French Lessons

Alcohol with breakfast is dangerously pleasant. My first experience of it had been some years before as a guest of the Mayor of Bouzy, a village in the Champagne region. There had been two different wines to accompany the food, and politeness obliged me to sample them both. They were cool and invigorating, slipping down easily despite the earliness of the hour, and I was in a happy haze by 9:00am. Lunch-and more wine, naturally- had been served just in time to prevent a return to sobriety, and I ended the day in disgrace after falling asleep at dinner. Since then, I’ve done my best to stick to coffee in the morning.

An extract from Peter Mayle's evocative food writing French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew.

I just realized that food writings can be equallly fulfilling as a full course meal. Its interesting to note that food writers (I hate to call them critics) rave about certian things, like truffle, in the same breath a music critic raves about Astral Weeks.

Peter Mayle is also author of A good year.