It is easy to see that Rebekah Peppler has picked up plenty of life skills from her years dwelling in Paris: embracing the train as a primary means of travel, for one, and living by the local marché schedule when it comes to sourcing provisions for parties and picnics. But the learnings Peppler has perhaps most deeply embraced—and has also since shared with the world in her two recent books, Apéritif and the new À Table—show her acquired knack for gathering loved ones and friends with ease, generosity, and style, and without fuss or formality, the way the French simply do best.
Released just this spring, À Table: Recipes for Cooking and Eating the French Way, is a modern manual for this very way of getting together, with Peppler’s deft and elegant guidance on everything from curating a just-so Parisian pantry to achieving the ideal crisp atop crème brûlée. Beyond her books, Peppler’s light-flooded travel photos and laissez faire itineraries around Europe—and, hopefully soon again, beyond—provide as much an opportunity to glean intel and inspiration from her as do her dinner parties.
In our latest conversation, she shared what inspires and consumes her when she’s outside the walls of her beloved Montmartre flat, namely: a oneness with the south of France, adventuring around the Adriatic, and some lofty travel plans (Japan island hopping?) still waiting to be realized.
PRIOR: What was the trajectory—personal and career-wise—that took you to Paris?
Rebekah Peppler: I tend to make big decisions easily and dwell on the smaller ones, so when I decided to move to Paris in 2015 it was a pretty quick turnaround from idea to action. There were a lot of reasons for the change but one was certainly professional: I had studied Journalism, English, and Art History in undergrad, then moved to New York to study French Pastry Arts at the International Culinary Center (née: French Culinary Institute). I have always been deeply interested in the intersection of food, art, and writing and, after working primarily as a Food Stylist in New York City and Los Angeles, the move to Paris was with a clear intention to focus on writing. This led to Apéritif: Cocktail Hour the French Way, published in 2018, and À Table, published this past spring.
What would you say surprised you most about moving to France?
Because I didn’t know anyone in Paris and was meeting people for the first time, there were none of those preconceptions that people place on others after knowing them for years or an entire lifetime. I felt free and able to both recognize and be my full, present-day self. It was a liberating, surprising, challenging, growth-filled time.
How is traveling different for you now that you live in Europe?
