White Truffles in Winter by N.M. Kelby

White Truffles in Winter imagines the world of the remarkable French chef Auguste Escoffier (1846-1935), who changed how we eat through his legendary restaurants at the Savoy and the Ritz. A man of contradictions—kind yet imperious, food-obsessed yet rarely hungry—Escoffier was also torn between two women: the famous, beautiful, and reckless actress Sarah Bernhardt and his wife, the independent and sublime poet Delphine Daffis, who refused ever to leave Monte Carlo. In the last year of Escoffier’s life, in the middle of writing his memoirs, he has returned to Delphine, who requests a dish in her name as he has honored Bernhardt, Queen Victoria, and many others.

Like a cook who refuses to follow a recipe slavishly, Kelby improvises with the basic ingredients of Escoffier's life to create a delectable dish of her own. She's occasionally heavy-handed with her seasonings -- adding too many over-sweetened sentences like "Only food can speak what the heart feels" -- but this is generally counterbalanced by the tart freshness of her characters, chief among them her version of the chef himself.

How does one define the complexity of love on a single plate? N. M. Kelby brings us the sensuality of food and love amid a world on the verge of war in this work that shimmers with beauty and longing.N. M. Kelby is the critically acclaimed author of In the Company of Angels, Whale Season, White Truffles in Winter, and the Florida Book Award winner A Travel Guide for Reckless Hearts, among others. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.