X-Pat Files - Jamie Schler

Jamie Schler

A Floridian foodie en France

WHEREVER she goes, this former culinary guide and milliner turned cookbook author, jam-maker, blogger, influencer, journalist, podcaster and hotelier, always cooks up something good. And chances are, you’ll want to try some. By Philip Ruskin.

“With her boundless enthusiasm, Jamie is not one to do things half-baked.”

It’s hard to believe that Jamie Schler wasn’t always a foodie. That all started when she became an expat. A Francophile and

Francophone who studied French in high school and college, Jamie was working in the world of art dealers in New York City, when, in 1985 she decided she wanted to leave the US and move to France.

As serendipity would have it, the first job she landed in Paris was with Robert Noah’s Paris En Cuisine, a high-end culinary tour operator. Jamie’s four-year tenure working alongside Noah included acting as interpreter at the world-famous Ferrandi luxury hospitality and cooking school. The birds-eye view of chefs at work here was one of the triggers of a life-long appreciation and celebration of the artisan skills of the kitchen. In the first two years as an expat, Jamie was shuttling between her native Florida’s space coast and France. That is, until she fell in love with Jean-Pierre, got married, and shuttled no more. His work took them to Milan, where the language barrier made the kind of work Jamie enjoyed in Paris challenging to find, so she decided to train as a milliner at one of Italy’s oldest ateliers. Creating something by hand deepened her sensibility to artisan craftsmanship, and has stayed with her, and would later inform her work as both a hotelier and a food writer.

A few years after moving the family back to France in 1998, they settled for a time in Nantes where she created and ran a hat label for the next two years. With her boundless enthusiasm, Jamie is not one to do things half-baked. When she hung up her hat business, she threw herself into cooking and baking so totally that she found herself speaking constantly about food. This did not go unnoticed by her supportive husband and son, who had trouble keeping up with her increasingly detailed accounts, and encouraged her to channel her food passion

and creativity through a food blog which they helped her build.

It wasn’t long before the likes of Huff Post took notice and offered her a column in their recently launched food section. As one can imagine, the domino effect that followed has led to a stunningly long list of food journalism ever since.

She and Jean-Pierre had been toying with the idea of starting their own business for a while. When they took stock of the things they loved – like food, people, travel, France – running a boutique hotel made sense. After an enormous amount of soul-searching, research and due diligence, a lucky call from

“Raising our two sons in a multicultural home and school systems (French and Italian) shaped them and our family in ways I hadn’t expected.

Jean-Pierre and I tried to pick the best of our respective cultures to raise our children. We encouraged them to ask questions, which is not common in French schools. We created our own culture within the family. As a result, our children are completely unafraid of picking up and moving, adjusting to different cultures, and embracing challenges. It instilled them with a wonderful sense of curiosity. They weren’t typically ‘French’ in school, which sometimes got them in trouble. But it’s become part of their strength. One is an architect in Brussels, the other is a UX designer in Zurich.”

an enterprising realtor came in about “a property going up for sale soon that I think you might be interested in.” The owners of the twenty-six room Hotel Diderot in Chinon put the prospective buyer finalists through a vigorous review process. In addition to maintaining the hotel’s values, one key criteria was that the new owners continue the tradition of making and serving the house-made jams. “Are you willing to do this?” he asked. True to her can-do spirit, Jamie replied without hesitation a resounding, YES!.

After a brief jam-making apprenticeship with the owners, Jamie quickly got the hang of it, and became better rather than just good. It’s taken on a life of its own and has reached the point where she can’t meet the enormous demand beyond what they serve at the hotel. But she does push the limits to make an extra five or so jars per batch to sell to a lucky few hotel guests. In fact, Jamie has a Jam Cookbook in the works, a follow up to her highly acclaimed, five-star Amazon review cookbook, Orange Appeal: Savory & Sweet. During lockdown, the perennially productive Jamie Schler published a digital cookbook as well.

Jamie’s inspiring positivity also enabled her to turn the obstacle presented by the lockdown into another opportunity. A serendipitous twitter exchange –“if you could start a food podcast, what would it be?” – led to a production team getting behind her concept for “Stir Crazy.” Like many, during the isolation, Jamie cooked. A lot. The podcast and webcast is in part a response to the condition that the lockdown has fueled, and in part a nod to the power of food to bring people together as they stir up good things in the kitchen or across a table. Jamie will cook and bake remotely with guests from different fields who are food enthusiasts , but not food professionals. “Food, preparing it in a kitchen, sharing it across a table, brings people together and always leads to interesting conversations about food, life, fun,” she notes.

Food, fun, conversation and discovery can be experienced in real time and in person at Hotel Diderot. Pre-Covid, seventy-five percent of the guests were international, many from the US, UK, Australia and Germany, many drawn by the Loire bike trails). Over the past year the majority are French, many who hadn’t considered local holidays and by her account are thrilled and surprised to discover the region. While international guests are starting to trickle back, Jamie feels a positive outcome of this year is the newfound love of the French, particularly Parisians, who are already booking ahead their return stays.

For those who aren’t quite ready to travel to France, check out Jamie’s two-minute walking-tour videos of Chinon on twitter @ lifesafeast. She captures the charm and beauty of her adopted hometown as she takes viewers on a personal tour in these bite-sized clips. Be sure to book a room to get full serving of this Loire Valley experience from these extraordinary expat hosts.

“Food, preparing it in a kitchen, sharing it across a table, brings people together.”

Stay with Jamie at hoteldiderot.com Follow her @lifesafeast