Craig Carlson

The Publisher Says: Paris was practically perfect...

Craig Carlson was the last person anyone would expect to open an American diner in Paris. He came from humble beginnings in a working-class town in Connecticut, had never worked in a restaurant, and didn't know anything about starting a brand-new business. But from his first visit to Paris, Craig knew he had found the city of his dreams, although one thing was still missing—the good ol' American breakfast he loved so much.

Pancakes in Paris is the story of Craig tackling the impossible—from raising the money to fund his dream to tracking down international suppliers for "exotic" American ingredients... and even finding love along the way. His diner, Breakfast In America, is now a renowned tourist destination, and the story of how it came to be is just as delicious and satisfying as the classic breakfast that tops its menu.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Do not even think of eating...that is, reading...this book on an empty stomach.

This is a memoir. It's not a happy-families, aren't-people-grand memoir. It's a people will help you...if you make it so it's either help you or admit they're letting you fail because reasons story. The working-class background Author Carlson comes from doesn't lead him to pursue academic excellence or anything other than box-ticking adequacy. His emotional life is, it's plain, neglected completely. He doesn't exactly tell us this but the stories he tells are tendentious. Lucky for him, he inspired others to help by being too good to just abandon.

What matters to most of us, in reading memoirs, is seeing either ourselves in the other make good, or ourselves as we wish we could be. In Author Carlson's case, I saw an American man making his way in a world that doesn't love Americans very much...Paris. And making that way against many kinds of social, political, and cultural odds. After all, how many working-class cooks (NOT a chef!) still less plain ol' restaurateurs do you know about? He's the guy with the idea that no one thinks is great but him. He sells the idea to enough money people that he gets to open his dream: American breakfast food in, of all places, the capital of world-wide food snobbery, Paris, France.

It works. It really, really works. Go look at the website linked in the description! So perfectly American...so popular in Paris. Despite EuroDisney.

Author Carlson does a lot of describing in this book. And he lards in a lot of French. (Well, it stands to reason, but be aware!) It's clear as day to me why he tried to make it as a screenwriter: he has a visual imagination. There's a minuscule recipe section containing recipes I can vouch for from having made them several times apiece, in my own weird variations and under Rob's very attentive eyes, over the years. (This book is six years old now and this is my first review of it! How gauche of me.) But most of all, Author Carlson's love of his creation, Breakfast in America, and his love of France, French food, a French guy who becomes his husband, and the world of making people happy (I contend that's the only reason people go into the food business) made me happy.

Should you read it? You bet your sweet bippy. And on Kindle, all the photos and the miscellaneous stuff shows up very well, which makes the regular price a bargain. (The sale price is incitement to riot.) Go get one now. It's a summer beach trip spent in good, fun company learning about how someone with real, honest-to-gawd stick-to-it-iveness makes it in this world.

By doing everything that scares him witless.… (meer)

Starting up an American diner in Paris has to be fun, right...well, maybe. As Craig Carlson tells his story of discovering France, realizing the only thing it's missing is a good American breakfast, and then working to correct that oversight, I wondered how this man kept going. His tale is likely familiar to anyone who's attempted to start a business: the struggle to find investors, navigating the rules and regulations, figuring out how to manage a staff. Yet, he attempted to do all of this in France, where cultural barriers worked against many of his efforts. As I read the descriptions of the challenges Craig came up against, which included a short stint in prison because of party thrown by one of his employees who turned out to be working illegally, I wondered how he made it as far as he did before collapsing from the stress of it all. Fortunately, he also fell in love with a Frenchman, which was my favorite part of this memoir (!), and figured out how to delegate, which perhaps we all need to learn.… (meer)