Recipes and Recommendations for Imbibing Beauty through Books and Beverages
By Annie Nardone
Pages, Pints, and Pours recommends this literary classic by Ernest Hemingway that will carry your imagination back to post WWI Paris. Sip a favorite daiquiri or mockjito as you read of the gloriously vivant days of The Lost Generation.
THE PAGES: A MOVEABLE FEAST BY ERNEST HEMINGWAY
“I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, ‘Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.’”
—Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
Imagine a misty day in Paris, circa 1923. Walking down the Place St.-Michel, you enter a little café, sit at a round table by the window, and order a café au lait. With paper and fountain pen at ready to begin your story, you look up and see Ernest Hemingway sipping a rum St. James at another table, writing in his notebook with a pencil. Maybe Scott Fitzgerald or Ezra Pound will stop by to chat and sip an eau-de-vie. The Lost Generation always finds each other in Paris.
A Moveable Feast is Hemingway’s memoir of his early years in Paris from 1921-1926, captured as small stories with a cast of literary and artistic notables of the day. He tells of salon meetings with Gertrude Stein and Ernest Walsh. He recounts conversations with Picasso and F. Scott Fitzgerald in Parisian pubs, and his struggles with his own writing career. Hemingway’s first-person narrative reveals the Lost Generation luminaries, warts and all.
Most American students have been assigned to read Hemingway, but perhaps not this overlooked gem. I believe it is his best work. He struggled with the proper way to start the book (those drafts are found in the back of this edition). The first line drops the reader in his stream-of-thought about the weather the day he walked into the dingy Café des Amateurs that was populated by drunkards. He actually never finishes the book.
His minimalist observations on living in 1920s Paris make A Moveable Feast infinitely quotable, especially the delightful bonus of his encouragement to other writers. He tells Scott Fitzgerald to “Write the best story that you can and write it straight as you can.”
Living by his own advice, he reflects, “I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing; but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.”
At the end of the book, I felt relief in knowing that even Hemingway had existential wrangling with his work. After all, Gertrude Stein told him that he “was not a good enough writer to be published [in The Atlantic Monthly] or in The Saturday Evening Post . . . but might be some new sort of writer.” Looking at the sheer volume of his oeuvre, over 30 novels and anthologies, I believe that Hemingway had the final word.
I recommend A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition (Scribner Publishing, 2010), a collaborative work by his son Patrick and grandson Sean. You will be treated to the text of Hemingway’s original manuscript, photos, back story of the title, as well as “Fragments,” which are drafts of introductions he wrote but never used in the final draft. A comment about the occasional innuendo: There is nothing graphic, but Hemingway’s writing is reflective of 1920s Paris.
You do not have to go to Paris…simply read A Moveable Feast, and it will take you there.
— Seán Hemingway, grandson of Ernest Hemingway
PINTS AND POURS
No secret that Ernest Hemingway enjoyed cocktails. He notes many bars in A Moveable Feast. I tracked down the recipe for one of his favorites that he enjoyed in Cuba at the El Floridita.[1]
As a fun follow-up to the book, watch the film Midnight in Paris (a Woody Allen production) starring Owen Wilson, sip a Papa Doble Daiquiri or Mockjito, and try to identify the cast of characters in the 1920s Paris scenes!
The Hemingway Special Papa Doble Daiquiri
3 ½ oz. light gold rum (Bacardi Gold preferred)
1 oz. freshly squeezed pink grapefruit juice
¾ oz Luxardo Maraschino liqueur
1 oz freshly squeezed lime juice
½ oz pure cane syrup
Prechilled, large martini glass
Pour rum, juices, and cane syrup into cocktail shaker. Add ice and shake to mix. Strain into chilled glass. Garnish with a Luxardo cherry and lime slice on the rim.
Mockjito
Another Cuban favorite is the mojito — some say Hemingway is credited for the name. This is a non-alcohol version, but to transform to a cocktail, just add a shot of white rum.
1 c. sparkling water
1 tsp. cane syrup, to taste
1 mint sprig
1 tsp. fresh lime juice
Place mint sprig and cane syrup in a tall glass. Muddle the mint and syrup, add lime juice, then sparkling water. Add ice to fill glass and garnish with lime slice.
[1] https://www.diffordsguide.com/, accessed February 2025.
Annie Nardone is a lifelong bibliophile with a special devotion to the Inklings and medieval authors. She is a Fellow with the C.S. Lewis Institute and holds an M.A. in Cultural Apologetics from Houston Christian University. Annie is a writer for Cultivating Oaks Press and An Unexpected Journal. Her writing can also be found at Square Halo Press, Rabbit Room Press, Clarendon Press U.K., Calla Press, and Poetica. Annie is a Master Teacher with HSLDA and Kepler Education and strives to help her students see holiness in everyday life and art. She lives in Florida with her husband and six cats, appreciates the perfect cup of tea, an expansive library, and the beach with family.
