people enjoying France, making mistakes, learning and reflecting. Wonderful travel attitude that is. The author also offered brief recipes of the daily meals he cooked for his group while in France. Most would probably enjoy learning more about the cuisine of the region. Small regret.

I have to agree with "Grammarians" sentiments. This book is one of the most poorly written texts I've ever read, and I could not get through it, I'm very sad to say. Sincerely sad, as the subject matter alone - the environs of the Loire, and the idea of a month with friends in a house in Savonnières - should have given the author a good head start, if he had either the ability (or the desire) to write beyond - no other way to say it - a creative writing exercise for a class of singularly ungifted late teens on imposed continuing ed. One too many episodes of the author "craning his neck" to "fix his gaze" on flowers with "intense yellow faces" or otherwise "dripping with color" left me groaning.

Add to this the notion that his opening cooking gambit of "potatoes roasted in garlic, zucchini in dill and butter, green beans fried in bacon" apparently left diners rising in a "round of applause," with local newspapers "raving about the new restaurant in Portsmouth," well...I couldn't go on, particularly when a quick glance through the "Menu" offerings of the month in the Loire apparently included such banalities as "Chowder Francais with Croutons Provencal," "New Potatoes Fried with Cabbage," "Green Beans in Garlic and Olive Oil," or "Fresh Strawberries on Vanilla Ice Cream."

The writer seems like a nice man, and I truly regret I couldn't get behind this, apparently his offering to himself for his 60th birthday. I tried; I honestly tried. But the chasm between the promise - intimations of a culinary experience swathed in friendship and Loire terroir - and the delivery, was insurmountable.