Cookbook Club October 2026: Lulu's Provencal Table

Forever French

No cuisine has seduced Americans quite like the French. This autumn, we give it our full attention across three months and three books that together cover remarkable range—from a Provençal vineyard kitchen to the regional home cooks who built the French culinary tradition to a former Chez Panisse pastry cook making his home in Paris. Annette is classically trained in the French tradition and a former instructor at the French Culinary Institute, which makes her exactly the right guide.

If you can't sign up for the whole Fall 2026 season, we invite you to join the club for one month as everyone explores Lulu's Provencal Table by Richard Olney.

Meets on Zoom, Tuesdays, October 6 & 20, 7:00–8:30 pm ET.

Richard Olney was one of the most respected voices on French food in the twentieth century. Lulu Peyraud was his friend for more than thirty years before he wrote this book about her. The legendary matriarch of Domaine Tempier, the vineyard that made Bandol wines famous, she never used recipes for the food she made for her family, the vineyard workers, and the stream of pilgrims who came to her table: Alice Waters, Kermit Lynch, Edward Behr, and others. Forceful, personal, and vraiment provençal.

Olney’s prickly meticulousness is nicely offset here by Lulu’s own adaptability and humor. There is an abundance of books on the south of France, but few have the forceful personality of this book and its dedication to the spirit of a remarkable woman.

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