About Wini Moranville

Hello, and welcome to my website.

Here you will find recipes, stories and lifestyle tips. The recipes and tips are mostly focused on the kind of inspired everyday French cooking I discovered through many extended summer stays in France. If you like what you see, take a look at my upcoming cookbook, Everyday French Cooking: Modern French Cuisine Made Simple, which will be published by Harvard Common Press in April, 2022. (You can pre-order it on Amazon, and if the price goes down, Amazon guarantees you’ll get the lowest price between now and the pub date.)

The new book is a second edition of my first cookbook, The Bonne Femme Cookbook: Simple, Splendid Food That French Women Cook Every Day. For my new edition (Everyday French Cooking), I scrupulously pared down the recipe list to only include only recipes that were truly everyday in nature — recipes French home cooks (who are just as busy as we are) would truly prepare any night of the week, whether feeding the family on a Tuesday night or casually entertaining friends on the weekend. And I added a few more fresh, contemporary, and simple recipes I’ve discovered since the first edition was published. Best of all, the new book has photos — dozens of great photos that I hope will further inspire you to bring a slice of France to your table.

I am also the author of The Little Women Cookbook, which explores recipes of the 19th century — specifically dishes that appear in Louisa May Alcott’s masterpiece (and still taste great today!).

A bit of background: In addition to being a cookbook author, since 1997, I have also worked as an editor and feature writer on countless cookbooks and food magazines and websites, from Better Homes and Gardens to Bonjour Paris. During my 15-year stint as the Des Moines Register’s restaurant critic, I wrote more than 750 restaurant reviews for the paper.

Lately, I've come to realize that, at least for the time being, I’ve contributed enough recipes to the world. I have a story to tell. I am currently working on a memoir, titled “Cheap Wine in the Open Air,” which follows my food life, from working in restaurants and reviewing them, to exploring what truly matters at the table.

Enjoy this site. And always feel free to drop me a line about anything I've written here. Email me at wini@winimoranville.com.