Tinkering
New Server
It’s niçoise–ish salad days around here since we’ve made the long-awaited and much-needed move to a larger server. The site should be loading much faster than it was before on the dinky server I’ve been limping along with. Hence we called it a day.
However all was not without a glitch and you may have encountered some error messages recently. Sorry about that, but it should all be fixed by now including the search engine. If you don’t hear from me for a while, that means my web master has tied my hands behind my back to prevent me from tinkering with the site any more.
And now if you leave a comment it should ‘take’ much quicker and there’s no need to hit the button twice or three times then see it get published multiple times and think, “What the heck?” So there’s no need think around here anymore.
I mean, there’s no need to hit the Send button more than once. Thinking is still okay.
Les Images
My images are being hosted on my Flickr page, which seems to be doing a good job of making the photos accessible and if you want to see them, as well as lots more, you can visit my Flickr page where I’m constantly adding lots of photos.
It’s my addiction, believe me.
Please note that images on the site as well as on my Flickr page are copyrighted. I don’t watermark them and put a bunch of legalese on them. Nor do I want to. So if you’d like to make use of one, please let me know since permission is required for use elsewhere and I’m normally happy to oblige.
FAQs
I’ve updated my FAQ page and if you’d like to know if I think you should go to cooking school, how to move to France, why there are typos on the site, what bakeries and chocolate shops in Paris I recommend, or Ginger or Mary Ann—that’s the place to go.
Pet Peeve du Jour
Am I the only one that’s being driven crazy by people calling anything thinly-sliced ‘carpaccio‘? If I see one more plate of sliced zucchini or strawberries labeled carpaccio, there’s gonna be trouble.
‘Carpaccio‘ refers to beef pounded until paper-thin. If someone out there is giving zucchini the same treatment, they can call it carpaccio. (And if anyone is pounding slices of strawberries until they’re thin enough to cover a dinner plate, that’s one technique I’d like to see.) But thinly-sliced vegetables and berries do not a carpaccio make
I will, however, make allowances for tuna ‘carpaccio’ since it’s in the same spirit as its carnivorous cousin. But otherwise, cut it out.
Movable Type Question
Is there anyone out there that’s a whiz at Movable Type?
I seem to be the only one out there in blogland that has to hand-code with HTML all the accents and symbols that appear in other languages, specifically French. It’s a heckuva lot of extra typing and coding and we all know where that leads—to typos!
Sorry Steve ; )
If anyone knows how to fix that, I’d be forever indebted. If you’ve left a comment with an accent or tilda and see it come up as gobbly-gook, that’s why.
Newsletter Subscription
I send out a newsletter about 5 times a year via email. There’s stories, recipes, upcoming events, goofy stories, and stuff that’s unprintable on the site due to its mature and sensitive subject matter.
Hint: It often involves chocolate.
If you’d like to be put on the list, enter your email address in the subscriber box to the lower right. I won’t give away your email address to anyone else. And I promise, no more racy pictures either. Unless I hit the wrong button again.
(And if you saw those photos, no…it really didn’t hurt that much.)
There will likely be one sent out shortly so if you want to get it, then get on the stick.
I mean, get on the list.
Links
I’m in the process of adding some new links to the site, which I can only do on a very infrequent basis. You can find a list of them here, and there’s more here.
If your site isn’t listed, If it doesn’t mean I don’t like you or that I don’t read your blog or use your product. I love you all and if I could meet you for a drink and, well..let’s just say that
what happens in Paris stays in Paris.
(Which obviously doesn’t apply to Paris Hilton.)
It’s simply because there’s so many great sites out there that I can’t possibly include them all.
Although I can be bribed with chocolate or caramel corn. (If you can believe it, I’m almost out. Where’d it all go?)
Feel free to leave your site and its URL in the comments here, hyperlinked, if you wish, and I encourage readers to browse through them; there’s some real gems in there.
Paris Chocolate Exploration III…and IV
Due to popular demand, my next Paris chocolate tour in May of 2008 is almost sold-out and we’ve added a second week to my Paris Chocolate Exploration with Mort Rosenblum next spring. It will take place May 18-24, 2008 and we’ve already started filling spaces.
You can view pictures from last-year’s tour here to see the fun, and roast chicken-flavored potato chips, that you missed.
Comments
I love your comments!
In fact, I love them so much that many nights I lie awake wondering what’s going to appear in my Inbox the next morning.
Honestly, some of them are pretty funny and really crack me up. And you know who you are…
However, because of spam, did you know that sometimes your emails and comments can get blocked at various places on the internet? (I believe it’s because spammers hijack your IP address.)
Here’s what you can do:
1. Look up your IP address here.
2. Write those numbers down (or highlight and cut them).
3. Enter (or paste) those numbers here.
4. Follow the simple instructions there to unblock your IP address.
That will insure that your comments here and elsewhere always go through.
Lastly, thanks to everyone who’s been so kind as to pick up a copy of my ice cream book, churned up something delicious and enjoyed the wacky stories. Lord only knows what the Miss Martinique beauty pageant or why the Good Humor™ man refused to come back to my neighborhood or how I got my comeuppance by the mysterious Lemon Lady has to do with ice cream. I don’t know, but somehow I connected them all and I’m glad folks are finding it an enjoyable read in addition to all the recipes.
Now if I could only find that darned Lemon Lady (page 152).
Where are you? I need closure…
The book’s gotten a wonderful reception and a major cookware chain in the US says it’s become their best-selling book in their history and there was a really terrific, spot-on story about me in the Boston Globe recently that you might enjoy reading as well.
I don’t mean to get all dewy-eyed…(well…maybe a little)…but it personally means a lot to me. People often cite baking as one of the things that spreads joy to others and that the kind of people who bake are exactly those kind of people. I don’t know if that applies to me, since truthfully…I do have my days. And you’ve seen them.
But I’m glad to have brought a little extra sweetness to some of you all the same.
Even if I’m not always so sweet myself.
Merci Beaucoup à tous…
