Melissa Clark Shows You How To Bring The Flavors Of France To Your Table

The New York Times columnist Melissa Clark demystifies French food for the home cook in her new cookbook, Dinner in French.

“I can’t really speak French, but I cook in French. The merging of French food with the food I grew up eating in Brooklyn is the foundation of how I approach cooking — and the raison d’être of this book. None of this would have happened if my great-aunt Martha and Uncle Jack hadn’t dragged my parents on a trip to Europe. My dad, whose ideal vacation up until that point was fishing in the Catskills, didn’t want to go. But they went, and fell hard for France. My parents went back every year, first by themselves, and then with my sister and me in tow.

When we weren’t cooking, we were planning our next meal, chasing the daily markets from small town to even smaller towns, revelling in the figs, the sausages and the incredible cheeses we couldn’t get at home. These recipes are quirky and personal, seasoned with a dose of Brooklyn moxie to augment all that buttery haute cuisine. It’s all rooted in my New York-Jewish-Francophile DNA. And my cooking ends up playfully and unmistakably French. At our house, the conversation might be in English, but dinner is in French.”