L'Appart: The Delights and Disasters of Making My Paris Home

(Paperback)

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Description

Bestselling author and world-renowned chef David Lebovitz continues to mine the rich subject of his evolving ex-pat life in Paris, now in paperback, using his maddening experiences in apartment renovation as a launching point for stories about French culture, food, and what it means to revamp one's life. Dozens of new recipes are included. When David Lebovitz decided to buy and update an apartment in his adopted home city, he never imagined he would encounter so much inexplicable red tape while contending with the famously inconsistent European work ethic and hours. Lebovitz maintains his distinctive sense of humor with the help of his partner, Romain, peppering this renovation story with recipes from his award-winning Paris kitchen. In the midst of it all, he reveals the adventure that accompanies carving out a place for yourself in a foreign country-under absurd conditions-while never losing sight of the magic that inspired him to move to the City of Light many years ago and to truly make his home there.

Reviews

An NPR Best Book of 2017

The best thing about this book is that David writes as he talks so it is like having a long conversation with a good friend. Equal parts honest, intriguing, distressing, entertaining, funny and appetizing. Pour yourself a glass of French wine, grab a nibble and cozy up to a great night with a great book.
Washington Post

Smartly arch.
New York Times Book Review

David Lebovitz hilariously recounts the ups and downs of buying an apartment in the City of Light. Readers will relate to Lebovitzs exploits, from Ikea fails to bureaucratic foibles.
Real Simple

Food lovers and travelers alike will fall in love with every single one of the magically charming stories David skillfully recounts.
Departures Magazine

Painfully funny... typically charming and occasionally a touch risqu.
Christian Science Monitor

Pastry chef David Lebovitz brings his conversational and often wry, self-deprecating voice to his latest book LAppart.
Eater

The book may make you want to never so much as replace a cabinet in your home ever again, but at the same time, it will give you a realistic, yet, somehow still appealing view of what life as a Parisian is really like.
Signature

In aworld filled with angst, natural disasters, and politicalstrife, Lebovitzs writing provides a delicious escape.
NUVO

Each of the short chapters offers a brief, humorous, occasionally cringe-inducing glimpse into some aspect of the home-buying and remodeling odyssey on which Lebovitz embarks. . . . He expresses true affection both for his adopted home in Paris and for the American values that shape his own outlook and approach.
BookReporter.com

Lebovitz's stories shimmer with despair, distress, and regret, but he nevertheless embraces life with all its flaws in the city he loves.
Publishers Weekly

Lighthearted... with healthy dashes of satire, wit, and humoran engaging, entertaining, and delicious divertissement.
Kirkus Reviews

Francophile Americans will learn plenty here about Parisian Frenchs often mystifying idioms. Recipes conclude chapters and range from simple chocolate cookies to complex kouign-amman, Brittanys ultrarich, caramelized version of a croissant.
Booklist

David captures the torturous travails of apartment renovationin the City of Light with humor and acumen. 'Pas de problme,' he's told time and again as the renovation derails. He is as alert to details ofparquetand working with anotaireas he is with recipes for tarte tatin and quiche, both included here. This memoir brings fans of David even closer to the happy life he's built for himself in Paris.
Jacques Ppin, chef, author, and PBS-TV cooking show host

This book is so entertaining and so deliciously told that I could just gobble it all up in one sitting. As always, David Lebovitz managed to draw me into his scrumptious universe with a million poignant observations and countless of laugh-out-loud moments.
Yotam Ottolenghi, author ofJerusalem, Plenty,andSweet

Written in lovely, lucid prose, the story of David's endeavor to make a home for himself in Paris is unflinchingly honest, often poignant, and frequently hilarious. As he astutely perceives, the great gift of his odyssey is ultimately the wry and very Gallic world view he acquires through the eye-popping challenges of buying and renovating a Paris apartment, and it's this hard-won treasure, along with a shy but steely self-knowledge, that makes L'Appart such a memorably winning read.
Alexander Lobrano, author of Hungry for Paris and Hungry for France

David is an incredible storyteller, both in and out of the kitchen. I thoroughly enjoy the authenticity of life in a different country, where every day requires an adjustment and every event is a curve ball. But that's where the joy is: embracing life with a wonderful attitude, seeking exploration and novelty.
Gabriele Corcos, chef and author of the New York Times bestsellerExtra Virgin

Author Bio

DAVID LEBOVITZ has been a professional cook and baker for most of his life; he spent nearly thirteen years at Berkeley's Chez Panisse until he left the restaurant business in 1999 to write books. He is the author of six books, including My Paris Kitchen, The Perfect Scoop,and The Sweet Life in Paris.David has been featured in Bon Apptit, Food & Wine, Cook's Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times, Saveur, Travel + Leisure, the New York Times, and more. He moved to Paris in 2004 and turned davidlebovitz.com into one of the first phenomenally popular food and living blogs.