Découvrir tout ce monde nouveau d’écrivains, et avoir du temps pour lire, dans une ville comme Paris où l’on pouvait bien vivre et bien travailler, même si l’on était pauvre, c’était comme si l’on vous avait fait don d’un trésor. Vous

The Cigale Récamier, a five-minute stroll from the hotel, was one of Sam’s favorite stops in Paris. Hidden away at the end of a cul-de-sac off the Rue de Sèvres, it had all the qualities he liked in a restaurant. It was simple, unpretentious, and highly professional. The waiters had been there forever; they knew their métier to a fault and the wine

By eleven o’clock the market was over. Many of the truffles that had been bought were already on trains, racing against further evaporation as they left Provence for Paris; or, in some cases, for the Dordogne, where they would be presented as natives of the Périgord. Truffles from this region are considered to be superior—like Cavaillon melons or N