Colette Rossant is the author of eight cookbooks and two memoirs, Apricots on the Nile (shortlisted for the Thomas Cook Travel Award) and Return to Paris (shortlisted for the Guild of Food Writers Food Book of the Year Award). A James Beard-nominated journalist, she is a columnist for Food Arts and a contributor to many other food and travel magazines. Colette Rossant lives in New York with her husband.

It is 1955, and Colette Rossant, newly married, has just arrived in America with her husband Jimmy. She is twenty-two, a Frenchwoman in New York, bemused by American customs and most importantly by the food: the limp sandwiches, the ubiquitous mayonnaise, the iceberg lettuce. But post-war New York is humming and Colette and Jimmy discover a whole new world in Greenwich Village: theatre and avant-garde cinema, farmer's markets and Jewish delis. Colette slowly falls in love with her adopted country, relishing the brisket sandwiches at Katz's, the exquisite dim sum in Chinatown and the Italian pastries in Mulberry Street. Madeleines in Manhattan is the story of her journey from young housewife and passionate cook to acclaimed food writer, from the romantic early days of marriage to grandmotherhood, told with her unique ability to conjure up her memories through food.