About The Author
Irvina Lew is an author and freelance food, spa, and travel writer, who taught French for more than thirty years. A five-year stint writing about restaurants and spas for New York Nightlife—plus book and media tours to thirty cities—motivated her transition from teacher to full-time freelancer. She has won awards from the Society of American Travel Writers and the Society of Professional Journalists: Long Island Press Club and is also a member of American Society of Journalists and Authors, Long Island Authors and an alumnus of Travel Classics. The Francophile is a musical theater fan who loves to garden and serve gougères, rotisserie chicken, and zucchini blossoms at her Long Island home.
About The Book
In Forays in France: A Flavorful Memoir, Irvina Lewshares deliciously engaging anecdotes about food-centric stays in Paris, on the Riviera, and in France’s wine regions. Her personal vignettes span the arc of a lifetime starting as a student at The Sorbonne, University of Paris,in 1958, at age 19, to her return classes there, in 2025,four years from ninety. For almost seven decades, the Francophile has traveled to France solo, in small groups, and plus one as a friend, wife, mom, grand-mère and widow. In this culinary travelogue, you can join Irvina on captivating journeys in vintage automobiles and rental cars; on barges, riverboats and a sailing ship; and in umpteen trains, including the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express. Along the way you'll discover enriching sidebars, useful travel tips and easy-to-replicate French favorites and learn about culture, food, and history, markets and museums. You’ll even meet a variety of fascinating individuals, including a crook.
Her appealing essays and savvy insights about how to save and where to splurge, what to see and where to go, and how to deal with challenges en route, will amuse and inspire you.