As They Were by M. F. K. Fisher; Unabridged MP3 Audio Book; Narrator C. M. Hébert

Written as a series of vignettes, this rewarding book recounts the life and adventures of respected writer Mary Fisher. Decades of travel through America and Europe supply the fodder for these tales, with wonderful details of the people, places, foods, and thoughts that have flavored her journey.

“In a properly run culture, Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher would be recognized as one of the great writers this country has produced in this century.”—New York Times Book Review

"To my mind, As They Were contains some of the best writing M.F.K. Fisher has ever done." —Boston Globe

"Here are the voluptuous meals recalled by a woman who savored not only the food and wine but every detail of setting and nuance of conversation. Here, too, are meditations on travel by freighter…And here are the vivid evocations of place."—San Francisco Chronicle

“Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher is a national treasure. For nearly fifty years she has been writing rare, fine prose about so many things that she is nearly impossible to define.”—Newsweek

“A breath of poetry wraps us as she relives for us a lifetime…She is the attentive spectator of her own life as well as its narrator.”—Philadelphia Inquirer

“She deserves the widest possible audience…The restaurants, hotels and markets she visits are aswarm with people and things, all of which she describes in fine detail, making the reader taste and hear and smell and see as few other writers can…Wherever she is, wherever she goes, she is grand company.”—Chicago Sun Times

“Listening to Hébert’s delicate reading of the decades-old reminiscences…is like sharing an evening with a gracious gourmet.”—Booklist “C.M. Hébert is the perfect accompaniment to M.F.K. Fisher's delightful recollection of the highs and lows of world travel and French food. Hébert reads these warm yet sophisticated descriptions of feasts, forays, and friends with a wistfulness and longing one can imagine Fisher herself feeling as she remembers delights long past. Hébert's perfect French adds a nice touch to Fisher's exquisitely crafted essays, and her cadence captures Fisher's humor and sense of irony at every bend. Whether she's describing the best waiter she ever met, the toil of a difficult sea voyage, or the joys of her California childhood, Hébert delivers a beautiful performance, tempting all of the senses with Fisher's love of life.”—AudioFile

M. F. K. Fisher was educated at Illimois College, Occidental College, and UCLA, and at the University of Dijon in France. She is best known for her gastronomical writings. Mrs. Fisher has spent a good portion of her life as housewife, mother, and, of course, amateur cook; she has written novels, poetry, a screenplay; for a few years she was a vineyardist in Switzerland; and in the late forties she did a brilliant translation of Brillat-Savarin’s The Physiology of Taste. She lives near Glen Ellen, in California’s Sonoma Valley.