"Vancouver Chef Jeremy Papier is becoming known for innovative dishes that highlight local ingredientes. His restaurant, the Monkey's Paw Bistro, struggles financially, but begins to attract widespread attention and the eye of Dante Beale, owner of a hugely succesful coffehouse chain, Dante's Inferno."

"Your mouth waters as you read... A novel with a plot to return to, characters to remain with, and themes to think about." National Post.

Purchased as a Birthday Group present for over-the-moon, who has it in her WishList.

Sent yesterday as a Birthday Group present to over-the-moon, with a litlle "extra sweet treat".
Enjoy this WishList book... and Happy Birthday! :)

This has been on my wishlist for ages, I can't remember who recommended it, but one of my regrets is visiting Vancouver and not having time to see Stanley Park. Delighted to receive it for my birthday (not to mention the chocolate!) Thank you very much, bookworm-lady!

A feast of a book - well, several kinds of feasts, some more appetizing than others (and probably not for vegans...)
Chef Jeremy Papier trained in a small restaurant in Burgundy then opened a successful restaurant in his home town, Vancouver, called The Monkey's Paw. If I lived close by, I would have eaten there: everything sounds delicious - local produce with a touch of the exotic and an extra surprise. But if Jeremy is a wizard at cooking, he is hopeless at money and gets into a hideous mess juggling with his credit cards, saved only by one Dante Beale, owner of a coffeehouse chain called Dante's Inferno and incidentally the neighbour of Jeremy's father. So Dante opens up a new restaurant on the Monkey's Paw premises plus the neighbouring building. Vast, pretentious, with purple velvet curtains, gold tassels, chandeliers and even more pretentious menu, with Jeremy at the helm and a brigade of first-year cookery school students, it is given the vaguely Italian-sounding name of Gerriamo (which everyone pronounces differently).

Meanwhile, Jeremy's father, known a The Professor, has taken to camping out in Stanley Park (which fills up with homeless people at nightfall), catching ducks, squirrels, rabbits and little birds to survive, making friends with a vagrant called Caruzo. He is obsessed with an incident that happened many years ago, when the remains of two children were found in the woods, and asks Jeremy to do some research for him at the library. Jeremy finds himself spending many of his sleepless nights in the park, sometimes sharing in his father's meals.
Add to the menu some quite casual girlfriends, Jules, who works with Jeremy at The Monkey's Paw, and later Benny, who is taken on as assistant designer for Gerriamo's.

Well, all of this is just the backdrop for the narrative, which axes largely on preparation for the grand opening of Gerriamo's, a night when the guests are served some very interesting, avant-garde dishes. I don't really want to say any more about the events that ensue, except some adjectives: unexpected, hilarious, surreal, appetizing, finally comforting.

*******
I would have given it a 10, were it not for quite a lot of mistakes (apart from the occasional typo, such as broach instead of brooch).
- The first name Patrice might be used for women in the English-speaking world, but in France, anyone called Patrice is a man.
- I said I liked the food of the Monkey's Paw, but if I asked for grenadins de porc and Jeremy gave me a pork chop, I would send it back to the kitchen. A pork chop in French is a côtelette de porc. In France, grenadins are medallions cut from a long, thin, lean piece of muscle in the loin (similar to the shape of lamb fillet). This cut is quite expensive and in French-speaking Switzerland is called filet mignon (which can be pork or veal). Most importantly, grenadins do not have a bone. So, though his recipe sounds delicious, he is serving côtelette de porc.
- where is Loch Lommond? Does he mean Loch Lomond? If so, why serve farmed Scottish salmon in a city that is much closer to the Pacific and Alaska? (Only wild salmon, please!)
- in Paris, it's Rue Mouffetard
- the menu needs correcting: assiette végétarienne (it's feminine), and a cheese plate would be assiette de fromages, though normally in France you'd get a plateau de fromages, a board rather than a stingy plate.
- pesto soup, from the description I think this is soupe au pistou, which is, indeed, delicious. Pesto being the Italian green or red paste for pasta dishes.

For the meetup

Un auteur canadien pour mon défi tour du monde.

Recommandé par over-the-moon. Alors pourquoi pas...
Je comptait sur lui pour mon défi des Ecrivains du monde : Vancouver, Canada. Eh bien c'est loupé 😀: Timothy Taylor est né au Venezuela !

Voilà, maintenant je propose ce livre à Berna54
Bonne lecture !