And Cathy's called me up, like she read it in one big gulp, and she called me up and said, "You are never allowed to write anything that isn't fun again."

I love it.

It feels that Stella, the protagonist, that Paris and the dress are all conspiring to help her find the way to becoming herself.

There's a real sense that, and this is part of the kind of the magic realism fairy tale aspect to me, that the city is obviously a huge character, right? The novel is not called, it's not called Stella.

It's called The Paris Novel.

And the way that you write about food, which obviously I've always enormously loved and admired, is so incredibly visceral in a way that you describe not just the food, but the sensation of eating it so beautifully that we're right there with Stella as she is eating.

And her meals and her encounters with the city do feel like they drive narrative in a way that's incredibly gutsy and just beautifully done.

[upbeat music]

day.

What do you like about it? I love the fact that it has this incredibly kind of moist, moussey-like texture, but is also really dense.

deep, dark chocolate flavor, this explosion of flavor combined with a really beautiful texture.

It's also just, and I love the fact that you cook it in that water bath because you never get the cake crumb that you do if you just bake.

You get something that's so kind of in between a pudding and a cake, which I think is so beautiful.

It's just a pleasure in the mouth.

I like the way you know how to make it.

It is healthy.

We were going to say normally, usually, the guest chooses a recipe from one of our recipes, but we wanted you to choose one from your book.

I chose to read a favorite recipe, which translates as simple chocolate silk.

In French, it's a cremeux simple.

And what I love about it is it's not quite a pudding.

It's not quite a mousse.

You know, it's just literally chocolate silk.

It's chocolate cream.

Tell me about that.