This is a special edition of The Everyday French Chef to tell you what I’ve been cooking up outside of the kitchen. Not to worry, recipes will resume next week, with an elegant starter to serve over the holidays. But this week the big news is the publication of my first novel, The Rites of Man, with a special offer for readers of this website. I’ve prepared a recipe booklet featuring dishes mentioned in my novel that I’ll send you in exchange for a photo of you with my book. I’ve already posted about this here and on Facebook, and the first photo is already in! It’s from Martha Huang, who’s currently visiting Shanghai.
The Rites of Man / A novel by Meg Bortin
Instead of sending a selfie, Martha provided this view of, as she put it, ‘the far-flung reaches of The Rites of Man‘, with the Shanghai skyline in the background. I’m pretty excited about that! She had pre-ordered the book, so it arrived on publication day, which was Wednesday. She wrote to me on Thursday: ‘Hello hello from Shanghai — just to say your book arrived on my Kindle yesterday as promised and have inhaled it — thank you for a marvelous read.’ I’m even more excited about that!
Martha will be the first to receive the recipe booklet, and another request is already in. The booklet contains 20 recipes of dishes enjoyed by Sherry McManus, Thomas G. Paine and other characters in the novel, from Porterhouse steak with onion rings to shredded duck with scallions and ginger, New England-style lobster rolls and, of course, boeuf bourguignon.
Next week, I’ll be posting a recipe here for bouchées à la reine, a classic French starter in which golden homemade pastry shells are filled with — as you prefer — mushrooms or sea scallops, bathed in a creamy sauce. This is the kind of dish that can get your holidays off to a brilliant start. And it’s also a lot of fun to make. So, until next Friday…
Happy cooking!
