Bakers who tackle French recipes get stumped by the sugars, which don’t necessarily correspond to the sugars available elsewhere. All supermarkets in France carry white granulated sugar and there’s often unrefined sugars, such as cassonade, which grocers stock and are widely-available. In America and elsewhere, bakers often have to do a bit of hunting around to find the corresponding sugar. French brown sugars are quite…
About a year ago, I was having supper in a friend’s apartment and everything we ate was simple, and tasted really good. He’d lived on a farm near Toulouse for many years, where he worked for one of France’s agricultural organizations. Now he lives in Paris and I was surprised when he told me that the onions we were eating on the tart he’d made…
When I started this site back in 1999, I had forums, where people could chat and post messages about food and cooking. As the blog evolved, we had to say goodbye to it, but one question lingered: Is couscous pasta?
If you go to Lyon, you’ll find Saint Marcellin pretty much everywhere. It’s the best-known cheese from that region, and the user friendly-sized disks are inevitably piled high at each and every cheese shop you step in to. Locals bake them at home and slide the warm disks onto salads, and I’ve not been to a restaurant in that city that didn’t have Saint Marcellin…
Every year I get a number of requests from people looking for a recipe for great Pumpkin Ice Cream. In my book, The Perfect Scoop, I have a recipe for Sweet Potato Ice Cream studded with maple-glazed pecans, but there’s something about the fall that also makes people think squarely of pumpkin. I’m a big fan of sweet potatoes, personally, but old traditions die hard. So a Pumpkin…
I’ve been living in France for almost eight years and in all that time, I’ve yet to make even one of these classic French pear tarts. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a bakery that didn’t have wedges of this tart in little paper footings, ready to take out and be consumed right away. So I guess because I could always buy one, why…
For someone who used to not drink that much, I seem to have a lot of liquor on my liquor shelf. I guess I should rephrase that. For someone who drinks a lot of wine, but not a lot of liquor, I sure have a lot of liquor on my liquor shelf. Is that clear? Americans may be known for our cocktails, but in France,…
Every year I spend an inordinate amount of my time poaching fruit. It’s usually because I’m powerless to resist all the pears in baskets at my market, and buy far more than I need. Yes, much of my sweet bounty finds its way into sorbets, cakes, ice creams, and jams. But one of my favorite ways to keep those pears around a little longer is…
I’m not going to say a thing, because I’m certain I did the same thing back in the day. But a lot of people who are en route to Paris ask me where they can find things like bouillabaisse, a true salade Niçoise, or Kig ha farz, and when I answer, “You can’t”, they either don’t believe me, or get irked because they think I’m…
A
Get David's newsletter sent right to your Inbox!
Sign up for my newsletter and get my FREE guidebook to the best bakeries and pastry shops in Paris...
