Cooking is love, love is cooking

Synopsis

Mix together a group of mature students:

A culinary Sloane, a take-away cook and a food journalist.

Add in:

A handsome host

Season with:

A celebrity chef

Bring to the boil:

At a luxurious cookery school in France!

 

Waltho Williams has no idea what he’s letting himself in for when he opens the doors of La Maison du Paradis, his beautiful French home. But with dwindling funds, a cookery school seems like the ideal business plan. 

Running away from an impending divorce, super-snob Caroline Carrington hopes a luxurious cookery holiday will put her back on her feet. Blackpool fish and chip café owner Fran Cartwright thinks she’s won the lottery when her husband Sid books her on a week working alongside a celebrity chef. Meanwhile, feeling she is fading at fifty, journalist Sally Parker-Brown hopes her press week covering the cookery course will enable her to boost her career.

But will the eclectic group be a recipe for success, or will the mismatched relationships sink like a souffle? 

Whip out an apron, grab a wooden spoon and take a culinary trip to La Maison du Paradis, then sit back and enjoy The French Cookery School!

My review

This summer, La Maison du Paradis has opened its doors as a cookery school, as its owner Waltho Williams needs the funds to keep the place going.
And with such a celebrity chef teaching the secrets of the French cuisine, Waltho hopes that this may be the start of a successful new business plan.
To say that the first group of students is an eclectic one, is an understatement. Because not only there is Caroline, who is at the verge of a divorce and has to learn how to be independent. But there is also Fran, whose presence is always very clear and loudly, but with a heart of gold, and wants to learn in order to fulfil her and her husband’s dream. This all with the watchful eyes of Sally, a food journalist who sees and hears everything. And has caught the eye of bad boy/ teaching chef Daniel.
But no matter who they are, one way or another, this summer course is one that everyone will remember.

Being an Italian, it means that love for food and cooking runs through my veins. Whenever I feel stressed, let me bake some cakes or cookies, and all the stress evaporates. When I want to impress a person of interest, you can be sure that my homemade pasta with polpette will be on the table. SO of course I have to read a book where cooking is involved. And yes, as an Italian I am ready to leave the all known rivalry with the French aside 😊. Because passion for food is something that doesn’t know boundaries or borders.

And in this book there is not only a shared passion for food or cooking, but it’s also a place where friendships are being born, lessons learnt and not only related to cooking!

Caroline is perhaps the most tragic character of this book. Although, perhaps it’s a shared first place with Waltho…
It saddened me to get to know her better, because she hasn’t had an easy life. And that is for sure an understatement…
She for once in her life is doing something for herself, after a marriage filled with gaslighting, betrayal, and loneliness.
Initially I thought that this cookery course wasn’t what Caroline needed in her life, but after finishing it, I couldn’t agree more that it was exactly what Caroline needed.

I cannot imagine how her life has been before, and how little and insignificant Caroline must have felt. And even now, free from those shackles, Caroline is still struggling with truly letting go and just enjoy life, its beauty and even the simple things like food. The restraint she put on herself, “thanks” to her “wonderful” husband, I for sure couldn’t be possible be living like that.

Caroline can be best described as a loner, she wants peace and quiet. So of course she clashes with the character that is her total opposite!
Because Fran is a force of nature, always cheerful, loud and for sure catches the eye!
I liked her character, perhaps because I think I am equally loud? 😊
She also makes easily friends, and lets everyone be themselves.

But I also liked her because she took this course for fulfilling her darling husband’s dream. She is a bunch of joy, happiness and laughter, but she is also eager to learn. Yet at the same time she is a very helpful person, even if that means that she finds herself failing during the lessons.

And let chef Daniel just be the kind of person that is showing Fran’s failures and making her ‘pay’ for them.

You would think that not much would or could happen in the time the guests/pupils are staying at La Maison. But you are so wrong. Because what happens there is more than perhaps has happened in a whole year in my own life!

There is some serious clashing, there is drama, there is comradery, there is a shared passion for food, there is summer romance, there is forgiveness, there is understanding, there is love. There is just so much more than even I initially thought! And each new recipe, each new excursion, each new development was a real joy to read.

It was lovely to see how the characters learn that there is more than sees the eye. And that our first impression of someone can be wrong. Because we don’t know what someone has been through or is still going through. And that made it even more heart – warming to see how perhaps even the most unlikely friendships were being made.
But what I liked the most, is how one journey can be filled with extraordinary experiences, and how you can find the most unexpected yet most lasting things!

This book was a delight to read, and even if it made me hungry while reading, I truly enjoyed every bit of this heart – warming story!