If you have felt the call of France, if you have lingered in its light and reveled in its luxuries, if you have succumbed to its passions and tasted of its delicacies, you may wonder what it is all about, beyond your own delight. Paris is an apotheosis in the human quest to exalt and sublimate the senses. It is a place of things “carefully sought out” -- exquisit in Latin. 

As an American still smitten after a quarter-century of life in France, I dive body and soul into this question through a collection of life fragments served up as an elaborate French menu de dégustation that give you a taste of France’s multiple facets. It begins with language and ends with love. Along the way, each chapter is like a dish dedicated to a form of cultural expression. There are tastes of architecture, art, craftsmanship, cuisine, wines, fashion, fragrances, and music. There is no imposed order or chronology, so you can take whatever whets your appetite at any given moment.  

With all the inroads Paris has made into your heart, she has also opened up pathways to a greater love affair--one that reaches up to the sublime like the spires of Notre Dame.

In terms more sensual than cerebral, EXQUISITE suggests an alchemical transmutation at work in our lives, of which Paris is but a catalyst.