l’appart:The Delights and Disasters of Making my Paris Home by David Lebovitz    368 pages

I love to cook, especially bake. And I love to read recipes, especially desserts. When I can combine my love of baking with my love of reading by reading about chefs and their cooking, it’s a match made in heaven.

Author David Lebovitz is a cookbook author and expat living in France sine he gave up the restaurant business in the United States in 1999. From the little he described his Paris apartment, it sounds like it was a cozy place, high in the sky.  Very romantic, dashing and a charming lifestyle

After 10 years in Paris, Lebovitz decided it was time to make Paris his true home, so he wanted to buy an apartment. I guess here in the States we would call them condos. I’ve bought several homes here in the States, and while I thought the American process was daunting, it is easy-peasy compared to our French brethren. In France, and much of Europe I understand, there is no MILS system where prospective buyers can access all the available properties in a chosen vicinity. The seller can list with as many, or as few, agents as they desire, asking varying prices for the same piece of property. It’s enough to make a buyer’s head swim. I was really surprised that the buyer must submit to a health physical before the actual purchase can be completed.

Lebovitz must have spent a year trying to find the place he would call home. That was the easy part. Then the renovation was to begin. Lebovitz had his chosen apartment gutted down to the walls in order to create the perfect kitchen and living space.

I can’t really remember where he found the contractor who was to do the renovations, but The Property Brothers, he and his crew weren’t. Sometimes they would work for three or four days in a row; sometimes once a week; sometimes once a month. That was bad enough, but everything they touched was done incorrectly. It was a pure living hell that last about two years.

Eventually, Lebovitz found someone who could do the work correctly and his dream was coming true.  I laughed, I cried, I shook my head in wonder and amazement at the hurdles Lebovitz had to jump over. Then I thanked God for American laws. At one point, Lebovitz wanted to sue the first contractor, but a lawyer advised him against it. Not that he wasn’t in the right, but that it would drag through the courts for so many years, that Lebovitz could go broke before the case was settled.

I loved the recipes at the end of each chapter.  I copies them and hope to try them soon. The chosen recipes were supposedly reflective of that chapter, but I didn’t often make the correlations, which is the main reason that l’appart: The Delights and Disasters of Making my Paris Home receives 4out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for this review.