Product Description

A witty cultural and culinary education, Immoveable Feast is the charming, funny, and improbable tale of how a man who was raised on white bread—and didn't speak a word of French—unexpectedly ended up with the sacred duty of preparing the annual Christmas dinner for a venerable Parisian family.

Ernest Hemingway called Paris "a moveable feast"—a city ready to embrace you at any time in life. For Los Angeles–based film critic John Baxter, that moment came when he fell in love with a French woman and impulsively moved to Paris to marry her. As a test of his love, his skeptical in-laws charged him with cooking the next Christmas banquet—for eighteen people in their ancestral country home. Baxter's memoir of his yearlong quest takes readers along his misadventures and delicious triumphs as he visits the farthest corners of France in search of the country's best recipes and ingredients. Irresistible and fascinating, Immoveable Feast is a warmhearted tale of good food, romance, family, and the Christmas spirit, Parisian style.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #111385 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-01
• Released on: 2008-09-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In this witty essay collection, Baxter (We'll Always Have Paris) chronicles his years of learning to prepare elaborate Christmas dinners for his French in-laws. After leaving his Los Angeles home to follow a woman (who would later become his wife) to Paris, Baxter was charged with the serious task of cooking the holiday meal for his relatives. Calling to mind other expatriate writers such as Diane Johnson and David Sedaris, Baxter gives readers insights into both French culture and his own expanding culinary range. In Ninety Degrees of Christmas, he muses on Christmases in his native Australia versus France, and details his mother's preparation of her holiday pudding. Never condescending or obsequious toward his adopted home, Baxter shares insights with the wry perspective of an outsider permitted into a secret world and eager to share the rules with other visitors. Achieving a particularly sensitive balance of allowing readers glimpses into the intimacies of family life while retaining a degree of journalistic distance, Baxter is autobiographical but never intrusive. (Oct.)
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From Booklist
Paris’ Christmas celebration combines the family values of American Thanksgiving with a quintessentially Gallic banquet. Having moved from Los Angeles to Paris to marry, Australian writer and film critic Baxter seeks his new bride’s family’s approval and hopes to earn it by preparing a worthy Christmas dinner. In evocative prose, he deconstructs the dinner’s elements and travels from market to vineyard and from butcher to cheesemonger to assemble a dinner his judgmental relatives will appreciate. Baxter continually compares the joys of the French feast with his memories of Australian Christmas, celebrated in the antipodean summer’s heat. He also recounts his own journey from palate-challenged consumer of overcooked meats and vegetables to a world-class connoisseur. Gathering together the freshest oysters, impeccable apples, perfectly ripe cheese, a prime Bordeaux vintage, and a show-stopping roast suckling pig laid out on antique linens finally earns him the family’s acceptance. This is a perfectly realized, utterly enjoyable history of holiday tradition. --Mark Knoblauch

About the Author

John Baxter is an acclaimed film critic and biographer. His subjects have included Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, and Robert De Niro. The co-director of the Paris Writers' Workshop, he is the translator of Harper Perennial's Naughty French Novels series, and is the author of Immoveable Feast: A Paris Christmas, We'll Always Have Paris, and A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict. He lives in Paris.

Customer Reviews

Xmas PiggyFest in Paris
Xmas PigggyFest in Paris

Ernest Hemingway called Paris "a moveable feast" - a city ready to embrace you at any time in your life when you feel able to return its embrace. For Los Angeles-based film critic John Baxter, that moment came when he fell in love with the only French woman who can't cook and impulsively moved to Paris to marry her. As a test of his love, his in-laws charged him with cooking the next Christmas banquet--for eighteen people in their ancestral family home. And he has been dong it ever since

As a bon vivant with an insider's perspective on the City of Light he is regularly sought out for advice on the city's best markets, restaurants, cheese shops and boulangeries-questions that lead to lengthy, anecdote-filled riffs but the question that silences him is "Where can I get a Christmas dinner in Paris?" The answer: almost impossible.

That set him to thinking about his own Paris Christmases. IMMOVEABLE FEAST recalls with great joy his growth from a nearly mute English-speaking diner to Père Noel with an apron as he passionately plans and prepares sumptuous annual feast after feast. This perfect stocking stuffer will inspire you to save at least one American turkey from extinction.

Oh Louise
I was trying to find a book here on Amazon about French Christmas cooking when I stumbled upon this book. In fact, I thought there were some recipes in the book, but there is only a vague explanation of a couple dishes. However, that took nothing away from my enjoyment of this wonderful book!

The author's writing was very approachable, and allows the reader to run through the book. The story, however, was amazing and inspirational. It is filled with personal anecdotes from his life as he tells the journey of putting together a Christmas dinner for a traditional French family who knows their way around the kitchen. These short narratives might seem like filler to some, but I thought they were what gave the novel life, from his friend's experience of a Napoleon era wine, his trip to India for spices, and, in particular, his amazing daughter Louise.

While reading this book, Louise reminded me of the light that Pearl brought to the "Scarlet Letter." I am probably over-emphasizing her involvement in the novel, but her sophistication shines through and represents the character of France that is exhibited throughout the novel. Plus, as a 19-year-old, I am able to see how other people of the same age live in other parts of the world.

But, I digress, as the main story is just as fascinating to imagine, which in particular has inspired me to try and replicate such an event, sadly without the Roast Suckling Pig! So, if you are looking for a quick read for the weekend, with an insight into the French and their cooking, I cannot see how you could wrong with A Paris Christmas!

Delectable, BUT
This book IS like a little feast. A savory narrative about French culture and cuisine, peppered with tidbits about Australia, a hint of India and a good measure of the Anglo/American influences on this writer and his love of food.
BUT, don't buy this sweet/piquant morsel based on the Amazon "Product Description." It was written by someone who did NOT read the book.
This is not "a test of love," nor a memoir of Baxter's "yearlong quest... as he visits the farthest corners of France in search of the country's best recipes and ingredients." In other words, this isn't a long culinary travelogue of France -- which would have been a blast.
The author begins to prepare his menu and assemble ingredients not over the space of a year, but during the week before Christmas, with most of the ingredients sought not far and wide, but along a 120km stretch of France's Atlantic coast.
Still, you'll enjoy this very "toothsome" book. Just don't expect the cover to reflect what's actually inside the book. (Hint: this doesn't actually depict a "Paris Christmas" at all.)