The word ‘consulting’ always sounds like a dream job when you’re working in a restaurant kitchen, slaving over a hot stove as a line or prep cook. As a consultant, it sounds like you sweep into a kitchen whenever you feel like it, and bake something up with the staff. But it’s rather challenging work. Restaurants call in consultants when the kitchen is in dire…
The other night I was having dinner in a restaurant, and struck up a conversation with the fellow dining at the next table, who turned out to be Swiss. As we talked, the conversation turned to what I did and when I replied that I wrote cookbooks on baking and chocolate. His curiosity was piqued, as well as that of the two Belgian women at…
During my recent trip to Italy, I joined an Italian friend of mine at a trattoria for a late night supper. As we hungrily ate our overfilled plates of pasta Carbonara and Cacio e Pepe, a local specialty made with pecorino cheese and lots of spicy, freshly-ground black pepper, and pondered our day spent searching down the best coffee and chocolate in Rome. Chocolate in…
Once upon a time, I worked in a restaurant that was well-known for using ingredients of exceptional quality. The most magnificent fruits and vegetables would come barreling through our kitchen door every day, from plump, rare black raspberries to teeny-tiny wild strawberries, fraises des bois. While I can’t really guess the psychology behind it, we would often treat these marvels like precious jewels, reserving them…
While I was teaching chocolate classes at Central Market stores across Texas last month, in my free time I would wander the aisles of the store. I don’t think I’d ever been in a place that had such a terrific selection of chocolates from around the world. It was a chocolate-lovers dream! I was particularly intersted in these two, which I had never seen before…
Every year the International Association of Culinary Professionals hands out awards for what they deem are the Best Cookbooks of the Year. Last month in Seattle, I attended the ceremony with a few friends and instead of getting drunk on the free wine and champagne and heckling the winners as usual, I was thrilled when the names were called and not one…not two…but three of…
Everytime I go back to the United States, I’m certain to spend a good part of one day wandering aimlessly up and down the aisles at Target. (And can everyone please stop correcting folks when they say “Target”, with “Tar-jay“, which was somewhat funny…about 10 years ago. But we’ve all heard it a zillion times before, and people expect us to laugh in response, but…
The city of Torino (or Turin) is one of the great centers of chocolate. In the early part of 1500, a Italian named Emmanuel Philibert served hot chocolate to celebrate a victory over the French at Saint-Quentin. And in 1763, Al Bicerin opened it’s doors and began making a celebrated coffee-and-chocolate drink called il bavareisa. The hot drink was a soothing mixture of locally-produced 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...
