He had forgotten. My husband does not keep kosher, but I hail from one of the most superstitious strains of Roman Catholicism (the Sicilian), and I worried that knowingly serving pork to Jews on Passover might be some sort of mortal sin. “I’m on my way over,” I told Roger. By the time I got to the butcher shop, he had cut and trussed a lamb gigot.

Putting on a Seder every year in Paris is a bit of a challenge for me — not only as a gentile, but also as a transplant to a country where the ways and means to do it can be mysterious. France has the largest Jewish population of any country in Europe. But unlike Americans, who often wear their faith on their sleeves, the French have a reverence for the secular republican state that makes them apt to keep religious beliefs to themselves. You won’t find recipes for chopped liver and Moroccan haroseth or advertisements for kosher wine in the mainstream media.

And there’s no etiquette guide to whether you should wish chag sameach (happy holiday) to people you know are Jewish, in case they want to keep their religion private. When Andy and I ran into Maurice Lévy, the French advertising magnate, and his wife in a Jewish épicerie before Passover one year, there was an awkward pause before both sides felt comfortable enough to acknowledge why we were there.

I came slowly to Passover cooking. The first time I was invited to a Seder by friends on the Upper West Side, we made a toast to world peace and dug into dinner. Then I married, and joined my husband in his family’s Seders. His uncle Harvey, a lawyer, had a lot of Orthodox Jewish clients, and every one of them wanted to say thanks with a cake. There was always at least one flourless cake, hard and tasteless, for every person at Uncle Harvey and Aunt Myrna’s table.

When we moved with our two daughters to Paris a decade ago, we were suddenly free to create a Passover tradition that worked for us. A natural division of labor has followed. Andy takes care of the Haggadot, the Seder plate, the yarmulkes and the table settings. He leads the reading of the Passover story, the prayers and songs, navigating between English-Hebrew and French-Hebrew Haggadot depending on the linguistic talents and limitations of our guests.