A whimsical American take on French food
The Art Deco-style blog header on Lucy's Kitchen Notebook promises Lyon, France, stories, essays, photos, and cooking. A tiny, hand-drawn heart at the end of her list hints at the motivation behind the blog. It's not renown, as Lucy Vanel doesn't participate in international blogging events like Wine Blogging Wednesday or Leftover Tuesday. And it's certainly not dollars -- or euros -- given that there's not a banner ad to be found.
"It's a personal activity," says the American-born Vanel on the phone from her home in Lyon. She writes essays that might have been inspired by her mother, or she'll tell a story that relates to a friend. "My posts depend on how I'm feeling, what's in season at the market. The topics I choose to write about are right there."
Hundreds of food blogs deal in the personal -- too personal, one might argue -- but few are as thoughtfully wrought as Vanel's, which she started in January 2006. Her contemplative, fine-tuned stories about a cheating butcher, a magical flea market, or the creation of a friend's Wedgwood-blue frosted birthday cake offer a glimpse into a world few of us will ever experience, but to which we can relate.
Seasonal recipes reflect the personality of someone who cares deeply about what she eats, whether it's a cafe favorite of warm goat cheese salad or a homemade civet de cuisse de canard, a slow-braised duck and onion stew.
Then there are the evocative photos that accompany posts, which make you assume she's a professional photographer or at the very least an accomplished food stylist. Neither. She's a translator. She shoots with a digital Canon EOS and relies on the lens that came with it. No fancy equipment, just years of practice and an eye for the elements that elevate the ordinary.
Love brought Vanel to France's gastronomic capital. After working in Europe and China, she met her French husband, Loic, in North Carolina when he was at Duke for 10 days and she was taking graduate courses in sculpture and philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At a local restaurant one night, she noticed he was dining by himself. "I invited him to join our table," says Vanel. "I knew what it was like to eat alone in a foreign country."
The two spent a year in Los Angeles before they moved to France. "He was a fish out of water without baguettes daily," she says.
Vanel learned to cook in the French style from a former American expatriate, the late Julia Child. "We had no money, no belongings when we first came here," she says. "I had only her cookbooks, so I'd pick something out at the market and cook it according to Julia.
"Living in a foreign country is an exercise for the mind," Vanel says. "It was exhausting at first, but now it's second nature." She is fluent in French and it's the language she and her husband use most at home.
The blog has been a creative outlet that keeps Vanel in touch with friends and family. In one recent post, she tells the story of a lady in the local market who last year sold her green walnuts for vin de noix, a popular aperitif Vanel makes. When the American presented the grower with a small bottle, Vanel's husband couldn't get over the vendor's deep appreciation for the gift. This kind of personal exchange between customer and vendor doesn't typically take place among the French.
She wrote, "I explained to him that when you show to a producer that they mean something in your life, that their product is a part of your family tradition, and show to them that you appreciate their product and come to know them through connections like this, it warms their heart. A lot." Score one for Franco-American relations.
Vanel does little to promote Lucy's Kitchen Notebook, but was pleased to learn her blog was a finalist in the Well Fed Network's 2006 Food Blog Awards in the city and writing categories.
The blog has also been noted by the popular shelter website Apartment Therapy.
"Aside from that, I get a lot of comments from readers and chefs," she says, "and that's what's satisfying to me." A clue why Vanel knew how the lady with the green walnuts would feel about the vin de noix.
To read Lucy Vanel’s blog, go to kitchen-notebook.blogspot.com. Some users of Internet Explorer may not be able to load this site in their browsers; view through Firefox or Safari. 