Bitter Sweet: A Wartime Journal and Heirloom Recipes from Occupied France

Author Kitty Morse will discuss her new book Bitter Sweet: A Wartime Journal and Heirloom Recipes from Occupied France. This book was written after she discovered her great-grandfather's journal chronicling the advance of the Germans in Le Grand Est (Alsace Lorraine) between April and December 1940, and two notebooks filled with recipes written in her great-grandmother’s hand in a suitcase left to her by her mother.

Bitter Sweet takes place in and around her mother’s birthplace, Châlons-sur-Marne (now Châlons-en-Champagne.) Blanche Lévy-Neymarck, Morse's maternal great-grandmother, died at Auschwitz in 1944 along with one of her daughters and her son-in-law. Blanche's husband Prosper, an army surgeon in WWI, was twice the recipient of the Légion d'Honneur.

This book is not just the story of a family torn apart by war, but features 70 unique recipes that show the rich history of a family.

Award-winning author Kitty Morse was born in Casablanca, Morocco, of a French mother and British father. She emigrated to the United States at the age of 17. While studying for her Master’s Degree at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Kitty catered Moroccan diffas, or banquets, and went on to teach the intricacies of Moroccan cuisine in cooking schools and department stores nationwide. In June 2002, she conducted a Culinary Concert on Moroccan culture and cuisine hosted by Julia Child, as a benefit for the Harry Bell Foundation of the International Association of Culinary Professionals. Kitty’s books have been translated into French, German, Polish, and Czech. In 1984 (and for the next 25 years) she initiated annual gastronomic tours to Morocco that included culinary demonstrations in her family home, a Moorish riad south of Casablanca. Her monthly e-newsletter,The Kasbah Chronicles, in French and in English is now in its 12th year of circulation.

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