Whenever I visit a foreign country, I go to the supermarket. I’ve found myself pushing carts through supermarkets in countries, from Mexico and Lebanon, to Italy and Portugal. Not only does it help with my vocabulary, and provide a little glimpse of how the locals actually eat, but I invariably find a number of things to stash in my suitcase which are better souvenirs than…
A few years back, all of us elderly ladies and gents who were blogging for a while were suddenly surprised (and delighted) at a group of young ‘uns, in their teenage years, who up and started food blogs. And let me tell you, it’s really nice to see young people doing something worthwhile with their time — like cooking and baking, for example. My introduction…
I don’t mind spending part of my winter this year in New York. Even though it was one of the coldest winters in history, and on the first day of spring, we had a snowstorm, the beautiful snow blanketed everything in a thick white layer, which reflects the light and kept my mood cheery and optimistic. It rarely snows in Paris and la grisaille (the…
If you’re not from a place, you don’t have the same nostalgic pangs for the foods, even if some of us invoke Proust when we bite into a madeleine, or get all bent out of shape when someone messes with a certain food from a particular country or region – even if we’ve never been there. I’m not a big fan of creamy soups, but…
It’s always nice to meet your heroes and many years ago, I was fortunate to meet one of mine. But I can’t claim Nick Malgieri as “mine,” as he’s been a guiding influence for bakers everywhere, publishing books with recipes and technique for making everything from traditional Italian pastries to Viennese tortes and even Middle East and Greek sweets, to the delight of bakers near…
Someone recently asked me why cookbooks go out of print. I was thinking about it and when trying to find out how many cookbooks are introduced each year, I couldn’t find any accurate statistics except for “hundreds.” In publishing, cookbooks also have two seasons; fall and spring. Depending on the subject, the publisher will decide when is best to release it. And for a variety…
Who knew I (or more to the point, Paris) was so ahead of the curve? Last year, when I wrote about the preponderance of purple populating Paris, a few readers pointed out that the color orchid was named The Color of the Year by tastemakers, Pantone. And recently, I made Marsala-baked pears, only to find out that, yup – this year, Marsala is the color…
Sometimes when I write posts for the blog, I write so fast that my mind can barely keep up with my fingers. (Hence the occasional frequent typo.) Ideas fly into my head and I literally have to jump up from my chair and make them. Such was the case with this Dulce de Leche Cheesecake recipe, which combines two of everybody’s favorite things: cream cheese…
It’s cranberry season! Well, it was back around the holidays a month or so ago. And now that it’s over, as much as I love cranberries, it’s hard to get people enthusiastic all over again. And that’s made even harder when you live in a place where cranberries don’t hold the same sway over Parisians, as they do with Americans. People often express dismay that…
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