The Paris Novel Quotes

“That is the most expensive spice in the world. It comes from the Valley of Flowers, where everyone's hands are red from separating the saffron from the blossoms. Each flower has just three strands, so it takes seventy thousand flowers to make a single pound.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“What would we say? The wine spoke for itself. We were drinking time, drinking history, tasting the past. You can’t talk about that, and only idiots would try.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“Django handed her a heap of parsley and she stood next to him, allowing his rhythm to become her own until they were moving together. In the air, the tang of lemons. The aroma of chicken stock. Beeswax mingling with butter. Chocolate melting into oranges. Her spirits rose with the scents swirling through the kitchen.
They spoke little; they had no need. They were a team, their minds melded more effortlessly than Stella had imagined possible. They massaged butter into chickens, boned fish, opened oysters. Django set a flat of speckled eggs on the counter. Next to it, a ceramic bowl. He opened his hands and Stella broke the eggs, dozens of them, across his outstretched fingers, watching yolks separate from whites. It occurred to her that she had tortured herself for no reason. She was happy.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“When fortune smiles, you immediately start to worry about how it will end. Why not enjoy the moment?”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“Didn’t you say you were a copy editor? Isn’t that a fancy term for literary detective? Why don’t you see what you can find out?”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“These months in Paris had opened all her senses; she now needed so much more.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“We were drinking time, drinking history, tasting the past. You can’t talk about that,”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“Paris, unlike her native New York, seemed capable of savoring the present while appreciating the past.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“You have good rhythm and great patience,” he said. “Two of the four things required to make a cook.” “What are the other two?” “Good ingredients. And imagination.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“Bookshops made her anxious. Each volume was like an eager animal at the pound, striving for attention, hoping for a home. “Take me, take me,” they called out, until the chorus grew so loud she had to turn and flee.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“Your problem”—he pulled an onion tart from the oven—“is that you always look for reasons to be unhappy.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“Just think: If I had taught you to cook when you were a little girl, we could have made a restaurant together”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“In her walks through Paris, Stella had not seen anything that remotely resembled Le Sauvage. The house seemed to merge with the landscape, walking so lightly on the land it nearly vanished. The interior had the same effect; as they entered, the walls seemed to melt away. It was an astonishing architectural trick, creating the illusion that they were not going inside a building but merely inhabiting a new space.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“Stella remembered watching Celia cook, thinking how Olney’s approach was entirely different. Celia would stride into the kitchen like a conquering hero, a warrior intent on subduing ingredients. For her, food was a weapon, and she was interested only in the final result. Olney, on the other hand, was intent on enjoying the journey. Patrick and Baldwin both found pleasure in the kitchen, but for Olney, cooking was much more than that. It seemed that he didn’t just enjoy cooking; he was totally absorbed in it. It must be, she thought, the way he painted, and she understood that he had simply traded his brush for a knife.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“But they did not discuss the wine. When she remarked on it later, Jules shrugged. “What would we say? The wine spoke for itself. We were drinking time, drinking history, tasting the past. You can’t talk about that, and only idiots would try.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“You disappoint me.” He scowled at her. “I did not believe you could be so lily-livered.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“One lost soul looking for another. Doesn’t that describe us all?”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“Each volume was like an eager animal at the pound, striving for attention, hoping for a home. “Take me, take me,” they called out, until the chorus grew so loud she had to turn and flee.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“The portrait is the only clue we’ll ever have to how she saw herself.” Although paint was not Stella’s medium, she wondered, for just a moment, how she might portray herself.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“He was like a jazz musician, joyfully improvising, imagining tastes that ordinary people could not. He pulled ingredients apart and reconstructed them in endlessly surprising ways: clear little cubes that tasted of just-picked tomatoes still warm from the sun, or cheese puffs that floated into your mouth and simply vanished, leaving a trail of flavor in their wake. One day he melted chocolate, mixed in chilies, and wrapped the sauce around tart orange ice; people begged for seconds.
She'd never met anyone like him, and as she watched him cook, Stella saw that in the kitchen all the qualities that made him a poor choice as a parent or a partner turned into strengths. Utterly unafraid of failure, he was willing to try anything. It was the source of his creativity. He was a confident person who pleased himself; if it didn't work out, he simply moved on.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“Remembering the careful way the cooks she'd met chose their ingredients--- the snails at L'Ami Louis, Taeb's saffron, Baldwin's asparagus--- Stella thought Django was more like a magician, conjuring dishes out of thin air. By the time George nudged Stella aside to poke his nose in the door, Lucie was strewing crisp breadcrumbs on top of a thick vegetable potage, and Django was stirring a tart lemon pudding. Downstairs, customers lingered, people who had intended on stopping in for a moment stayed on as increasingly seductive scents wafted through the shop.
Unwilling to admit that he was pleased, George tasted the pudding and grumbled, "You've used up all the eggs. And I wanted gingerbread for tonight's reading."
"Gingerbread!" Django pulled a face. "Nous sommes en France. I will make something more appropriate." Still standing in the doorway, Stella wondered how he would manage this; he'd used everything in the kitchen except an aged pound cake resembling a rock, a handful of desiccated dried apricots, and the sour milk.
"We'll make some coffee." Django was tearing up the stale cake. As she watched, he produced curds from the sour milk, cooked the apricots into jam, and soaked the cake in coffee. With a flourish, he pulled a bar of chocolate from his pocket. "J'ai toujours du chocolat sur moi." He melted the chocolate, stirring in the last of the coffee. "I always have chocolate. You never know when you will need it." Against her better judgement, Stella was charmed.
Lucie stood close by, watching him layer the coffee-drenched cake with jam, curds, and chocolate, grabbing each spoon as he finished. "Will you make this for my birthday?" she asked.
"No."
"Please," she begged.
"For your birthday I will make something better.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“When I went to Passard's restaurant, the meal began with slices of raw scallop topped with caviar; that reminded me of how shocking it was when Django fed us raw fish all those years ago. Then there was a marvelous Saint-Pierre. Passard had peeled away the skin and prepared the fish with hundreds of bay leaves before covering it back up and steaming the fish until it had absorbed all the flavors of the herb. The man loves herbs and uses them in the most fascinating ways. That also reminded me of Django. There was a fat sweetbread skewered with a sprig of rosemary until it was nothing more than an herbal cloud. And the salad was the tiniest herbs, all different. Beautiful simplicity."
Stella was tasting the flavors in her mind as he described them.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“The fat was bubbling in a pot on the stove. The potatoes went in, were snatched out, then plunged back in. They emerged crisp and golden; Richard sprinkled them with salt and piled them on a platter, then set a heap of tiny marinated fish on the side. They ate with their fingers. The potatoes were burning hot, the insides nearly melted, making the contrast with the cool, slick anchovies almost erotic.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“The plate the waiter now set before her looked like an abstract painting: vivid green shot through with bright-coral slashes.
"Taste!" he urged.
It was clearly a fish but so sweet she did not recognize it. Looking at the color, she hazarded a guess. "Salmon? Or maybe not. It doesn't taste like salmon."
Troisgros looked very pleased. "That is because it was caught just this morning in the Allier, our local river. But also because we preserve the color by slicing the fish very thinly and searing it for just a few seconds."
"So it's almost raw?" She wasn't sure about this.
"In Japan they eat their fish raw."
She took another bite; the herbal sauce flirted with bitterness. "The flavor is so green I feel I'm eating color."
"Sorrel." He gestured to the waiter, who removed the plates and then set a single small bird surrounded by sliced fruit in front of each of them. "Sarcelle aux abricots," he announced.
"Sarcelle?" Stella did not recognize the word.
"It's a freshwater duck," said Jules. "I can't remember the word in English."
"Teal," Troisgros supplied.
Stella closed her eyes and tried describing the flavor. "It tastes wild." She began to dream herself into the dish as if it were a painting, imagining a golden field in the sunshine, feeling the air rush past, hearing the sound of her own wings. Circling in a great joyous arc, she spotted a tree covered in tawny fruits, breathed their perfume in the air.
"I wanted---" the chef was watching her--- "to give you the essence of the animal. To let you taste what the duck ate on her flight through life.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“I remember the pissaladière. We stood there watching them cook and eating that soft, oily bread. Back then I was so poor I was living on bread and cheese, and the flavor of olives and anchovies went straight through me."
He stopped, and when he spoke again, his voice was lower, as if he was summoning the words from the air. "The wine was flowing, and the celery was crisp. Richard had found some old farmer who gave him a great ripe wheel of Brie that dripped off the edges of the bread. Richard and that crazy chef kept arguing, but it wasn't a fight, it was a seduction."
Stella wanted to ask what they had argued about, but she was afraid to interrupt the rhythm of his words.
"Richard wanted to keep it simple--- you know how he is--- but that chef had his own ideas. I remember he started dicing fish and mixing it with onions, tomatoes, and little bits of celery. 'Limes!' he said. 'I must have limes!' None of us had ever heard of ceviche, and we were astonished. Then Richard concocted a chicken gratin with a cheese custard on top, and the chef made the most beautiful salad I'd ever seen. He threw everything into it--- pieces of lemon, bits of cheese, and then he took the violets out of the vase and tossed in the petals. It was beautiful.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“A waiter set a small tart of caramelized pears before each of them and added a dab of licorice ice cream. Next came bananas topped with passion fruit and black pepper, little pirouettes of pleasure.
The meal was as large and generous as the chef himself, and by the time he was serving them aged Armagnac with a ripe Roquefort, Stella's head was spinning. Although they were now surrounded by people eating dinner, new dishes kept arriving. Petit fours appeared, and then chocolates. A basket of fruit. Jules and the chef toasted each other with fragrant fruit brandies.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“She took a sip of wine and held it in her mouth, straining to identify the flavors. Cherry, she thought. Licorice. Thorns. She imagined a forest in late autumn, damp leaves on the ground, a blaze of color. She took another sip.
The man--- he must be Robert--- set a dish in front of her and she looked down, dismayed. What could it be? She'd never seen anything like it. It glistened up at her, a red-black sausage bursting from a shiny case. She inhaled the aroma: It was exotic, mysterious, almost intoxicating.
"Taste it," he urged.
It was pillow-soft, very rich, laced with spices. She identified the prickle of black pepper, the sweetness of onions. Parsley, she thought, nutmeg, and... was that chocolate? Bite by bite she chased the flavors, but they kept skipping away.
"Did you like it?" Robert was back.
She gestured at the empty plate. "It was wonderful. What kind of meat was in it?"
"Not meat, exactly." He watched her face as he said, "That was blood sausage.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“The soft, smooth substance filled her mouth. Chocolate cream, she thought. The flavor grew richer, rounder, louder with each passing second. It was like music, the notes lingering in her mind long after the sound itself had vanished.
He was openly staring at her. "You eat with such concentration and intensity. And, dare I say it, joy?"
Joy? The word was so foreign, especially in relation to food. It embarrassed her; she took a sip of the wine and concentrated on the way the flavors changed. She thought of music again. The sweet wine was like the trill of a flute, and suddenly the foie gras, which had reminded her more of pastry than meat, became robust, substantial.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel

“The oysters arrived on a deep bed of ice. She had never eaten an oyster, and she stared down at the platter. A ruffle of black encircled each opalescent heart; she thought of orchids. Triangles of lemon sat on the ice, and she picked one up and squeezed it, inhaling the prickly aroma. Then she reached for an oyster, tipped her head, and tossed it back. The oyster was cool and slippery, the flavor so briny it was like diving into the ocean. She closed her eyes to savor the experience, make it last.”
― Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel