In 1937, five-year-old Colette Rossant arrived in Cairo from Paris with her Egyptian Jewish father and beautiful French mother. When her father dies Colette's flighty mother abandons the little girl to her wealthy grandparents. She soon settles into their luxuriant, food centred lifestyle; spending afternoons in the spice filled kitchen; accompanying her grandmother to the bazaar; and feasting on the delicious food. At fifteen Colette returns to Paris with her mother, never to see her grandparents again, and only to set foot back in Egypt thirty years later. In this charming, funny, and moving memoir she evokes an Egypt lost, to her and to us, for ever.