The Eiffel Tower is an unlikely place to begin again. For Nicolas Prevel, a former immunology researcher with a doctorate and a postdoctoral position in San Francisco behind him, it becomes exactly that: not a monument to admire, but a workplace where he must learn to peel, chop and keep pace. His first kitchen job, at Le Jules Verne, replaces academic credentials with the immediate verdict of the next service.
The carbon footprint of ethanol, his independently published memoir, now available in English, follows the personal and professional journey that unfolds from this change of direction. Across kitchens, islands and expedition ships, Prevel describes the appeal of starting over and the difficulty of distinguishing a genuine new beginning from another carefully organised escape.
His route takes readers through Paris, Corsica and Gstaad, south to Antarctica, north to Norway's Lofoten Islands, and onwards through Madagascar and Bora Bora. Some places are workplaces; others are pauses between contracts. Together, they form a portrait of a life shaped by movement, food and the persistent hope that the next destination might make something easier to understand.
The view is frequently from behind the scenes. In luxury hospitality, the guest's freedom depends on somebody else's timetable. A memorable dinner begins with deliveries, preparation, repetition and washing up. On an expedition ship, the scenery may change dramatically while the demands of breakfast service remain reassuringly, or infuriatingly, familiar. Prevel pays attention to the colleagues whose skill and endurance make that apparent effortlessness possible.
There is affection here for the craft of cooking: the satisfaction of a precise gesture, the rhythm of a brigade that works, the pleasure of feeding people. But the kitchens are not romanticised. Exhaustion, hierarchy, strained relationships and the unequal distribution of comfort sit beside beautifully presented plates. In Bora Bora, generous buffets and discarded food expose the distance between the image of paradise and the practical reality of sustaining it.
The title brings together two kinds of footprint. One concerns travel, consumption and the contradictions of luxury. The other is intimate: the mark alcohol leaves on a body, a memory and a life. This is not a technical study of emissions, nor an attempt to claim moral purity. The narrator participates in the world he questions, travelling long distances while remaining alert to the absurdities and costs of the journey.
Alcohol runs through the story, sometimes openly, sometimes through its absence. Sobriety changes how the narrator experiences a meal, a landscape or an evening alone. Yet the book refuses to present recovery as a reward automatically earned through courage, distance or beautiful surroundings. A beach can offer breathing space. A new job can provide structure. Neither removes the need to confront what has travelled there with him.
Antarctica gives this tension a particularly striking setting. Awe exists alongside ordinary labour: ice and wildlife beyond the ship, provisions and service inside it. The experience matters deeply, but it is not presented as a miraculous cure. Continuity comes from smaller things too: a colleague's greeting, a routine, another day without drinking.
In Lofoten, the scale becomes more intimate. A sushi project with a colleague, kayaking after service and the unfamiliar light of the northern summer offer moments of connection. Food is no longer only a test of endurance or a luxury product. It becomes a way of sharing time, learning and being present. These passages leave room for pleasure without insisting that pleasure means every underlying difficulty has disappeared.
Written in short, often fragmented passages and accompanied by watercolour-style illustrations, the memoir moves between sensory observation, self-mockery and darker reflection. The humour repeatedly punctures the polished language of travel and reinvention, including the narrator's own attempts to make sense of himself. There are no essential packing lists, guaranteed transformations or 10 steps towards a better life.
Instead, The carbon footprint of ethanol asks what remains when the service ends and the postcard view falls away. Its subject is not simply leaving science for cooking, or exchanging one country for another. It is the less photogenic work of learning how to inhabit a life: imperfectly, attentively, and without pretending that turning a page means the story is finished.
BIOGRAPHY
Nicolas Prevel is a French chef, author and former immunology researcher. After completing a PhD in Paris and working in research in San Francisco, he moved into professional kitchens in France, Switzerland, Norway and French Polynesia, as well as aboard expedition ships. The carbon footprint of ethanol draws on his experiences of cooking, travel, addiction and recovery.