Bakers and pastry chefs crave two things: Salt and vinegar. When I worked in the restaurant business and got home way after midnight, too-often I’d park myself in front of the television, put my dogs up, and dig into a bag of tortilla chips along with a big jar of spicy salsa. Of course, I was half the age I am now and a bag of…
While in the states for a vacation this summer, I took advantage of the overload of gorgeous heirloom tomatoes, fresh ears of corn, and generous bunches of basil at the farmers’ markets to make this salad over and over (and over and over) again. Romain agreed with me that we could eat this every day. And I think we did! This salad doesn’t have a lot…
People see the outdoor markets in Paris and think that everyone does their shopping there. But if you work a 9-to-5 jobs, or whatever hours normal people work (ie: not me), it’s hard to take a few hours off to go leisurely pick out your fruits and vegetables – not including the time waiting in line behind madame, selecting the two figs she is buying as…
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…
One of the things I don’t like are bell peppers. They’re one of those things that people are, for some reason, always trying to convince me to like. (What’s up with that?) And they always seem to put them on airline food as well, presumably due to their forceful, overpowering flavor, which helps the food make more of an impression on our dulled palates at…
The French do a lot of baked goods very well. if you’ve been to Paris, you don’t need me to tell you that with over 1300 bakeries in Paris, it’s not hard to find a pastry or baked good on every block that will be more satisfying than you can imagine. One of the rare baked goods that the French haven’t quite mastered are les…
I was reminded in Sicily how good freshly dried chickpeas can be. Usually, I cook whatever I can get my hands on, and add them to soups or make a batch of hummus. But I don’t sit around eating them, as they are, unadorned. So when someone asked me to taste a few from a batch of chickpeas dried by a local farm in Sicily,…
There were two things I heard repeatedly about Pantelleria before I got there. First: every person in Sicily told me I would love it; second: I had to try the capers, which wasn’t difficult, considering they were everywhere. And I don’t mean in shops or on restaurant menus. I mean, they’re growing everywhere on Pantelleria; on the sides of roads, around stores and buildings, on…
Recently I’ve come out as a non-steamed vegetable eater. I worked with an amazing Asian food expert who hated Japanese food, saying it wasn’t sexy, pointing the blame on a reliance on steaming. He also said they eat pollywogs, which he followed by saying, “Who eats pollywogs?” Well, I don’t. At least not intentionally. (Although I’m sure I ingested some pond water in my youth,…
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