Harriet Welty Rochefort Volgorde van de boeken

"Spring 1944: Betrayed by her collaborationist husband, Séverine Sevanot travels from Paris to her beloved hometown in southwest France. Séverine's friends and family have urged her no to go: the region is a tinderbox where the French are fighting not only the Nazis, but their own countrymen who support the pro-German Vichy regime. Séverine ignores the advice. She always does exactly what she wants. Summer 1994: To mark the 50th anniversary of D-Day, an American reporter interviews 85-year-old Caroline Aubry, Séverine's sister. Caroline tells of fleeing the Germans by taking to the road in May 1940, then returning to a Paris that has been overrun by Germans flirting with young French girls, playing oom-pah band music in the parks, and imposing strict rationing on the city while keeping the best food and wine for themselves. What Caroline omits is a story she has never revealed, even to her son Félix. Now, though, unsettled by the interview and the memories it evokes, Caroline decides that it is time for Félix to learn the secrets of the past ..."--Back cover

Peter Mayle may have spent a year in Provence, but Harriet Welty Rochefort writes from the wise perspective of one who has spent more than twenty years living among the French. From a small town in Iowa to the City of Light, Harriet has done what so many of dream of one day doing-she picked up and moved to France. But it has not been twenty years of fun and games; Harriet has endured her share of cultural bumps, bruises, and psychic adjustments along the way. In French Toast, she shares her hard-earned wisdom and does as much as one woman can to demystify the French. She makes sense of their ever-so-French thoughts on food, money, sex, love, marriage, manners, schools, style, and much more. She investigates such delicate matters as how to eat asparagus, how to approach Parisian women, how to speak to merchants, how to drive, and, most important, how to make a seven-course meal in a silk blouse without an apron! Harriet's first-person account offers both a helpful reality check and a lot of very funny moments.