![My Father's French Onion Soup](https://magarticles.magzter.com/articles/4017/389241/5dedf4629b2e9/My-Fathers-French-Onion-Soup.jpg)
MY FATHER GAVE ME HIS LETTERS FROM PARIS.
Written with a fountain pen on onionskin stationary and folded in envelopes marked Par Avion, these formative accounts were addressed to my grandmother, and mailed during the year he studied art in Montparnasse. He was 25 then and freshly disembarked from a World War II merchant marine ship. Dad asked Nana to ship pipe tobacco and instant coffee from the States because the French stuff was “too expensive” and “undrinkable.” He spent Sundays at museums. Bought a radio instead of paying his rent. Got engaged to someone else before meeting my mother. Ate a lot of soup when dead broke.
The school my father attended, Académie de la Grand Chaumière, was anything but grand. A modest townhouse with open studios, the academy would become known for its affiliation with modernists Amedeo Modigliani, Alberto Giacometti, and Louise Bourgeois. A few doors down on the same street, his poorly heated hotel also boasted an artistic pedigree. Samuel Beckett and F. Scott Fitzgerald both lived there for a time. In 1950, Dad paid $15 a month to rent a room with a hot plate so he could cook a can of beans or heat up water for cocoa. He purchased paints and brushes from the noted art supplier Sennelier, on Quai Voltaire, and met his closest friends, two other young American artists, at Le Select on Boulevard Montparnasse whenever one of them had enough money to treat the others. On March 11, he wrote: “My eating out at dinnertime in the evening costs about 160 to 200 francs each night. That amounts to about 60 cents at the most. To save money, I eat lunch in my room. Lunch consists of a half loaf of huge-sized French bread (delicious too!), ham, cheese, sardines once in a while, an orange, and tea or coffee.”
French Onion Soup
SERVES 6 • Total: 4 hr. 50 min.
This story is from the Winter 2019-20 edition of Saveur.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the Winter 2019-20 edition of Saveur.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
![Raising a Better Bird](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/4017/522330/5f741b541b973/crp_Raising-a-Better-Bird.jpg)
Raising a Better Bird
Blue Apron founder Matt Wadiak has moved onto greener pastures, where happy chickens roam free.
![One Good Bottle](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/4017/522330/5f741c2b58a54/crp_One-Good-Bottle.jpg)
One Good Bottle
Tamara Irish is a natural winemaker. Way natural.
![My Not-So-Secret Garden](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/4017/522330/5f741d4eab567/crp_My-Not-So-Secret-Garden.jpg)
My Not-So-Secret Garden
Good (vegetable-laden) fences make good neighbors in one tiny town.
![Pralines: How They Cook 'Em in New Orleans](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/4017/389241/5dedf222ab24b/crp_Pralines-How-They-Cook-Em-in-New-Orleans.jpg)
Pralines: How They Cook 'Em in New Orleans
Pralines: How They Cook ’Em in New Orleans
![My Father's French Onion Soup](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/4017/389241/5dedf4629b2e9/crp_My-Fathers-French-Onion-Soup.jpg)
My Father's French Onion Soup
Postwar Paris had a lifelong influence on James Edisto Mitchell—both as an artist and a cook BY Shane Mitchell
![Our All-Time Best Recipes](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/4017/389241/5de8b832ee84b/crp_OUR-ALL-TIMEBEST-RECIPES.jpg)
Our All-Time Best Recipes
If anyone should know if a recipe’s a keeper, it’s the person tasked with making sense of the original instructions—from the far reaches of Sri Lanka, say, or a famous chef who measures nothing. This might explain why many test kitchen staffers named favorites that their predecessors had tested and recommended. (Though a couple put forth recipes they developed themselves.) And while Saveur never shies away from the oddball authentic ingredient, the fare on the following pages is the stuff we cook at home, over and over again. Consider it global comfort food.
![Genever Is the Original Juniper Spirit](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/4017/389241/5de8bab7529e3/crp_Genever-Is-the-Original-Juniper-Spirit.jpg)
Genever Is the Original Juniper Spirit
Don’t call it a comeback. Or gin
![Tree Of Life](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/4017/303257/5bab8abea38c6/crp_Tree-Of-Life.jpg)
Tree Of Life
Harvesting the resin of the mastic tree has sustained generations on the Greek island of Chios
![From Bee To Bottle](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/4017/303257/5bab8c66ec9da/crp_From-Bee-To-Bottle.jpg)
From Bee To Bottle
On the lush island of Kauai, a local artisan brings mead into modernity
![Worth Her Salt](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/4017/303257/5bab8cfeb3bad/crp_Worth-Her-Salt.jpg)
Worth Her Salt
Meet the pioneering female cellar master at one of Spains greatestjamn ibricoproducers