My French Secrets: How Food Lovers Stay Slim

A Note from the Author

Being French is an art form, and we French are justifiably proud of our Gallic identity.

We are known for many things, mainly for our culture and elegance but also for being a little rude! However, one thing which always comes up in conversations when we talk about France is our joie-de-vivre, our capacity to enjoy life with all its pleasures, our well-being. We are also known for eating everything while staying slim and healthy.

I didn’t notice until I lived abroad that my way of eating and living could be an example, could be shared and could benefit people looking for the path to a better lifestyle. So I started to observe my habits, gather memories from my childhood, ask my friends about their lives and their habits and take notes. This book project started then, when I was living in the US and the UK, when I was travelling around, when I was a French woman living abroad.

There are many things I do naturally, as I grew up that way. My mum was raised this way too, my grandmother and so on; our lifestyle is a collection of good habits, of things we do without even thinking about it. These things are our secrets passed on within French families for generations. I guess that eating what we want and staying slim and healthy is the result of knowing these secrets.

When I worked as a cooking instructor at X restaurants, many people asked me how I could be a chef and stay slim. When the same question kept coming up again and again, I thought that I should pass on my French secrets to all the people who wish for better. I decided to address it in this book. I see it as a little bible of good habits, of rules to follow for lifestyle, healthy eating and well-being, a way into enjoying life as we do in France, a book that everybody could carry when in need of inspiration for a last-minute dinner with friends, ideas for a weekly menu, for a nice meal à deux or a delicious lunch just for yourself and for learning how to feel good whilst indulging in all these pleasures.

I will guide you through your daily routine, your organisation in the kitchen and pantry and even your shopping list. I will give you 12 rules to follow to find a good balance in your life, to lose and maintain your ideal weight, to stay slim and healthy without forgetting to eat great food and be happy.

Being a chef or simply loving food doesn’t mean eating all the time. I eat the food that I’ve known since my childhood: natural, homemade and seasonal – the food that makes me happy. If I’m totally honest, to me, being happy means having some great homemade food, good wine and staying healthy and slim. Cooking can be part of life’s great pleasures – creative, sensual, satisfactory – and if you know a few basics, you can plan ahead and get organised. It is not difficult! Everybody can do it and find pleasure in it! If, thanks to this book, some people can find their own joy and well-being, I would be the happiest woman on the planet.

But before I reveal my secrets, which may change your life for the better forever, just a few words about who I am. I was born, a bit accidentally, in the Paris region and came to Nice (where my mum is from) at six months of age. Where I was born, there is La Marne, a river passing close to where we lived with my parents and, on ‘les bords de Marne’ are ginguettes, those popular outdoor cabarets where we can eat and drink while dancing ‘la Java’. It’s a beautiful and joyful place. As long as there is food and wine, I know it’s a place for me; eating and drinking always make me happy. So Nice, on the Mediterranean coast, is my city. It’s where I grew up, where I learnt to swim on the Promenade des Anglais, where I went to school, where I had my first date, my first job, where I cooked my first omelette… my first everything.

Nice is in my head and my heart when I travel and when I live abroad. I carry its taste and smell, and I miss the atmosphere. Two hundred years ago, Nice was Italian, and it still has the Latin attitude: time goes slowly, cicadas sing and any opportunity is good to have a glass of wine. There’s always been this rivalry (or let’s say teasing) between the north and the south of France… For football first, the PSG (Paris Saint Germain) supporters don’t mix with OM (Olympic Marseille) partisans. People from the north and south don’t have the same accent, the same weather… but everywhere we share the same attitude towards food and life’s little pleasures.

Paris, the most romantic city in the world, is known everywhere for the Tour Eiffel, the most-visited monument on the planet that everybody wants to see at least once in their life… Well, that’s a lot. Being French is a lot to carry, but being Parisian is even heavier, with all the latest fashion trends to follow and political philosophising to be engaging with. In the south of France, we are lucky enough to have it all. We have the sun, the sea, the mountains, the olive oil, the Niçoise salad and the rosé wine. We are more… let’s say, simple… Our favourite sport is to sit down in the cafés’ terraces, have an espresso and watch people passing by. We are slow, happy and jolly but depressed as soon as it rains for two days in a row. The Niçois go to the beach all year long, as swimming in cold water is healthy and good for our mood. Wrinkles are part of the living process, and we prefer growing old tanned and happy than white, unruffled and sad.

We celebrate a lot, drink rosé wine and organise picnics whenever we can. Planning a meal is part of our lives and I can tell you it is a delight! As we say, we work to live when in many other countries, people live to work. ‘Just pleasure’ is our motto. When you live in the south of France, you cannot be stressed; it’s a stress-free region. Having a good life is our first goal. Like all Latin people, we are late to dinner parties but are always the last to leave. (After a few glasses of wine, we forget about the chic à la Française.) We really enjoy our food and don’t think twice about ordering a glass of wine for lunch. In France, life doesn’t wait.

When I was 32, after a breakup, I decided to make one of my dreams a reality: live abroad and learn English. Breakups can be inspiring! So I packed my huge suitcase and I arrived in London without knowing anyone, without a job and with no English at all.

I immediately fell in love with London and I ended up staying for nine years. London is actually my longest love story, as I am still, to this day, in love with her. After a few jobs that paid my bills, my English got better and I started to reflect on my professional life. I was in a country and city that I adored. This was already a lot, but I did this ’n’ that without really having found what I loved doing. Simply making ends meet wasn’t enough! So one day, I sat down and I asked myself what I really loved doing, where I felt most invigorated and most myself. All these happy moments I spent with my mum in the kitchen came to mind, all the meals I cooked for my friends and the light in their eyes when they would thank me for the happy moments we spent together at my table, all these new recipes I tried and created in my kitchen. All of a sudden, I knew that being a chef would be the best profession for me and the best job on the planet. This is what I said to myself and I set out to become one!

It turned out that combining my passion for food and my free spirit was an obvious choice. I wanted to work for myself and be free from any boss while doing what I’d always done well: cooking. I started a catering business. It’s been a long process with ups and downs (actually more downs than ups at the beginning), learning the language, writing a food blog, sending newsletters to potential clients, working for free for organisations and organising cocktail parties in search of potential clients. Beginnings are never easy, but hey, I was in my element. I didn’t count my hours and was working away towards a brighter future. And one day, as it sometimes happens, a bit of luck knocked at my door; a restaurant owner that I knew from one of my jobs was opening another business and wanted me on board. I knew he was going to ask me to be a receptionist again, so I told him that I would work with him only if he would give me a position in the kitchen. A bit cheeky, but I was full of goodwill and motivation. He set up a meeting with the future head chef for a food tasting and I got a job in his new restaurant.

The restaurant was Mexican and it was bliss, a great opportunity to learn so many things in such a short amount of time, new recipes, new flavours and perfumes which add variety to my cuisines to this day. Before the grand opening, we had the immense chance to be trained by Eduardo, the chef of a few restaurants in Mexico City. Eduardo is a food encyclopaedia and apart from my appetite for learning from him and also from Illie, the woman head chef, and the rest of the staff, I loved being in this kitchen. I loved doing the opening early in the morning, still tired from our double shift the past few days but happy to be the first and only one for two hours, taking time to make my mise en place while drinking green tea before everybody arrived.

It’s also been a big life lesson. Being a woman in a kitchen full of men (most of them younger but with more experience than I had then) wasn’t easy but very formative. Juggling between my job at the restaurant and my catering business development paid off eventually. I ended up having Goldman Sachs, Eventbrite and many others as my clients. I also worked in Italian and Caribbean restaurants and learnt and loved to learn about those different cuisines, different ways of working vegetables, meat or fish, finding inspiration for my recipes. Still the same heat in the kitchen, still the same double shifts almost every day… But yes, I really loved it. The decision I took back then in London when I was 32, to become a chef, was the best I ever took in my life.

Nine years later, I had a job opportunity in San Francisco. I flew to California for a two-week job and again ended up staying for longer than expected – three years this time. I told you that I am a free spirit! Beginnings were long and emotionally gruelling, but yet again, I created a new catering business, different clients, cooking