Colette Rossant

Cairo, 1937: French-born Colette Rossant is waiting out World War II among her father's Egyptian-Jewish relatives. From the moment she arrives at her grandparents' belle époque mansion by the Nile, the five-year-old Colette finds companionship and comfort among the other "outsiders" in her home away from home -- the cooks and servants in the kitchen. The chef, Ahmet, lets Colette taste the ful; she learns how to make sambusaks for her new friends; and she shops for semits and other treats in the Khan-al-Khalili market. Colette is beginning to understand how her family's culture is linked to the kitchen...and soon she will claim Egypt's food, landscape, and people as her own. Apricots on the Nile is a loving testament to Colette's adopted homeland. With dozens of original recipes and family photographs, Colette's coming-of-age memoir is a splendid exploration of old Cairo in all its flavor, variety, and wide-eyed wonder.

A Memoir with Recipes

Apricots on the Nile

1947 and Paris is recovering from the war. Abandoned by her mother, lonely, frightened and terribly homesick, Colette finds solace in her love for French food - roasted lamb stuffed with garlic, springtime strawberries bathed in creme fraiche, the first taste of truffle in a Left Bank restaurant.

Return to Paris

A James Beard Award-winning food writer describes her rise to a starring role on a PBS television series, work as New York magazine's "Underground Gourmet," and family culinary adventures throughout the world. By the author of Return to Paris and Apricots on the Nile. 20,000 first printing.

The Adventures of a (mostly) French Woman in New York

The World in My Kitchen

It is 1955, and Colette Rossant, newly married, has just arrived in America with her husband Jimmy. She is twenty-two, a Frenchwoman in New York, bemused by American customs and most importantly by the food: the limp sandwiches, the ubiquitous mayonnaise, the iceberg lettuce. But post-war New York is bristling with energy, and Colette and Jimmy discover a whole new world in Greenwich Village: theatre and avant-garde cinema, farmers' markets and Jewish delis. Colette slowly falls in love with her adopted country, relishing the brisket sandwiches at Katz's, the exquisite dim sum in Chinatown and the Italian pastries in Mulberry Street. When Jimmy and Colette buy a house downtown on Sullivan Street, Colette finds a place she can truly call home. Sullivan Street in the late sixties is still deeply Italian, with stern mamas and their Mafioso boys and cafés that double up at night as gambling dens. While Jimmy beautifully restores their run-down town house, Colette begins to charm her suspicious neighbours. It is in this house that Jimmy and Colette raise their four children and where Colette progresses from being a passionate cook to an acclaimed food writer. Madeleines in Manhattanis the story of her journey from young housewife to successful professional, from the romantic early days of marriage to grandmotherhood. Colette Rossant has a unique ability to conjure up her memories through food. Just as she brought to life the Cairo of the thirties (Apricots on the Nile) and post-war Paris (Return to Paris), now she brings her inimitable magic to New York.

Madeleines in Manhattan

In 1947, as Paris recovers from the war, young Colette returns to the city of her birth after eight years spent among warmhearted Egyptian relatives in Cairo. Initially Paris seems gray and forbidding to the young Colette, especially after her mother abandons her to the disinterested care of her stern grandmother. Yet Paris will prove the place where Colette awakens to her senses. Her transformation from "l'Egyptienne" to "la Parisienne" begins when she is taken under the wing of the family cook. Georgette, who introduces Colette to the city's markets and inspires a love and talent for French cooking. The streets of Paris soon become Colette's own as she navigates to and from her lycee -- occasionally skipping class altogether, thus beginning a decades-long habit of making room for adventure in an otherwise disciplined life. Colette is sixteen when her mother returns with a new husband, and although initially suspicious of the round man with the twinkling eyes, she soon realizes she has a soul mate in Almire Ducreux, her new stepfather. Mira introduces Colette to her first truffle and her gastronomical self. He will also be the only one to support her when she falls in love and runs away with a young American, scandalizing her proper French family. With Return to Paris, Colette Rossant proves herself the true heir of M. F. K. Fisher. In clear, understated prose she writes of a life lived and enjoyed passionately. Memories and family stories segue gracefully into descriptions of great meals and recipes. This is food writing at its finest. Book jacket.

A Memoir

In 1937 at the age of five, Colette Rossant leaves Paris to live with her grandparents in Egypt, soon settling into their luxuriant, food-centred lifestyle. She returns to Paris at 15, only revisiting Egypt 30 years later. In this memoir, she evokes an Egypt lost, to her and to us, forever.

Geared to today's health-conscious society, this kosher cookbook contains more than one hundred recipes that strictly adhere to traditional Jewish dietary laws

New Kosher Cooking

Paul Bocuse

Lorraine Davis

The New Cuisine

Designed for working people and sophisticated cooks with scant time, this cookbook provides recipes for more than 350 imaginative recipes that require a minimum of time and preparation

Colette Rossant

About

Books

Join the club