The French Ingredient: A Memoir: Making a Life in Paris, One Lesson at a Time

Bertch chronicles the ups and downs of running a Parisian culinary school in this saucy debut. Growing up in the Midwest, Bertch learned to cook by observing her grandmother throw meals together without glancing at a recipe. That informal attitude served Bertch well in her personal kitchen, but it clashed with the outlooks she encountered in Paris—first as a wide-eyed teen on a high school trip, then as an adult when her banking job transferred her to a French office. “Paris was tough on me,” Bertch admits; her French was rough, and she found locals snobbish. The author gradually curried favor with her banking colleagues, but when she developed an itch to open a tourist-focused French cooking school for people who “wanted more than a trip to the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower to remember Paris by,” she faced backlash from acquaintances and professionals alike. Still, she got La Cuisine Paris off the ground in 2009, and in the memoir’s back half, she recounts the challenges of keeping it open, from real estate snags to the existential threat of the Covid-19 pandemic. Throughout, Bertch is tenacious, self-aware company, cognisant enough of her own judgmental tendencies to balance her portrait of nay-saying French nationals. Entrepreneurial readers will find much to admire in this tale of grit and gumption. Agent: Gail Ross, Ross Yoon Literary. (Apr.)