There’s a phrase that’s used in restaurant kitchens, in the weeds, which means that basically, you’re sunk. It’s when the orders are coming up too fast and you’re behind, or that you’ve taken on more work than you can chew and you can’t keep up. A few weeks ago I volunteered to make a Bûche de Noël for the Christmas dessert. At the time, it…
I like Pierre Hermé very much. He’s a genius, and his stuff is gorgeous and the fellow deserves all the accolades that are bestowed upon him. He seems like a nice guy and his shops in Paris are swanky as all get-out. His white truffle macaron I found very intriguing. Rather brilliant, actually. And I’m a big fan of his Arabesque, two apricot-flavored disks with…
I promised a bunch of holiday-friendly recipes this month, and this one is a doozy! Peanut butter cookies, filled with salted peanut caramel—do those sound as good to you as they do to me? The recipe is from The Art and Soul of Baking by Cindy Mushet, who is one of America’s best bakers. Her name might not be on the edge of your tongue,…
One of the things that no one prepares you for when you write a book, is that people are going to be in touch, many that you haven’t seen in a long, long time. When Room for Dessert came out in 1999, I heard from people that I knew all the way back in high school. While I don’t quite share everyone’s glee for wanting…
In case you’re wondering what goes on inside my head, my most recent urge was to upgrade the pepper in my peppermills. I think I’m coming late to that game since I’ve read so many things urging…begging me…to use fancy, expensive pepper. But I tend to buy a bag of black pepper from a local spice shop, which seemed good enough. Or so I thought. A…
Wait just a minute. It’s been about a week since I got back from Torino, and I told you about all the stuff I managed to jam in my craw at the Salone del Gusto, but I also spent a fair amount of time visiting some of the chocolate shops and caffès in this great city. Man cannot live by cured pork products and sheep’s-milk…
There’s a misconception that the French don’t eat junk food. While it’s true that the drugstore shelves around here are lined with, of all things—drugs, there are some foods around that don’t quite fall into the high-fallutin’ AOC category elsewhere. It’s become commonplace to see teenagers swilling la Coca from plastic liter jugs on the sidewalks and it’s not unusual to see a Parisian toting…
[UPDATE: Citizen Cake is now closed.] I feel like I deserve a majority of the credit (or blame…depending on how you look at it) for the cupcake craze. I was eating them decades ago, when no one gave them a second thought. And now, as someone who teaches baking told me, making and selling cupcakes in America is like printing money. I’m not much for…
If you want to see a normally unflappable Parisian go into a little bit of a crazed frenzy, you don’t need to watch their reaction to me mercilessly butcher their beautiful language. One just needs to utter a single word — cheesecake. As soon as I took the cream cheese out of the refrigerator this morning, my French other-half started circling the kitchen counter, to see what was…
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