Lucy has done what most people only dream of doing. To celebrate her twenty-second birthday, and her mother’s own milestone of turning 50, the two decide to embark on a six-week trip to Paris.
French Milk is a book in which Lucy recreates their Parisian adventure through her whimsical drawings, photographs and musings.

Café Crème: First of all, I would like to know if you went back to France since then, and if not, do you plan to go back in the future? Maybe for another book?

Lucy Knisley: Last year, my mom took an incredible cooking class in Paris in the spring. I was supposed to be in my graduate school classes, and finishing up the corrections on French Milk for my publishers, but she said, “I don’t wanna go back to Paris without you!” and so I told everyone I was going on a “fact-checking trip” for French Milk, and zipped away to Paris with her for a few days. This was in the Spring, and so vastly different from when we were there in January. I probably enjoyed it mostly because I was playing hooky, but it was also warm and sunny and gorgeous. I hope to go back as soon as I can, but I think I may have used up my Paris trips (2 in 2 years!) for a little while!

CC: What kind of clichés and pre-conceived notions did you have about France (before the trip) that were completely false or true?

LK: Like most Americans, I have trouble speaking French. I was terribly embarrassed by my limited grammar and bad accent before I left to go there. I was sure I’d be completely flummoxed by any sort of conversational interaction. By the time we’d been in the city for a few days, though, I found that most Parisians I encountered were kind and understanding about my attempts to speak French, and often were nice enough to compliment me on it, even though I’m sure I was almost unintelligible. I picked up so much French while I was there, too, that I was shocked to be able to understand quite a lot of the signs and announcements that I heard or read. My other preconception about Paris was that French men were terribly handsome, which proved to be very true, but I found my head turned mostly by the women, who are astonishingly gorgeous, and who seemed to acquire their fabulous clothes from mysterious places that I never could quite find or afford.

CC: It was nice to notice that you already had some “French” (bad?) habits like drinking wine and smoking before your trip. Do you keep smoking/drinking?

LK: I haven’t really smoked much since I came home. It’s just not as romantic and sexy when you’re smoking in Chicago. I mostly wanted to smoke in honor of Oscar Wilde and Jean-Paul Belmondo and other such dramatic icons (Oscar Wilde is, of course, not French, but spent his final tragic days in Paris, and is buried at Pere La Chaise). I wanted to be in a classic French film, with the smoke drifting sexily from my parted lips, but I’m not a natural smoker, so I wound up taking girly little puffs and picking tobacco from my tongue. It wasn’t a good habit for me, so I stopped almost as soon as I returned, which coincided nicely with Chicago’s smoking ban. The wine, though, I still love, and drink on most weekends. It’s the French food, though, that is my most chronic and obsessive addiction!

CC: What do you miss the most from Paris?

LK: I miss the food, of course, which is undeniable. There is just no other place on earth where such delicious food was so readily available. It seemed like there was another patisserie or boulangerie on every street corner, just brimming with the most incredible things. I miss certain food the most– the Epoisses from the cheese market, or the chocolate fondants from the little bakery on the Mouffetard. I miss the easy availability of blood-orange juice, and good saucisson, just there in the local supermarket! Cornichon in the tiny shop below our apartment, fresh lychees in the fruit stand outside, duck confit at the restaurant around the corner… It’s so incredible to live among such delights.
I also miss the smell of the river and the beautiful men in beautiful scarves and the specialty shops that seem to contain such a small selection of such wondrous things… But mostly I miss the food!

CC: Are you a fan of French/European comics? If yes, which ones?

LK: I LOVE Bande Dessinees! I grew up reading Tintin and Asterix, and completely adore them. Hergé, especially, is a major inspiration to me. I love his sensibility, and the attention to aesthetics and detail. In recent years, I’ve discovered David B, of Epileptic, whose art completely enraptures me. I’m terribly upset that I don’t read French more adeptly, and I have such difficulty reading these books in their original format. On my last trip to Paris, I picked up Blitz, by Jean-Claude Floc’h, whose incredible varied line strokes are absolutely gorgeous, and Orange et Désespoir, by Lucie Durbiano. This last one I’ve especially adored, as we share a similar first name/profession, and her beautiful, simple colored stories are fascinating, even if I can’t fully read them, as they’re in French.

CC: Tell us about your life now. Are you still living in Chicago?

LK: I do still live in Chicago. I’m finishing up my second year of graduate school, and working on a new graphic novel about food, and growing up with a mother who is a chef. I’m sharing an apartment with my boyfriend, John, in a pretty little part of the city, and we’ve recently adopted a big fluffy orange cat, who is frequently crabby. The three of us (the cat slightly less so) are working our way through French language lessons, in the hopes that someday we’ll be able to live there.