Introduction

In the summer of 2006, I got off a train in Nans-Sous-Sainte-Anne, France. I’d come to do a guest stint as baker and pastry cook at a boutique hotel, A l’Ombre du Château. Unlike the other visiting chef engaged for that season, I hadn’t trained at La Varenne, or any other cooking school. Still in my twenties, I came armed only with what I’d taught myself about cooking, a stack of boxes with CULINARY LIBRARY Sharpied on their exteriors, and a good supply of the American audacity Europeans love to laugh at (but quietly envy).