This year, for some reason, fig season just refuses to end this year, which is fine with me. Figs have two seasons; the first is usually late summer and the second begins mid-fall. The second crop is better-tasting and toward the end of the season, the prices drop as the bounty increases. I was at the market the other day, planning to buy some figs, when…
In terms of favorite ice cream flavors, it’s likely that Fig Leaf Ice Cream isn’t at the top of your list. But once you taste it, you’ll probably add it. It’s tricky to provide an exact description of the flavor, which is coconutty, and references figs, but is its own flavor in and of itself. Living in a city, I don’t have a fig tree,…
[UPDATE: Fulgurances in Paris has closed.] It’s been a hectic year and I haven’t gotten out as much as I’d like to, in spite of a long list of places I’m trying to visit in Paris, and a more I plan to check out this fall. Early in the summer, I reserved a table at Fulgurances, intrigued by the food of Israeli chef Tamir Nahmias,…
When people ask me “Why did you move to Paris?” I’ll usually stop, point to the nearest cheese shop or bakery, and let them figure it out for themselves. There are a lot of pastry shops in Paris, over a thousand of them. But the first was Stohrer, which opened in 1730 by pastry chef Nicolas Stohrer, the pastry chef for Louis XV of France and his…
One of the things about living in a city like Paris is that you spend a lot of time – well, dealing with life. Bills to pay, paperwork to do, typos to avoid, stolen bikes to replace, smokers to dodge on sidewalks waving lit cigarettes (I got nailed the other day – ouch!), or buying a pair of shoes, can easily take up much –…
After reading my post about a French Weekend, where I gorged quite a bit on fresh figs out in the countryside, someone back in Paris was kind enough to give me a big bag of these nice and ripe green beauties. During their seasons, people with fruit trees always seem to be looking for people willing to take some of the fruit off their hands….
When I started working at Chez Panisse way back in 1983, from the moment we opened the doors at 5pm for dinner, the place was packed. I worked in the café upstairs, which opened because the restaurant downstairs had become a little more formal than anticipated and since the original idea for Chez Panisse was to be a casual dining spot, they opened a café…
Way back when, after I arrived in France, I wanted to also be in the south of France, in Provence, and I did go off on the lookout in Paris for a large, sturdy mortar and pestle to make all those Provençal favorites, like garlic-laden aïoli and soupe au pistou. I didn’t know what a mortar and pestle were called in French at the time, so I went…
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