I had some friends over for dinner recently who were moving away, which is always sad, and they were in the full-on stress of moving; packing up boxes, dealing with logistics, selling most of their things, and taking care of the details of deménagement. I had been leafing through Sinfully Easy Delicious Desserts by chocolate expert (and comrade in chocolate) Alice Medrich, who I was…
Yes, it’s winter in Paris. And when the temperature drops, folks move inside the cafés to escape the cold, except for the fumeurs, who are remarkably hardy and seemingly immune to the chill outside, while they puff away on café terraces. We’re all bundled up, shivering on the sidewalks, lured into the cafés with chalkboards scrawled with the words, Vin chaud. Vin chaud (hot mulled…
Neither one of us is quite sure how we connected, but so be it. But somehow I kind of remembered Terresa Murphy from San Francisco. However she’s been living in Paris since the mid-80s, so my memory is either better than I thought, or my mind is playing tricks on me. (Which is a whole nother road that I’d prefer not walk down right now.)…
Who was more thrilled than I to find that Deb thanked me in The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook for lugging a big sack of French cocoa powder to New York City for her? But just after I read that in the acknowledgements, my head started reeling, thinking that others would start asking me to bring them cocoa powder as well. That one time I did it,…
It’s that time of the year, folks. (No, not when I crawl out of my hibernation hole.) It’s the holiday season in Paris and I’m having a booksigning and get-together at La Cuisine cooking school. If you’re in town, stop in say hi! There will be copies of Ready for Dessert, The Perfect Scoop, and The Sweet Life in Paris for sale, which I’m happy…
I’ve been rather buried in a mess of stuff this year, and, well…I didn’t get it together in time for Thanksgiving. There were no posts on how to roast the best turkey – although I’m kind of in the camp of just put the dang thing in the oven for a few hours, and stop worrying so much about it – it’s just turkey. Last…
The French are rightfully proud of their cheese, but one they can’t take credit for is Gouda Étuvé – which is very popular in France nonetheless. And I don’t blame them for going gaga over this Gouda. At my fromagerie, they keep the giant half-wheel right on the counter, in front of them, because perhaps fifty-percent of the customers order a wedge of it. Or…
I’ve been doing a lot of work on recipes lately, and at the same time, thinking about the way recipe-writing has evolved, especially since the internet has taken a role in the process of cooking. At the same time, someone interviewed me about the difference between writing recipes for a cookbook versus a blog and I gave a somewhat long-winded answer (which I’m still editing…
Quite a while back, I worked at an Asian restaurant in San Francisco. The food was amazing. Fresh shrimp were cooked up, chopped, then smeared on bread, then deep-fried for shrimp toast. All the dumplings had freshly cooked ingredients in them – no canned peas or frozen shrimp. And each one was hand-rolled. All the meats were well-sourced and cooked daily, then shredded for fillings…
Join me on my Spring 2026 book tour for my latest book, The Great Book of Chocolate
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...
