When I was young I loved cookbooks and cooking, organizing recipes on file cards, and planning dinner parties for friends. I spent many an evening going to the local library and checking out my limit of books.
One book that made a particular impression on me was The Auberge of the Flowering Hearth by Roy Adries de Groot. The book is a memoir of a trip de Groot took to a valley in France called La Grand Chartreuse. The writing conjures up a romantic sense of living close to nature and the wild. Evocative writing and chapters with titles such as “A Journey to a High and Lovely Place” transport us to a small French inn where two women introduce de Groot to remarkable mountain cuisine and unforgettable regional wines. I wanted to be just like those women who cooked at the Auberge. I wanted to take care of weary travelers as they stopped along their way to somewhere from somewhere else.
