I’ve been a tad remiss in doing a write-up about one of the newest American chocolate-makers: Askinosie. When I heard about them, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on some bars of their bars. The only problem was that I wolfed them down too-quickly, before I could even write ’em up. Then I’d heard in the news (the chocolate news, which I read rabidly…is…
When I moved to France from San Francisco, I worried about what every San Franciscan worries about— “What am I going to do without burritos?” For those who aren’t familiar with San Francisco-style burritos, these bullet-shaped tummy-torpedoes are rice, beans, salsa, and meat all rolled up in a giant flour tortilla and eaten steaming hot. I don’t want to antagonize the burrito folks, but being…
When you make desserts in a restaurant, the most important thing you can do is to smell anything made of plastic before you put anything in it. I remember someone made a big batch of crème anglaise one morning…and that evening, when I went to serve it, I opened the lid and the overpowering smell of garlic blasted forth, rendering the whole batch useless. A…
Everyone should have a great recipe for Vanilla Ice Cream in their repertoire. Here’s my favorite, which you can serve with anything, from a freshly-baked fruit pie, a warm berry crisp, cherry compote, or simply smothered with dark chocolate sauce or caramel sauce and toasted nuts. It’s said that vanilla is the most popular flavor of ice cream. But most people don’t know that vanilla…
When I was in the states last year, I was in a coffee shop and for some reason, I got into a conversation with some local folks, who asked what I was doing in their city. I’m not sure how they knew I wasn’t from around there, but I can only assume it was my French je ne sais quoi, which is always a sure…
Turn on the television any night in France and chances are excellent that you’ll land on a program, held in a brightly-lit studio, where celebrities, authors, and other French luminaries mingle, chat, and talk about issues—or whatever they feel like. For some reason, though, they don’t run a banner at the bottom while the person is talking, like they do incessantly on American television. And…
Or I guess I should say—what in the sea? I recently came across this cake pan online, a unique piece of baking equipment that effectively combines my most favorite thing in the world (cake) with my least favorite thing: heinous beasts from the deep with tentacles. Look. I can understand making a cake that looks like a castle, a clown, or a toy car. Barbie…
There’s a lively debate about Molecular Gastronomy in the culinary community. For the most part, from what I’ve heard, it’s all rather derisive. Just like Matisse was widely-panned for painting a woman’s face with a green stripe down the middle, I think we’re going to have to let time tell us if this is just a passing fancy or if it’s something that’s here to…
I was having dinner at Racines a few weeks ago, and excused myself during the meal to run upstairs and use the facilities. While up there, I had a few minutes to stare at the wall in front of me, which was covered with pictures and pages of text from various books. One page stopped me mid-moment, it was are recipe for something called Gâteau…
Join me on my Spring 2026 book tour for my latest book, The Great Book of Chocolate
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