Harriet Welty Rochefort is an author, speaker, freelance journalist, and a former professor of journalism at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po).

Her light-hearted but informative books, French Toast  and French Fried, both published by St. Martin’s Press, encapsulate Harriet’s French experience with humor and verve.   For the Los Angeles Times, « French Toast is wise and devastatingly funny ».  For Diane Johnson, author of Le Divorce, the book is « a classic ».  Harriet’s third book on the French, Joie de Vivre: Wining, Dining, and Romancing like the French, will be published by St. Martin’s Press in Fall 2012.

A French-American binational, Harriet lives with husband Philippe in the trendy east of Paris in a garden apartment with a tiny lawn just big enough to mow and a fig tree that has miraculously defied both Paris weather and pollution. 

In the picture Harriet is standing in another garden, Les Jardins du Palais-Royal, one of her favorite places in Paris.   Photo credit:   Jen Geer.

For  a comprehensive look at life in France, visit Harriet and Philippe's site:  www.understandfrance.org