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

Waters, Alice

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670016667 ISBN 13: 9780670016662

Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers, 2016

Synopsis

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.

About this title

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.

From School Library Journal

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

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0670016667
• ISBN 13: 9780670016662
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 176
• Illustrator: Arnold Ann