Being a baker, braising wasn’t something I did a lot of. I also didn’t cook a lot of meat or poultry. Actually, I didn’t cook much at home as I ate most of my meals on the fly when working in restaurants. (I was also going to say that when I lived in California, I tended to grill as much as I could on my…
Peach Cobbler has become the most requested dessert around here this summer. I don’t think Romain had ever had a cobbler – I usually make crisps, which the French call crumbles. But I’ve been revisiting some cookbooks on my shelf that I hadn’t used for a while and pulled down The Pastry Queen by Rebecca Rather, who was the owner of several bakeries in Texas….
The word soufflé used to strike terror in the heart of cooks far and wide. I never got that memo, though, and one of the first things I ever baked was a chocolate soufflé when I was less than sixteen years old, from my mother’s copy of The Settlement Cookbook, the 1951 edition. The ingredient list is pretty concise; looking at the book now, there…
I know I’m late in the game and I have a gazillion excuses. Banana Bread became the recipe of the lockdown. It seemed everyone had some overripe bananas that needed to be used up, which isn’t all that uncommon even in the best of times. While I’ve had my own Banana Bread recipe on the blog for a while, but with many people had trouble…
France has been creeping (or bursting, in some cases) out of lockdown. As of May 11th, people can come and go without carrying a written permission slip. The outdoor markets, hairdressers, and other types of shops have reopened, under the advisement of the health ministry, who is encouraging people to wear masks and practice social distancing, keeping 1 meter (3-feet) apart from others. Some stores…
When the lockdown was announced about a month ago, I thought of all the great things I would finally be able to do. I would finally tackle those five- to seven-season tv series that everyone told me that I just had to watch, that require a hundred-hour commitment to get through them. (Breaking Bad and The Wire, I’m looking at you…) I would have the…
Tough times call for looking at everything in the kitchen as a potential source of food. I’ve been saving the breadcrumbs on my cutting board and scraping them into pots of soup. I parsimoniously scrutinize every egg I use, counting how many I might need for any upcoming baking projects. Fresh lettuce has become a precious commodity as I’m trying to only to go food…
When the virus hit, I’m pretty sure the first thing people didn’t think about stocking up on was cabbage. I only saw the empty shelves of pasta, rice, and toilet paper from photos posted online, taken in the U.S., but I didn’t see any pictures of the empty cabbage bins. I’ve loved cabbage for a long time, and even my mother shredded red cabbage to…
Being confined for two weeks has been, um, interesting. As someone who works at home, I was, like, “I got this…” But by day two I started getting loopy. As much as I think Romain is the greatest thing ever, it’s hard to be cooped up and not allowed to go out. True, we can go to the grocery store or bakery if we bring…
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