The Secret to Enjoying a French Lunch

Especially for Workaholics

My biggest struggle living in France is not the bureaucracy, the complex language, living without Mexican food, or missing my American friends and family. It’s lunch. Lunch is killing me. If I have lunch, it is the only thing I accomplish that day. Need I say that having lunch does not the mortgage pay?

I often say no to lunch invitations, and fear I may have crossed some kind of cultural Rubicon with my French friends. They look at me now and think: you Americans really are demented strivers. You eat at your desk. Your keyboard is choked with crumbs. How meaningful can your life possibly be, if you can’t even pause for a nice three course, two-hour lunch?

Lunch is sacred in France. It’s a little vacation in the middle of the day, a time to recharge, socialize, and enjoy a meal. The French do not find lunch to be a giant distraction that wrecks their mojo. Nor do they believe that drinking a glass of wine signals the end of the work day. Somehow, after lunch, they return to work refreshed, rather than flattened, and continue to be productive until six or seven pm. How they manage this is a mystery.

Earlier in the summer, our neighbors invited us to lunch in their garden. They served grilled Catalan sausage, poivrons confit, fluffy basmati rice, a green salad, a cheese plate consisting of one hard and one soft cheese, a perfect, crusty baguette, all accompanied by a pale rosé. It was all so effortless. Their garden was lovely, the conversation stimulating, the food delicious; but then I had to go home and take a two-and-a-half-hour nap, after which I was awakened by copious amounts of drool on my pillow, and, for a brief moment, the suspicion that I had been kidnapped.

August is perhaps the biggest month for all-consuming recreational lunching. At the end of the month, some French friends hatched a plan to visit the newly refurbished Musée d'Art Moderne in Céret, a neighboring village forty-five minutes away by car, after which we would, yes, have lunch.

This sort of cultural excursion is a very French way to spend a day during les grandes vacances, the big summer vacation. It’s the kind of activity people rhapsodize about when they talk about how the French really know how to appreciate the good things in life. I agreed to go, even though as writer who has finally gained some traction on a novel she’s been working on for a year (okay, two years), a lunch like this is une catastrophe. I would lose a whole day of writing. I would lose an even rarer, more cherished thing: momentum. Without momentum a writer, especially a novelist (all those words!), has nothing but good ideas, chewed cuticles, and dead butt syndrome.  

I’m wondering if it might actually be impossible for a writer to live in a country that places such a high value on lunch. Few writers I know eat a big lunch when they’re hard at work. Ariel Levy is said to eat like a rabbit. Emma Straub eats “anything small that I can eat a lot of in on sitting, like chocolate-covered raisins.” Agatha Christie ate apples in the bathtub around the noon hour. Patricia Highsmith ate bacon and eggs for every meal. Balzac, as we know, lived on coffee, up to 50 cups a day. A lot of famous, very productive French writers –  Voltaire, René Descartes, Marcel Proust – did most of their writing in bed, and I think I know why. If you’re writing in bed, no one can ask you to lunch.

On the day of the excursion, we convoyed to Céret. In the early 20^th century the village was something of an art colony. In 1911 Picasso and his cronies lived here, carousing and dabbling in what would become cubism. The winding cobblestone main street is shaded by London plane trees, and the small art museum is world class. I power-walked through the temporary exhibit (Max Jacob, one of the cronies), enjoying the black and white photos of all those renegade artists in crumpled woolen suits, painting en plein air, and getting drunk in cafés.

Afterwards, I toyed briefly with figuring out a way to leave. There were enough of us that my absence might not be noticed, at least for a while. I could have gone home, scarfed down a peanut butter and jelly sandwich al desko, and made my daily word count. But in case it hasn’t become abundantly clear, lunch was the main event. Lunch is always the main event.

The restaurant was airy, with a view of the foothills, their vineyards flush with fruit. We were seated at a long table. As I tucked my sunglasses into my purse, I felt the pages of a small notebook. One of my favorite gel pens was clipped to the cover. My mood improved immediately.

Years ago, I worked for six months as the film critic for the Oregonian, while Shawn Levy, the regular critic, took a sabbatical to write a book. The first thing I had to learn was how to write in the dark, on a notebook poised on my knee, while also paying attention to the movie. Perhaps you can see where this is leading.

I was placed at the end of the table, next to the Man of the House, and across from Marc and Jean-Pierre. This could not have been a more fortuitous seating arrangement. All summer long these three routinely venture out into the mountains on their motorcycles and bikes and are always planning another adventure, or reminiscing about the last one. Their recent scheme involved a camping trip where everyone would sleep in special camping hammocks suspended from trees.

The wine was poured. The entrée was served: white anchovies, escalivade, a traditional Catalan dish made with grilled eggplant, pepper and onions, and pan tomate, followed by the main course of grilled monkfish. Throughout the meal, I scribbled in my little notebook, poised on my knee, occasionally contributing an “Bah, oui!” or “Exactement ça!” to the conversation. The men discussed the merits of the camping hammock, should they bring sleeping bags or blankets, and whether they each would need to order a special camping hammock pillow. It was terrifically boring, but I was able to work out the end of a chapter that had been giving me trouble.

Dessert was a particularly light crème catalane. Unlike crème brûlée, it is made with regular milk rather than heavy cream, and is unlikely to trigger a diabetic coma. It was the perfect end to a perfect lunch.

Come to Your Senses Writing Retreats 2025 UPDATE

Writers looking for an authentic, home-grown, all-inclusive writing retreat in the South of France — registration is now open for 2025. Enrollment is capped at 12 for each session, so if you’re interested, do reach out.

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