From Paris to Provence — Childhood Memories of Food and France

Paris to Provence is a culinary travelogue of separate summers spent in France, interweaving a collection of simple recipes with evocative memories and stories of those years.

“This beautiful memoire will beguile everyone who loves France and should be essential reading for anyone going there for the first time. Ethel and Sara have

captured a beloved place through the rosy, whimsical, wacky, tender, and honest lens of childhood. Forget three-star dining and luxury travel; this is the France that I

love and remember with pleasure. The recipes are simple and soul satisfying—from cafe fare and home cooking to street food and a village feast. I was enchanted

with the evocative photos and charmed by every memory.”

—Alice Medrich, author of Sinfully Easy Delicious Desserts

“To read Paris to Provence is to take a beautiful and wonderfully nostalgic journey to the France of my childhood, the France of sweet dreams. If you’ve ever had your soul

captured by the magic that exists in the lighter side of la France profonde, and if you have a sensitivity toward joyful moments created around food, family, and

friends, then Paris to Provence is for you. It’s a lovely book filled with classic and simple yet delicious French recipes. Somebody needs to open a restaurant here in the

United States that uses this book to inspire its menu. I’d eat there at least once a week!”

—William Widmaier, author of A Feast at the Beach

Ethel and Sara beguile you with recipes and stories from their summer childhoods as they traveled with their respective families from Paris to Provence. In markets, cafes, truck stops, bakeries, bistros, and French family homes, the girls experienced their first taste of France, re-created here through recipes, stories, and photographs.

Inspired by her memories of truck stop lunches sitting next to tables of grizzled truckers, Ethel gives us Steak au Poivre a la Sauce aux Morilles (pepper steak with morels). Sara’s whimsical game of using her asparagus as soldiers’ spears to guard her food from her sister is the source of her recipe for Les Soldats (soft-boiled eggs and fresh asparagus spears). Lingering over late-night dinners

with grown-ups and listening in on their stories of the resistance and wild boar hunts inspired Ethel’s recipe for Fraises au Vin Rouge (strawberries in red wine syrup). Rosemary and its powerful scent, first discovered by Sara while hiking with her family in the Luberon Mountains in the south of France, infuses her recipe for Cotes d’Agneau Grillees au Romarin (grilled lamb chops with rosemary). From Iles Flottantes (poached meringues in creme anglaise) to Escargots (snails in garlic butter), and from Merguez (spicy grilled lamb sausage patties) to Ratatouille (summer vegetable stew), each recipe reflects Sara and Ethel’s childhood experiences in Paris and Provence. Sixty thoughtful, simple, and traditionally French dishes complemented by over one hundred luscious photographs will send you to

your kitchen, and maybe even to France.

Ethel Brennan is a writer and photography stylist. When she was a child, she and her family lived in Provence, where her parents owned a goat cheese farm. Although her family returned to California while she was still young, most of her childhood summers were spent traveling in France from Paris to the rustic countryside of Provence where her parents kept the farmhouse. She is now based in San Francisco and travels frequently to France with her twin boys and French husband. She is the author of Herbes de Provence, Baby Gifts and co-author of Citrus, Sun Dried Tomatoes, Goat Cheese, A Children’s Kitchen Garden and most recently At the Farmers’ Market with Kids.





Sara Remington is an award-winning food and travel photographer based in San Francisco. She has photographed over 30 cookbooks, including The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook by Rachel Saunders, My Calabria by Rosetta Costantino, The Mozza Cookbook by Nancy Silverton, The Wild Table by Connie Green, Plum Gorgeous by Romney Steele, and Vino Argentino by Laura Catena. She was nominated for a James Beard Award for her photography in The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook and continues to travel the globe shooting for publishing companies, editorials, and advertising. Her work is inspired by the tactile and visual experiences of her childhood road trips in the United States and France.