Salons of Paris, Then and Now

The quality of the eating, without a doubt, could make or break a Parisian salon. Today’s nostalgists may fantasize about the gathering of Continue reading →

Sex, Food, and Surrealism

The last several weeks I have been hard at work on writing projects related to my new book Charity and Continue reading →

Legendary Paris Dinner Parties

Scads of American memoirists have rhapsodized about their wonderful meals in Paris’s restaurants, but Janet Flanner, who for decades wrote Continue reading →

Montmartre Is Dead!

“Montmartre is dead!” screamed the headline of a February 1924 obituary in The Living Age, an American weekly review. The famed Continue reading →

The Auto-biography of Alice B. Toklas

The charm of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933), Gertrude Stein’s tongue-in-cheek “memoir” of her partner, lies for most readers in Continue reading →