by Michèle Roberts

Published 7 November 2024

Read Rachel Cooke’s review in the Guardian

Part of the beauty of the art of cooking is that it involves transience, making something delightful that then vanishes, and that in turn involves cherishing the time we spend on perfecting a dish. Cooking yourself something delicious is rewarding, satisfying, cheering. It makes us feel capable, creative, able to take care of ourselves. Cooking for yourself makes you feel spoiled and cherished.
- Michèle Roberts

'Michèle Roberts’ enchanting book French Cooking for One proves la cuisine française can be enjoyed alone, when there is nothing to interrupt the joy of preparing good ingredients and turning them into enticing dishes. Her anecdotes and notes of wisdom that accompany the recipes make her the perfect companion in the kitchen.'
— Carolyn Boyd, author of Amuse Bouche

A unique work of literary and culinary joie de vivre, part food memoir, part recipe book, French Cooking for One is Michèle Roberts' first cookbook, and a personal and quirky take on Édouard de Pomiane's ten-minute cooking classic. Once a food writer for the New Statesman, Roberts was born in 1949 and raised in a bilingual French-English household, learning to cook from her French grandparents in Normandy. Her love of food and cookery has always shone through in her novels and short stories.

Whether cooking for one on a daily or an occasional basis, cooking well for yourself means cherishing yourself and your appetites, joyously giving yourself pleasure, opening yourself to new experiences. This book will encourage you to do all that.
- M. R.

French cuisine, classic though it is, still holds delicious surprises. From quick bites for busy days to sumptuous main courses for those who enjoy spending more time in the kitchen, the focus throughout is on dishes that are simple and fun to prepare, and results that are mouthwatering to contemplate and, of course, to eat.

With over 160 delicious recipes, the majority of which are vegetarian, combined with piquant storytelling and feminist wit, French Cooking for One is a working cook's book with French flair, bursting with life and illustrated with the author's original ink drawings, full of charm and humour.

More than a handbook of classic French dishes, French Cooking for One does something that few, if any, cookbooks do: it bears testimony to a singular literary life.

Gorgeously written vignettes of Roberts' childhood in Normandy and of her years living in Pays de la Loire are peppered with anecdotes about intellectual and artistic luminaries: an omelette prepared by Gertrude Stein's cook for Picasso; a simple pasta dish calling to mind the French philosopher Julia Kristeva and the Scottish poet Alison Fell's images of female orgasm; and Emma Bovary's extraordinary wedding cake, among others.

This slim paperback volume printed on woodfree coated paper, with sewn binding for durability, fits easily on busy kitchen shelves and is ideal for readers on the go.

Paperback original with French reverse flaps printed in two-tone stripes on the reverse, 152 pages
190 x 130 x 12 mm
ISBN 978-1-0686617-1-6

Erratum