During the summer months, when the temperature in Paris shoots up to nearly unbelievable heights, it turns my up-on-the-rooftop apartment into a furnace, and many nights dinner will be enjoyed on the roof, overlooking the city, watching the rest of it cool down after a broiling day. Somehow, my apartment doesn’t enjoy the same cool-down period, perhaps its the price I pay for being closer…
I vaguely remember my first visit to J’Go. I think it had something to do with a wild night at the bar, and involved French rugby players drinking Armagnac shots off my belly. But unless someone has photo proof, I’m going to just assume that my memory may be off. (It very well may be, if it involves my having a belly concave enough to…
I’ve never liked celery. To me, it’s like eating green water held together with a lot of fibers. Unless it’s filled with peanut butter or cream cheese, you can keep it. The only time I ever buy a bunch is when I’m making stock, which is a shame, because that only requires a stalk or two, and the rest sits in my refrigerator until it wilts and…
The other night I was sitting at Le Garde Robe, minding my own business, trying to get down a glass of natural wine. Being seven o’clock, naturally, in addition to being thirsty, I was starving, too. And the lack of food (and sulfides) must have started affecting my brain because I started thinking about how I often hear tales from visitors, such as when they…
Last summer, Romain went to stay at a place in the French countryside with a large, semi-wild potager, a vegetable garden, which the people who lived there fed themselves from. They let weeds grow, didn’t spray pesticides on anything, and they ate most of the food as close to raw as they could. During his stay, he called me and said that he never felt…
One assumption that I’m going to make about the French is that they’re not afraid to make things au pif, or “by the nose”. I don’t know if a precise recipe for sauce vinaigrette actually exists. But if there is, I bet few people follow it very closely. And Romain is no different from his compatriots when it comes to recipes, and rules. They are…
When I applied for my job at Chez Panisse, I’d just left a restaurant where the chef was, what we call in the business, a “screamer.” One of those chefs who flips out in the kitchen and yells indiscriminately. Contrary to what television might lead you to think, this isn’t a new phenomenon. I didn’t really yell all that much when I was a chef. But whenever…
When I was a newbie, someone in the cookbook biz once told me that if a cookbook has one great recipe in it, it’s totally worth it. And I agree with that. I have a mountain of cookbooks, and most have plenty of tempting recipes but I’ve only made one thing from many of them. But those that do make the cut become standards—or what…
Les Cocottes often gets described as a local version of an American-style diner. I don’t know if that’s true. For one thing, everyone speaks French. And for another, there were no snappy apron-clad waitresses pouring bottomless cups of coffee, no trucks parked outside, and no plumber-cracks hanging over the backside of the stools. After all, this is Paris, ya’ know. In fact, Les Cocottes sits…
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