Patricia Wells' career in food is one that I admire or, closer to the truth, one that I envy. An American living in Paris since 1980, the year her husband left The New York Times to work for The International Herald Tribune, Wells has made it her business to seek out the city's finest restaurants and share what she's found with the American public.
Her oeuvre includes cookbooks, travel books, restaurant reviews and food features for The New York Times, Travel and Leisure, Food and Wine magazine and The International Herald Tribune. She also teaches private cooking classes in her Paris apartment and in her Provence home. She is as committed to fine food as were the two female Francophiles who preceded her, M.F.K. Fisher and Julia Child.
Anyone with Paris in their sights would be well advised to search out Wells' publications at a bookstore or public library. Her "Food Lover's Guide to Paris" (Workman Publishing; $17.95), published in 1999, continues to sell well. It remains useful for its descriptions of restaurants and her suggestions for where to eat, where to shop and what to buy. Wells offers hundreds of ideas for how to spend your time and money in Paris. I have only two: the first is dinner at Taillevent after you've read the slim volume "A Meal Observed" by Andrew Todhunter, the 2004 book about the working of this exceptional restaurant (Knopf; $23 hardcover and $13 paperback); and the second is a tour of the Louvre on Wednesdays or Fridays, when it's open late and you can glimpse its ghosts in shadowy corners.
Anyone who is not going to Paris and is feeling depressed about it might enjoy a magic carpet ride with Patricia Wells' "The Paris Cookbook" (2001; HarperCollins; $30). You are in Paris when you turn the pages of this book illustrated with candid black-and-white photos of smiling chefs, food markets and French women lugging home their overflowing shopping bags. All that's missing are the fragrances of freshly baked baguettes and the sight of eclairs, madeleines or napoleons in every Paris patisserie.
The incontestable charm of "The Paris Cookbook" is the company of the author, who provides enlightening explanations of cooking terms for the recipes she's chosen and shares what she has learned when testing the recipes. She offers wine suggestions for most of the dishes.
From friends of mine who have been with her for cooking classes, I understand that her husband, Walter, has taken charge of the couple's wine cellar since his retirement, in much the same way as has husband Victor Hazan for his wife, Marcella, the doyenne of Italian cooking. With their wives, these husbands choose the appropriate wines for meals and add their voices to communal meals, keeping the conversations lively.
For her book, Wells has chosen recipes that are sophisticated but not complicated. She says of the following straightforward recipe that it taught her not to be afraid of cooking lobster.
Lobster with Cream (Homard a la Creme)
- 1 lobster, about 2 pounds
- 3 tablespoons coarse sea salt
- 1 cup heavy cream
Preheat the broiler. Place an oven rack about 3 inches from heat.
Parboil the lobster: Fill a 6-quart pasta pot, fitted with a colander, with water, and bring to a boil over high heat. Add the coarse sea salt, and plunge the lobster head first into the pot. Cover, and cook for 5 minutes for the first pound, plus 3 minutes for each additional pound.
Remove the colander from the water, drain, and let the lobster cool for a few minutes. Then transfer the lobster to a cutting board, laying it on its back. Split the lobster in half: Plunge a sturdy chef's knife through the back of the head. Cut forward through the head and back through the body and tail. Remove the head sac and intestines. Crack the claws and legs slightly with the back of the knife. Place the halves, cut side up, side by side on a baking sheet. Pour the cream into the claws and the tail.
Place the baking sheet on the oven rack and broil until the lobster flesh is firm and the cream brown and bubbling, 6 to 10 minutes. Transfer each lobster half to a warmed dinner plate and serve. Makes 2 servings.
Wells confesses to being a devoted almond eater. She likes them especially when paired with a bubbly champagne.
Toasty Salted Almonds (Amandes Salees Poelees)
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 cup whole unblanched almonds
Place the almonds in a dry skillet preheated over moderate heat. Cook, stirring or shaking the pan frequently to prevent burning, spraying repeatedly, until the almonds are toasted, covered with a delicate white film and beginning to release their fragrance, about 4 to 6 minutes. Cool in pan off heat. Serve at room temperature. Makes about 1 cup. (The almonds can be stored, covered, in a cool dry place for up to 2 weeks.)