It’s been a turbulent week and I went into my usual default mode: I baked something. I’d been planning on sharing an apple cake recipe with you, having cooked up some apples and bought some dates in preparation. But one morning I awoke very early after a fitful night of sleep and started pitting dates, in the early hours of the day, before the sun came…
I love cookies. If there is a selection of cookies on a dessert menu, I always will order it. I’ve been to cookie shops from Beirut to Bushwick, nibbling my way through chewy chocolate chip cookies, macarons, buttery sablés, and snappy ginger cookies, whenever I can. Even Parisians get in on the act by dubbing chocolate chip cookies, les cookies, perhaps because they are the classic…
This was a bang-up year for cookbooks. Although my editor isn’t thrilled, I am glad that I didn’t have a book come out this fall with all the other great books that have crossed my path. Because it’s nice to be able to spend some time cooking and baking through them. (While I work on edits for mine, coming out next year. If I finish it…) One…
It’s very hard to make generalizations. An article might say, “The French love their cheese,” and, of course, there will be someone out there who will say, “I have a French friend and they don’t like cheese.” Or “Americans love cinnamon,” which is partially true, although I’m sure there is at least one or two of you out there that can’t abide it. Generally speaking (at…
Panna cotta is incredibly easy to make, and if it takes you more than five minutes to put it together, you’re taking too long! The result is a silky, custard-like dessert that pairs well with fresh fruit, a compote of baked fruits, or even just a spoonful of homemade jam. Interestingly, it’s become popular in Paris and nowadays, it’s just as common to see it on…
Every summer, we head to Burgundy to visit French friends who live abroad, but who return for the summer. They quickly get reacquainted with the more leisurely lifestyle in the French countryside, which include enjoying Chablis and visiting the small town markets. Because we’re such top-notch guests, pitching on with the cooking and making sure their pool gets used, we always get an invite and jump at…
I used to have a hard time with certain cooked vegetable salads, such as ratatouille, even though people have insisted that I would like their version. Which I’ve always found odd, because if someone told me they didn’t like chocolate (I know – horrors!), I would not try to sell them on a brownie or chocolate cake. Ratatouille always tastes like a lot of stewed vegetable all mixed up,…
When I was finalizing the recipes in The Perfect Scoop, I wrote too many recipes and needed to make room for all the other stuff that goes into a cookbook. Although I did include a favorite recipe for Pear Caramel Ice Cream, which gets its smooth richness from caramelized pears, I decided since my first book had a great recipe for Caramel Ice Cream (that book was re-released as…
I came up with this cake almost fifteen years ago because I was looking for ways to use all the plums that we had when I was living in California. Northern California becomes plum central during the summer, with thanks going to Luther Burbank who developed a lot of varieties of fruit in the region, including the Santa Rosa plum, named after the town in California…
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