Apricots on the Nile: A Memoir with Recipes

Apricots on the Nile: A Memoir with Recipes Features

Additional Apricots on the Nile: A Memoir with Recipes Information

Cairo, 1937: French-born Colette Rossant is waiting out World War II among her father's Egyptian-Jewish relatives. From the moment she arrives at her grandparents' belle époque mansion by the Nile, the five-year-old Colette finds companionship and comfort among the other "outsiders" in her home away from home -- the cooks and servants in the kitchen. The chef, Ahmet, lets Colette taste the ful; she learns how to make sambusaks for her new friends; and she shops for semits and other treats in the Khan-al-Khalili market. Colette is beginning to understand how her family's culture is linked to the kitchen...and soon she will claim Egypt's food, landscape, and people as her own.

Apricots on the Nile is a loving testament to Colette's adopted homeland. With dozens of original recipes and family photographs, Colette's coming-of-age memoir is a splendid exploration of old Cairo in all its flavor, variety, and wide-eyed wonder.

What Customers Say About Apricots on the Nile: A Memoir with Recipes:

Fair recipes Not as good a story as some other cooking memoirs I've read, kind of sad.

I love to read about other cultures, and this was an enjoyable read. This was one of my favorite all-time books. I purchased one as a gift for my sister also.

The author is a good writer, which makes the book easy and rewarding to read. Besides being an interesting memoir of the author's childhood in Egypt during WWII, in a wealthy Jewish family, it's also an honest account of her alienation from her mother, which really spoke to me. I really enjoyed reading this book - even though I will probably never try the recipes. I read the whole book through in one sitting (although, to be truthful, it's a small book).