The French Do Chestnuts Right

 Watercolor courtesy of Paris Breakfasts If I were to credit France for one thing, aside from contributing to the expansion of my waistline and deteriorating my English, it would be the blossoming of my culinary palette. I am guilty of having grown up eating frozen dinners, peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches daily for lunch and thinking of vegetables as something only vegetarian hippies ate. Yes, I was a gastronomical mess. If there was any “green stuff” on my pasta dish, I wouldn’t eat it. If my mom tried to sneak any fruit other than banana into my cereal, I would push my bowl aside. In my defense, my parents never forced me to try new things, quite possibly because I was too difficult and it was more of a headache to coax me into eating than to just let it go. Still, I was the girl who brought PB&J with her to lunch even in high school. It wasn’t until I came to Paris and met my husband that I realized I was either going to starve or balloon up like a whale from too many baguettes if I didn’t push myself to try new things. What would he think if…

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