Caroline Rimbert Craig’s love story with the food and flavors of Southern France is shared through over 100 simple recipes passed to her from generations of family who have farmed, foraged, and cooked there.
Provence is the fruit and vegetable garden of France, where much of its most beautiful produce is grown. These ingredients, combined with Provence’s unique identity, position, and history have resulted in a cuisine full of heart, balance, and soul—a cuisine that showcases its peoples’ reverence for the produce, the changing seasons, and the land.
Caroline Rimbert Craig’s maternal family comes from the southern foothills of Mont Ventoux, where the sun beats hard and dry, but aromatic herbs, vines, and fruit trees prosper. This is her guide to cooking the Provençale way, for those who want to eat simply but well, who love to cook dishes that rhyme with the seasons, and who want to recreate the flavors of the Mediterranean at home, wherever that may be.
With stunning color photographs to accompany the recipes, the book is also interspersed with shots of Provence’s beautiful landscapes, reflecting the region’s rich culinary culture.
Caroline Rimbert Craig hails from generations of fruit farmers in Provence, where her great grandfather co-founded the wine cooperative in her family’s native village, Mormoiron. She was educated at the French Lycée in London and studied anthropology at university. She has an instinctive approach to Provençal ingredients and flavors, inherited from her French family. Caroline is co-author of The Little Book of Lunch, The Cornershop Cookbook, and The Little Book of Brunch. She writes the lunchbox column for the Guardian newspaper with Sophie Missing.
"This charming cookbook shares recipes from generations of one family and explores the customs and dishes of the French Mediterranean ' In Provence, Caroline Rimbert Craig's first solo cookbook, she plumbs her own family history in the French Mediterranean, showcasing the food and flavors of Provençal cooking. Beyond offering a collection of recipes, Craig weaves together the history of Provence's landscape, kitchen staples and stories from her generations of family who have foraged, gardened and cooked thereall accompanied by charming photographs of food and the Provence countryside taken by Susan Bell."
"If you love French food and France, this book deserves a place on your kitchen counter but would be equally at home on your coffee table or even your bedside table as a book that will whisk you away to Provence with the turn of a page. A lovely read with classic Provençal recipes and stories."
"Forget the elaborate preparations so often associated with French cuisine. Provence native Craig shows how the simple love of olive oil and garlic, infused in ingredients like eggplant and tomatoes, reduces time in the kitchen to a half hour or less ' Color photographs of the south of France, by themselves, beckon; coupled with the 100-plus recipes and Craig's memorable family stories this collective will rank among reader favorites."
“Craig explores her family’s history and the cuisine of the beautiful Southern France region of Provence in her first solo cookbook … Simple and fresh ingredients drive the seasonal layout and inform the chapters … A charming and beautiful reflection on days gone by and the food history of a family and a region; will be appreciated by readers looking for the warmth of the French Mediterranean sun on the library shelf.”
— Library Journal
