Bonjour, mes amis! If you’ve visited this blog before, perhaps you’ve already noticed I’ve added a home splash page with info about my novel, which is being published in February. (And when I say “I’ve added,” I mean my very talented graphic designer friend Anna Tunick added it.)

If you dislike change (and trust me, I’m with you on that one) and you’d like to bypass the splash page to visit the blog directly, go to this link and bookmark it under your favorites.

Thanks, as always, for reading! I’ll be back soon with a post on pets of Paris!

UPDATED: Oh my goodness, Publishers Weekly just reviewed Kitchen Chinese. I am weeping tears of joy! Here it is:

Kitchen Chinese Ann Mah. Avon, $13.99 paper (368p) ISBN 978-0-06-177127-9
After her magazine career craters, Isabelle Lee, the narrator of Mah’s super sharp debut, leaves New York to reconnect with her family roots in China. Her familiarity with the language and culture limited to “kitchen Chinese,” Isabelle lands a job at a magazine for the expatriate community in Beijing and finds a circle of friends. However, her relationship with her big-shot attorney sister, Claire, who’s lived in China for a while, gets off to a rocky start, with the two not knowing quite what to make of each other. Isabelle’s Beijing immersion, coupled with her chick lit arc, provides a refreshing and fun narrative, helped along by a fantastic heroine whose insights into modern China and the expatriate experience will intrigue readers. It’s a great start for a writer with much promise. (Feb.)

I’d been feeling pretty confident about my French. I know it’s silly, but we all have our petty vanities. And I’ve worked really hard to learn this fickle language. Don’t get me wrong — it’s far, far, far from perfect. But considering that eighteen months ago I couldn’t even count higher than 69, and now I’m perfectly capable of having (admittedly, slightly airheaded) conversations, I was feeling pretty proud. Too proud. One might even say, cocky.

But then the other day, while I was renewing my gym membership, I got my comeuppance. See, to renew your gym membership you need to take a new photo, and to take a new photo you have to jieoto ksieo kejro mboeir wielra wivowie, madame?

Yes, that’s right, I didn’t understand a word she said. I was pretty frustrated about it, too. My face went blank as I tried to figure it out, and failed miserably. There was a pause that seemed to last an hour, and finally, I said, “Comment?” What?

And, in response, she laughed at me. In my face. And then she looked at her colleagues and they all laughed at me too. And I thought, Oh, so this is where all the snotty French people hang out. Behind the welcome desk of the Club Med sports club.

Eventually someone else took pity on me and took my photo. In which I look like I’m about to punch someone.

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Do you dream about dessert? Evidently, pâtissier Philippe Conticini does. The French media has been raving about his new shop, La Pâtisserie des rêves, so I skipped over there last weekend for a little look-see-taste. Oh, it’s a tough life, let me tell you.

The first thing I noticed were the glass domes. Or, as Sylvia Plath would call them, the bell jars. They encase each displayed pastry like it’s a crown jewel — unfortunately, on the rainy Saturday of my visit, this led to some unattractive condensation (photo above).
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Last week, I felt honored to be included in a special, private tour of Versailles by night. I’ve been interested in the 17th-century palace since I read this biography of Marie Antoinette, and saw Sophia Coppola’s film, but seeing its grandeur bathed in nocturnal shadows was both spooky and poignant. What did I see?
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Bonjour, mes amis, and please forgive me for today’s shameless self promotion! But I’m so thrilled to share this new blurb for my novel, Kitchen Chinese, from Franco-American culinary doyenne, former restaurant critic for the International Herald Tribune, and cookbook author, Patricia Wells:

“Ann Mah’s richly detailed Kitchen Chinese is humorous enough to make you laugh out loud, and so delicious you are sure to begin craving Peking duck and dim sum. A true tale of reinventing oneself in a new and foreign world.”

–Patricia Wells, author of We’ll Always Have Paris… and Provence

I’ve long been an admirer of Patricia Wells and especially love her cookbooks At Home in Provence and Vegetable Harvest. I feel extremely honored by her kind words and touched by her support of my novel.

For more news about my book, including more blurbs and a brief description, please click here. Or, pre-order the book on Amazon, which would thrill me to bits!

And last but not least, thanks, as always, for YOUR support, mes amis! My heart is full.

UPDATE: Click here to read an interview with me that just ran in Publishers Weekly!

Have you ever had chocolate for breakfast? I did on Friday when my friend, Anna, and I visited Paris’s annual Salon du Chocolat. What is it?

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Bonjour, mes amis, and welcome to another edition of Q&A. Today we are thrilled to welcome Patricia Tanumihardja, author of The Asian Grandmother’s Cookbook. Pat interviewed dozens of grannies for the book, writing down their recipes and cooking tips in an effort to honor these “culinary flame-keepers.” The result is a book that collects more than 130 recipes from over twenty different Asian cultures. We chatted with Pat about ubiquitous Asian granny ingredients, tapping into the grandma network, and her favorite granny cooking tips.

What drew you to write about Asian grandmothers and their recipes?

I really can’t take credit for the idea since it was my publisher’s. However, the idea instantly appealed to me because I never knew my grandmothers and I think that deep down in my heart I’ve been seeking the grandma-granddaughter bond I never had. I remember when I was growing up I was always envious of my friends who had grandmas living at home with them or just a short drive away who cooked for them, gave them sage advice and, of course, lots of gifts!

Did you discover a common thread (or secret ingredient) that ties these women together?

Love. It was what motivated each and every one of them. These women cooked for their families even though many of them worked outside of the home, even when they were struggling to survive because of war or financial hardship. I believe food and language are the two most important elements in keeping a culture alive. Grandmothers are the closest link to their homeland, they tried to keep the culinary flame alive for their children and especially grandchildren who most likely have no memory of their homeland.

Soy sauce and fish sauce were ubiquitous ingredients! Don’t even get me started on the different varieties though …
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When it comes to French vocabulary, there are two areas that I don’t think I’ll ever master: 1) fish and/or seafood names, and 2) mushrooms.

French fish names remain exceedingly slippery, especially if one (ahem, me) is not that familiar with fish terms in English. For example:

Cod is cabillaud, except when it’s salted, when it’s morue.

Sea bass is bar, except in the south of France, where it’s called loup de mer.

Shrimp can come disguised as so many words: There is the widely acknowledged crevette. But also boucaud (tiny shrimp of one to two inches), gamba (we call them jumbo shrimp), or the eternally amusing bouquet (three to four inches), which will be forever burned into my memory, thanks to my dining humiliation, er, experience of a few weeks ago. (Read about it here.)

See what I mean?

Mushrooms are even more difficult. For one thing, have you ever noticed that we Anglophones tend to stick to non-English (furren) words when discussing mushrooms? Shiitake. Enoki. Portabella.

In French, white, or button, mushrooms are called champignon. Then again, all mushrooms are champignons.

Chanterelle are called girolle in French. Which is funny, because I thought “chanterelle” was French.

Morel (another word I thought was French) — morille.

And porcini? They’re known as cèpes (photo above).

I finally figured out enough fungi phraseology to purchase some cèpes at the market last week. They weren’t cheap — the two small specimens above cost 4€ — but they were delicious, with a distinct perfume, earthy and rich. I bet they’d be good in an omelette, or sauteed with a bit of butter and parsley. But I used them in a potato gratin, layering thin slices of potato with slivers of cèpe, drizzling with olive oil and baking in a 400ºF oven for about 25-30 minutes.
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I just heard the news. According to this New York Times report, after 68 years, Gourmet magazine will cease publication in November. I can scarcely type for shock. No more impractical-but-sumptuous menus. No more messily gorgeous food photography — the most beautiful in the business. No more eye-opening travel pieces.

Writing for Gourmet was always my dream, the glossy magazine at the pinnacle of my aspirations. Now, I’ll never have that chance, tant pis. What’s even sadder, is that the food world has lost a veritable grande dame, an authority of taste and things that taste good.

What’s next? The New Yorker?!

In my Paris apartment building, there are the neighbors who I greet in the hallway, and then there are those who I’ve never met, but who I know a lot about. I’m talking about the guy who lives across the cour, or courtyard. His kitchen window faces my kitchen window, and we often prepare dinner at the same time. He looks very pleasant, perhaps a few years older than me, quite bald, it must be said, and with a chic goatee.

Of course, I’m not the first person to notice their neighbor across the courtyard — hello, Rear Window. But I must admit that I am astonishingly uncurious about this neighbor of mine. (Astonishing, that is, for someone as preternaturally nosy as I usually am.) No, I don’t really want to know anything about Monsieur Voisin. Mainly, I think, because I don’t really want him to know anything about me.

Despite myself, here is what I’ve noticed:

–He lives alone.
–He likes to eat dinner at 8pm.
–He cooks with the window open.
–He’s often away on the weekend — possibly has house in the country?
–He goes away for the entire month of August.

Even though I’m not searching for any more details about Monsieur Voisin, I do like seeing him bustle about his kitchen as I bustle about mine. He has a big, yellow lamp with a paper shade, and it makes me happy when his windows glow. It’s sort of like we’re cooking together, two people who will never meet (I hope), connected by the minutia of our daily existence.

Here are some photos of the market’s early autumn produce, and a recipe for my new favorite autumn dessert, roasted figs. What can I say? It seems neighborly to share them with you.
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