From her Midwestern roots to a French culinary school, Jane Bertch is an American with much to learn about making a living and making a life in Paris.
After visiting Paris as a teenager with her mother, Jane Bertch was not eager to return to a Parisian formality that goes beyond not wearing white gym shoes to a restaurant, which is where this memoir begins.
Years later, Jane is working in the human resources department at an American bank in London. A job opportunity takes her to Paris where she can’t seem to do anything right. And her new manager, Jean-Paul, recounts everything she gets wrong. Jane realizes she needs to become an observer, even keeping a notebook with how things are done. For any non-native visiting or working in Paris, these helpful tips (“astuces” in French) mark the end of each chapter. “I saw and understood why visitors to the city often felt that they were not ‘liked’ – it’s not a question of like or not, it’s a question of relationship. And in France, relationships, I would come to learn, are everything.” But relationships of any kind in Paris take a long time to develop. Every few months, Jane joins a colleague, Claudie, for a professional lunch. After years of working together, Jane still doesn’t know if this woman is married or has children. Personal matters are not discussed. “In my office I learned very quickly that it was highly unusual to socialize with someone from work…The French take the personal-professional divide as seriously as they take the division of workdays and weekends.” Despite a promotion to vice president, Jane does not see the banking industry as her future. “When you are feeling discontented, there is nothing better than allowing yourself to dream. No superhuman strength is required to change one’s life. Sometimes it just takes a crisis.” What is Jane’s dream? She wants to open a culinary school with classes in English that take the formality out of French cooking, just like Julia Child did. But in the cuisine world, there was still no place in the kitchen for women. When Jane challenged a male colleague about these gender stereotypes, he asked if she could imagine a woman carrying a sack of flour that weighed 25 kilos (55 pounds) down the stairs? “No, I couldn’t...But I could imagine her asking the supplier to send smaller bags of flour.” Chronicling the ups and downs of building a business and a life in Paris, Jane names one of her successes, when six young American men arrive for a croissant class taught by her female pastry chef, Clotilde. “They listened attentively to every word Clotilde said…Clotilde loved their obedience but was thrown by it – how was she supposed to tease them if they did everything she asked perfectly and said, ‘Yes, ma’am’ to each request? The result was the most precise pieces of pastry…And no wonder. The six new clients, it turned out, were military servicemen on weekend leave in Paris.” Opened in 2009, Jane’s culinary school, La Cuisine Paris is about a half-mile from Notre-Dame, offering in-person classes and food tours in English as well as video and live classes via Zoom. In a French frame of mind today? See French Macarons with a Hand Mixer recipe or Claude Monet’s Water Lilies at the Musée de l’Orangerie. See more Books to Read: The Reader on the 6.27 No Time to Spare Read This for Inspiration Vivian Maier Developed Once Upon a Tome 
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