Fanny in France: Travel Adventures of a Chef's Daughter, with Recipes

by Alice Waters, Ann Arnold (Illustrator)

Overview

From famed chef Alice Waters, a treat for anyone who loves France, food, adventure—or all three!

Fanny is a girl who knows a lot about food and cooking since she’s grown up in and around the famous restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. When Fanny’s mother, Alice Waters, the chef and owner of Chez Panisse, starts to watch her favorite old French movies, Fanny knows soon they’ll be packing their bags and traveling to France for a visit. In this sparkling book of whimsical stories, Fanny recounts some of her most fun-filled adventures with French friends and food. Join Fanny as she helps cook a huge bouillabaisse in Provence; learns how to make fresh cheese from a shepherd high up in the Pyrenees mountains; hunts for  wild oysters off the coast of Bordeaux, and discovers how one chicken can feed nine people, if served a certain way.
    
Fanny in France is also a beginner’s cookbook with forty simple, French-inspired recipes that encourage children and adults anywhere to cook and share delicious snacks and meals with family and friends using basic methods and the most sustainable ingredients.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780670016662
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	10/25/2016
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	936,992
Product dimensions:	7.90(w) x 10.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Lexile:	940L (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

About the Author

Alice Waters is Fanny’s mother and the noted chef, restaurateur and proprietor of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. She was an early advocate for the use of organic and locally grown food in restaurants, and has written a number of books and won numerous awards relating to her philosophy of food and eating. Before being a cook, Alice was a Montessori teacher and this experience inspired her to found the Edible Schoolyard Project whose mission is to create and establish a national edible education curriculum in all public schools – kindergarten through college. In 2010, Alice received the prestigious Légion d’honneur from the French government and in 2014 she received the National Humanities Medal.
 
Bob Carrau is a writer, screenwriter and artist who lives in San Francisco. He collaborated with Alice Waters on Fanny at Chez Panisse and has known Fanny her whole life.
 
Ann Arnold is a still-life painter. She illustrated Alice Waters’s Fanny at Chez Panisse and lives around the corner from the restaurant in Berkeley, California.

Editorial Reviews

09/12/2016
As she did in 1992’s Fanny at Chez Panisse, also illustrated by Arnold, renowned chef Waters writes in the ingenuous voice of her (now adult) daughter in a combination gastronomic travelogue and cookbook. A nine-year-old student at a French school in California, Fanny peppers her anecdotal narrative with French phrases as she describes meals that she and her parents shared while visiting various friends in France. Their tables are laden with freshly baked bread, wine made from the bounty of nearby vineyards, just-caught fish, and homegrown olives and produce. Fanny eagerly pitches in, helping gather oysters in a Bordeaux bay, bake bread in an outdoor oven in Corsica, and milk sheep in the Pyrenees before making cheese. Many of the foods described reappear in the 41 recipes that make up the second half of the book, which range from accessibly simple (roasted almonds with sage, vinaigrette) to sophisticated and complex (bouillabaisse). Arnold’s airy, sun-drenched paintings intensify the warmth of this celebration of family, friends, and food, best for young readers with an established interest in cooking and French culture. Ages 10–up. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Arnold’s airy, sun-drenched paintings intensify the warmth of this celebration of family, friends, and food." —Publishers Weekly

"Cheerful vignettes evoke Fanny’s experiences cooking, eating, and exploring her way around France . . . Arnold’s gorgeous ink and watercolor illustrations bring the French countryside and many lively meals to life." —School Library Journal

From the Publisher

10/01/2016
Gr 3 Up—Waters recounts the memories of her nine-year-old daughter, Fanny Waters. Cheerful vignettes evoke Fanny's experiences cooking, eating, and exploring her way around France with her mother and a revolving cast of friends. Fanny helps make a bouillabaisse, tastes fresh sea urchin straight from the sea, and hikes deep into the Pyrenees to observe a shepherd make cheese from sheep's milk. Arnold's gorgeous ink and watercolor illustrations bring the French countryside and many lively meals to life. Despite the clear prose and evocative illustrations, the text conveys a nostalgia and lifestyle typically more attractive to adults than children. Moreover, many of the recipes are long and involve such sophisticated fare as "couscous royale with chermoula." Still, this is an attractive supplement to more traditional nonfiction works about France and French culture and will work well for patrons doing reports or studies in that area. Additionally, young chefs and readers who have mastered Mollie Katzen's cookbooks will be happy to try the more advanced recipes presented here. VERDICT Consider adding to biography and French cookbook collections for sophisticated readers in larger libraries.—Kristy Pasquariello, Wellesley Free Library, MA

School Library Journal