Dear Bookworms,
The famous city of Paris holds many allures, but for expat Kristen Beddard, it was missing one key element: kale. Try as she might, after moving to the City of Light with her husband for his 
work, she was unable to locate this one vegetable that has come to represent home and comfort to her. As she recounts the ups, downs, and adventures of her adjustment to Parisian life in her memoir Bonjour Kale, she sets the stage for what would become her personal passion project: restoring the forgotten vegetable (le légume oublié) to the French land where it once flourished.
There are many good memoirs out there right now chronicling the journeys of Americans in Paris, but Bonjour Kale is worth adding to your list even if you’ve read others already. Beddard does a good job demonstrating how the French attitude and mindset and can be both refreshing and frustrating to an American perspective at different times. All the while though, her voice is pleasant and uplifting. The gradual change she herself undergoes over time as she adjusts to Paris, comes through her writing in subtle ways, and helped to frame her story in a way that was both relatable and heartwarming.
The addition of a vegetable quest is a unique element for a book such as this, but one that I felt enhanced it greatly. As you relate to Beddard and become invested her story, you become equally invested in the success of her project. To me, this provided an extra level that focused the book and kept my interest. For those who love to cook and would like to try the recipes she mentions, each chapter ends with a couple of kale recipes for you to make yourself.
Happily, you do not have to be a kale-lover to enjoy this book! Beddard’s love of kale stems from the purest and most relatable source, that of home and comfort, which seems to turn the kale into a symbol of whatever represents the same to us. If you don’t know much about kale, you may find greater interest in it after this book, because as she endeavors to re-introduce it to Paris, she simultaneously re-introduces it to her readers, not as the culinary fad it has come to be here in the States, but as that friendly symbol of comfort.
Keep reading!
Live, Love, Learn,
Elise and The Write Teacher(s)