James Beard Award–winning food writer Alexander Lobrano joins us on Zoom to talk about his memoir My Place at the Table: A Recipe for a Delicious Life in Paris.
This $27 ticket includes a new hardcover copy of My Place at the Table by Alexander Lobrano and the link to the virtual Zoom chat with the author. The book can be picked up from Book + Bottle in advance of the event.
The Zoom link will be sent prior to the event. After you have reserved your place, look for a confirmation via email.
This event is being hosted by Bookstore1Sarasota in partnership with Book + Bottle.
About My Place at the Table :
In this debut memoir, Alexander Lobrano, a James Beard Award–winning writer, whose childhood idea of fine dining was Howard Johnson’s, tells how he became one of Paris’s most influential food critics.
Until Alec Lobrano landed a job in the glamorous Paris office of Women’s Wear Daily, his main experience of French cuisine was the occasional supermarket éclair. An interview with the owner of a renowned cheese shop for his first article nearly proves a disaster because he speaks no French. As he goes on to cover celebrities and couturiers and improves his mastery of the language, he gradually learns what it means to be truly French. He attends a cocktail party with Yves St. Laurent and has dinner with Giorgio Armani. Over a superb lunch, it’s his landlady who ultimately provides him with a lasting touchstone for how to judge food: “you must understand the intentions of the cook.” At the city’s brasseries and bistros, he discovers real French cooking. Through a series of vivid encounters with culinary figures from Paul Bocuse to Julia Child to Ruth Reichl, Lobrano hones his palate and finds his voice. Soon the timid boy from Connecticut is at the epicenter of the Parisian dining revolution and the restaurant critic of one of the largest newspapers in France.
A mouthwatering testament to the healing power of food, My Place at the Table is a moving coming-of-age story of how a gay man emerges from a wounding childhood, discovers himself, and finds love. Published here for the first time is Lobrano’s “little black book,” an insider’s guide to his thirty all-time-favorite Paris restaurants.