Fic­tion

White Truf­fles in Winter

N.M Kel­by
  • From the Publisher
August 29, 2013
Auguste Escoffi­er (1846 – 1935) was the unpar­al­leled French chef whose impact on restau­rants and high cui­sine is still with us. He was also a com­pli­cat­ed man — kind yet impe­ri­ous, food obsessed yet rarely hun­gry, capa­ble of great pas­sion and inscrutable reserve. In this lush­ly imag­ined new nov­el, N. M. Kel­by trans­ports us into Escoffier’s pri­vate world, weav­ing a sen­su­al sto­ry of food and long­ing, war and romance.

The nov­el opens near the end of Escoffier’s life, as he writes his mem­oirs. He has wit­nessed a tumul­tuous sweep of his­to­ry from a unique posi­tion, and he recounts his days as a cook in the Fran­co-Pruss­ian War, a chef for the beau monde in Paris and at the London’s Savoy, and a con­fi­dant of roy­al­ty and world leaders.

The heart of Escoffier’s sto­ry, how­ev­er, lies in his love for two very dif­fer­ent women: the famous­ly beau­ti­ful and reck­less actress Sarah Bern­hardt, one of the most adored women of her day, and his wife, the inde­pen­dent and sub­lime poet Del­phine Daff­is, whose hand in mar­riage Escoffi­er gam­bled for, only to live apart from her for much of his career.

Now Escoffi­er has retired and returned to Del­phine. She requests just one thing: that he pro­duce a dish in her name as he has done for so many, includ­ing Bern­hardt and Queen Vic­to­ria. Yet how does one re-cre­ate the com­plex­i­ty of love in a sin­gle recipe? The great chef has no idea. Aid­ed by a head­strong young cook who looks remark­ably like Bern­hardt, Escoffi­er must redis­cov­er food’s emo­tion­al capac­i­ty, its abil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate pas­sion, regret, grief, for­give­ness, and love.

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