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

I'd never come across another suitcase quite like it. But what was the tattered black leather valise doing there, hidden behind a crocheted comforter on the top shelf of my late mother's closet? The tarnished brass locking mechanism had already been sprung. I held my breath and lifted the lid...

The author's first discovery was a vintage portrait of her great-grandmother Blanche in traditional Alsatian costume. Blanche, her daughter and son-in-law would die at Auschwitz in 1944. Blanche's photograph partially hid a tattered notebook, the journal of her husband, Prosper, chronicling the horrors of the Nazi occupation of Europe from April to December 1940. Included in the valise was a notebook written in Blanche's hand, listing 160 heirloom recipes.

For her 11th cookbook, part Holocaust history, part memoir, part cookbook, Kitty Morse translated these family documents into English, and adapted and tested over 60 of Blanche's recipes for the American kitchen. Includes food photography and vintage images.