The deep connection that I have now with food has evolved over the course of the years.
It has not been as linear as one would think.
Looking back, it is truly with the birth of my 1st child that I reclaimed my ancestral relationship with food & started feeding myself & those around me, at home & in my businesses with my guts, and not with my brain.

Recently the boys & I went to see the latest Hunger Games Mockingjay movie. With a budget of $160 million,
the film is considered a “success” for grossing something like $240 million so far, worldwide.
As we left the movie, my head still spinning, I kept thinking: how do I reframe what really defines creativity, art & dedicated work to my boys in our society that defines success based on dollars.
Then, a memory came to me and the summers I spent in the Ardèche region in my godmother’s little bakery & how with each baguette sold, I learnt how success is what happens when someone pursue quality & integrity.

A summer in the 1980’s: I am 10 years old.
My feet are dunked in the sand, my gaze on the horizon of the placid Gulf of Saint-Tropez. All over my fingers & my face is the smell of freshly grilled sardines, which I just devoured. I am happy: with each I got closer to the sea, merging with all elements surrounding me.
Summer 2015: Upstate NY with my boys.
Theo is covered in blueberry juice & Lucas has an impressive cream-on-top-milk-mustache. As I watch my sons, I am transported back to the beach of my childhood, grasping all at once how food not only connects people to each other, but to a place, a precise geographic pocket of where it comes from, in a very visceral way.

A couple weeks ago, the wine importer Camille Rivière & myself hosted a wine dinner at ICI (now Maison May), pouring biodynamic wines from Jura, France.
At the end of the evening, several guests commented on what a delicious, unpretentious & eye-opening experience this dinner was.
I truly enjoy introducing natural wines to people who have never before tasted these kind of wines before. It’s like watching someone eating farm fresh chicken for the 1st time: Once you taste the difference, you never go back.

I was recently featured on Brooklyn Based and I shared a bit more about my process for cooking for my family. Continue on to read their article:

Eating local food in Brooklyn certainly constitutes something quite different than what I was doing growing up in Provence, where all senses were easily activated in a rush of colors, smells, tastes.
However, in navigating the NYC landscape for the past 2 decades and learning how to source local food here, I managed to find a similar kaleidoscope of senses, and, more importantly, realize the impact on our community.
And along the way I developed a strategy to feed my family in a conscious yet efficient way & cook, connect, build & restore.

I had a good laugh the other day when a friend told me that some people have this super glamorous vision of my family life when it comes down to food. They envision me eating at ICI (now called Maison May Dekalb ) almost every night, with my perfectly mannered...

I do not believe in New Year’s resolutions:
it is too much pressure and in the end, it is too easy to drop them. I believe in process instead.
On slow, steady, sustainable building.
2015 is due to bring huge changes in my professional life.
But it did not happen overnight, neither did I wake up on
January 1st and decided to go for it.