Coquilles, Calva and Creme

"Coquilles, Calva, & Creme is largely a book to dream over,a catalogue of refined pleasure, a chronicle of fabulous restaurants and famous acquaintances. If you're a Francophile, oenophile or gourmet, you can certainly find an escape to a better world in Coquilles, Calva, & Creme." -- Michael Dirda - The Washington Post "Dryansky apparently still thinks that traditional French cooking is something worth seeking out and enjoying and helping to preserve. Thank goodness. Coquilles, Calva, & Creme is an evocation of the kind of cooking that made French food famous in the first place. A witty, richly textured memoir." -- Coleman Andrews - The Wall Street Journal "French food and travel with a dash of history-what a treat it is to sit at the table with this smart, engaging writer. A delicious read from start to finish." -- Barbara Fairchild, winner of the James Beard Award, editor emeritus of Bon Appetit "A nutritious, delicious stew of a book. Coquilles, Calva and Creme is a thoughtful, informative commentary on the history of French cuisine. And it is a cookbook, with recipes for the most beloved, most characteristic, or most succulent dishes from most of the regions of France. More than anything, this is a book about integrity-in cooking, in journalism, in life-and about the importance of holding onto it in the face of pressures that are constantly working to undermine it." -- Janet Hulstrand - Bonjour Paris "Has France lost its culinary edge? After decades living and chronicling the good life in Paris and overseas, Gerry and Joanne Dryansky lead us to unsung chefs still championing the country's gourmand heritage." -- Gael Greene, bestselling author Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess and InsatiableCritic.com, winner of the James Beard Award "Gerry and Joanne Dryansky's book is a lovely ramble through a lifetime of experiences in France's high spots and some low ones too. Reading it brings as many delights as a marvelous long meal." -- Patricia Wells, celebrated food author, winner of the James Beard Award "I had the incredible good luck to have dozens and dozens of French meals with Gerry and Joanne Dryansky, and he was never wrong. I mean, never. We would travel down some little street, some little restaurant, and then, delight, pure pleasure. I was back years and years to a far more delicious France. And now, he tells all. There's nobody I know, in Paris or in New York, who understands French food the way Gerry does. And surely nobody who writes about it as well as he does." -- Alan Furst, bestselling author of Mission to Paris "Tuck this delicious tome in your hamper between Proust's madeleines and the champagne-then feast your soul. The Dryanskys remind us that in France - at least sometimes and in some places - authenticity still rhymes with simplicity, and great writing makes a fine relish." -- David Downie, author of Paris to the Pyrenees and the Terroir food series "Congratulations to Dryansky. It was a great pleasure to read his text, both so well documented and free of polemics." -- Christian Millau, co-founder of Le Guide GaultMillau, herald and godfather of "La Nouvelle Cuisine" in France "Coquilles, Calva, and Creme vividly brings back my years of working in Paris in the 1950s. When I contemplate my cooking journey of the last half century, from classic to nouvelle, from fusion to modern American to molecular, the only reminiscences I have is of food that touches my soul or makes me salivate. Gerry Dryansky writes honestly and eloquently about these simple, honest, essential dishes in his engaging, compelling, and delicious memoir." -- Jacques Pepin, celebrity TV chef, James Beard Award winner.