Calendar of Events

Since I can remember, I wanted to live in France. Food was the vehicle that eventually brought me to here. It was a comfortable journey, beginning with a Camembert and butter sandwich at the Gare du Nord on a wintery day when I was an intrepid student traveler. Seduced, I promised to return, and some years later I joined the staff at a cooking school in Paris.

Staff is a big word. I was a stagiaire, a glorified go-fer an unpaid scullery maid there to suck every last drop of juice out of the experience. My goal was simple - I wanted to learn everything about French cuisine so that I could go on to write about it with knowledge and ease. I was willing to do anything, and anything was the most glorious set of tasks I could imagine. With my fellow stagiaires we rolled pastry and worked butter into bread dough; peeled mountains of garlic, washed forests of spinach. We filleted and butterflied, roasted and sautéed, emulsified and blanched and tasted, tasted, tasted until our heads were stuffed with knowledge, our fingers cross-hatched with cuts; our arms tattooed with tiny oven burns.

Sound tough? It was, boot camp for cooks. But, combined with a degree in journalism it has turned out to be the experience that keeps on giving, every single day. I am a writer who knows how and loves to cook; I am a cook who lives to write.

Today, I live in France, I own a cooking school, I teach Anglophones to cook, and I write books that come from my soul, always with a mission to share - food, culture, lifestyle of France.

My journalistic curiosity takes me places outside of France too. For Nuts in the Kitchen, my ninth book, I traveled far afield to research a niche subject that deserves to be mainstream, nuts. My book, which took me to Thailand and Turkey, Sweden, Spain, and Italy (and kept me paying attention right at my own French front door) brings nuts to the fore while painting small cultural pictures of people, places and food.

About Susan Herrmann Loomis

Susan Herrmann Loomis is a France-based, award-winning journalist, author and cooking school proprietor with eight books to her credit, a professionally trained chef, and a cooking school proprietor.

Susan began her writing career in newspapers in the state of Washington. From there she moved to Paris where she attended the renowned culinary school, La Varenne Ecole de Cuisine. With a Grand Diploma in hand, she opened a small café in Paris and later embarked on a successful writing career spanning some twenty years. She is the author of nine cookbooks, and her most recent work is Nuts in the Kitchen.

Susan has appeared as guest on numerous TV and radio programs. These include Good Morning America, National Public Radio in the United States, and FR3 and Radio Bleu in France. She is a regular columnist for France Magazine magazine, where her food column "Délices & Saveurs", appears in each issue. She is a frequent contributor to culinary magazines, such as Bon Appetit, Metropolitan Home, Cooking Light, Food and Wine, Gourmet, and The New York Times. Learn more about the author on her website.