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Michelin: Châteaux of the Loire), and perhaps an illustrated book, such as The Châteaux of the Loire by Pierre Miquel and with photographs by Jean-Baptiste Leroux (Penguin Studio, 1999), the very best, hands-down-number-one resource you need is A Wine and Food Guide to the Loire by Jacqueline Friedrich (Henry Holt, 1996). Honored with Julia Child and James Beard awards, as well as being named Veuve-Clicquot Wine Book of the Year, you need this encyclopedic book if you’re going anywhere at all in the Loire Valley. American journalist and former lawyer Friedrich moved to France in 1989 and stayed, and she now divides her time between Paris and a small village in the Loire near Chinon. She spent two years researching this book, a practical, interesting, and mouthwatering guide, and she’s working on the second edition (to be published by University of California Press). But don’t think this first edition won’t be helpful: I can attest to its usefulness even now, more than a decade later. The first part of the book is about the river, wine history, climate, soil, and grapes, followed by a section focusing on food and a wine route that takes travelers through the Nantais, Anjou and Saumur, Touraine, Sancerrois, and Auvergne. At the end of the book are four useful appendices: listings of bonnes adresses and recommended itineraries, a glossary, wine-serving tips, and conversion charts.

I’m a huge fan of Friedrich’s writing—I have all of the “Choice Tables” articles she’s contributed to the travel section of the New York Times, and her Wines of France book is also indispensable. And I’m not alone in praising her: noted wine authority Jancis Robinson endorsed Friedrich’s Loire book by saying, “I’ve waited twenty years for this book. I am truly impressed by it and so grateful for its existence. I didn’t know who would find the energy to write it, but for decades we will be grateful that it was someone of Jacqueline Friedrich’s talent and passion.” I also love that Friedrich’s favorite word is “delicious.” Readers may keep up with her at Jacquelinefriedrich.com.

COMPIÈGNE

I have long been fascinated by the signing of the armistice that ended World War I, which took place at a spot in the Forest of Compiègne, about seventy-five kilometers from Paris in the Picardy region. At five thirty a.m. on November 11, 1918, a German delegation signed the truce with the Allies. The two sides met in a clearing in the forest on railroad tracks: in one railcar was the German delegation, including imperial secretary of state Matthias Erzberger, and in the other were Allied commander in chief General Ferdinand Foch and First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, the leading British delegate on the Allied side. The armistice terms had already been prepared by the British and French governments and were not open to further discussion. The thirty-four clauses were read aloud to the Germans, and “hearing these conditions, one of the Germans wept openly,” notes the Australian Department of Veterans’ Affairs World War I memorial Web site (ww1westernfront.gov.au). All the Germans reportedly had tears in their eyes, and according to A Stillness Heard Round the World: The End of the Great War, Erzberger, whose son had recently died in a military hospital, said, “The German people, which held off a world of enemies for fifty months, will preserve their liberty and their unity despite every kind of violence. A nation of 70 millions of peoples suffers, but it does not die.” Foch, whose son had been killed in action in 1914, ended the event by saying, “Eh bien, messieurs, c’est fini, allez” (Very well, gentlemen, it’s over, go), and he ordered a cease-fire for eleven a.m. that morning. The German delegates signed the armistice after it was referred to Berlin, and Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated the throne and went into exile in Holland.

The Glade of the Armistice (Clairière de l’Armistice) was established shortly after, and it “remains a shrine to those who perished in World War I,” as Catharine Reynolds puts it in her Gourmet article “A Weekend Interlude: Imperial