David Lebovitz

For someone who doesn't drink that much, I sure have a lot of liquor on my liquor shelf. I guess I should rephrase that. For someone who drinks an a lot of wine, but not a lot of liquor, I sure have a lot of liquor on my liquor shelf.

The French don't have anything on us Americans when it comes to drinking cocktails, although that seems to be changing a bit. Fruity, sweet drinks won't likely catch on around here, which I'm happy about, but minty Mojitos are popular, fueled on by their love of a fascination with anything Cuban. And one of my commenters got a big laugh out of me when I was explaining in another post the lack of ice cubes in Paris, and she said, "The only time you get a lot of ice in Paris is when you order a cocktail."

Every year I spend an inordinate amount of my time poaching fruit. It's usually because I'm powerless to resist all the pears in baskets at my market, and buy far more than I need. Yes, much of my sweet bounty find its way into sorbets, cakes, ice creams, and jams. But one of my favorite ways to keep those pears around a little longer is to poach them.

Poaching is gentle, stove-top cooking, and winter pears are ideal candidates since they keep their shape. Poaching also improves the taste of ho-hum pears. That's especially good news for you do-ahead folks out there; the longer the pears sit in the flavorful syrup after poaching, the better they'll taste. Since there isn't a big variety of fruit tumbling my way in the winter, to get my fruit-fix, I'll keep some poached pears in the refrigerator and enjoy them diced and mixed with my mid-morning yogurt and granola.

Be sure to start with firm, ripe pears.

I'm not going to say a thing, because I'm certain I did the same thing back in the day. But a lot of people who are en route to Paris are always asking me where they can find things like bouillabaisse, a true salade Niçoise, or Kig ha farz, and when I answer, "You can't", they either don't believe me, or get irked because they think I'm being elusive and keeping those addresses a secret and probably say mean things about me behind my back.

To get those things, you need to go where they originate; they just don't travel outside their particular region in France. I'm not sure if it's because in America, we're used to things being available whenever and wherever we want. Or because of our "melting pot" status, we readily accept foods from other parts of the country and the world with a little more fluidity than they do elsewhere.

But I've been duped one too many times in places like New York City, that advertise "San Francisco-style" burritos, which are about as close to the original as most of the rice-plumped salades Niçoises you'll find on the Île-de-France are.

(The true salade Niçoise should only contain raw vegetables: cooked eggs are allowed, and in some cases, canned tuna or anchovies. But that's it, folks. And don't get me started on those New York City burritos...and I use the term "burrito" loosely. If you cut it in half and can see any air pockets, it's not a burrito.)

I've learned my lesson and will stick to Black & White cookies, corned beef sandwiches, and the Halal stand in Manhattan.

Just taking a breather here and thought I'd share some thoughts as I looked at my crazy Inbox this weekend. I switched to Gmail last year and things just keep moving down as they come in, until they turn the corner and head into the 'older' page (ie: Siberia). Where they get forgotten. So yesterday, I deleted a few messages. As in, a few hundred messages. I don't even recall what many of them were about, or why I was saving them, but invariably a few likely got tossed that I probably should have answered. Drat.

There's a concept I've been hearing about called declaring "bankruptcy". It's not about the global financial meltdown, but it's about preventing another kind of meltdown by simply starting back again from zero, a blank slate. It's an interesting idea and it's nice to do a bit of spring cleaning now and then, even though spring is a few months away, unfortunately. (Although it did give me an excuse to buy a killer-stylin' new overcoat for winter last Wednesday.)

I never planned to write about this granola, since both Molly and Cenk did excellent adaptations. Because they are probably sick of me clicking on their sites, I finally jotted it down on a scrap of paper. And since that scrap of paper gets pulled out of my files at least once every other week, I thought that it was simply too good to keep buried away under my piles of paperwork and I'd share it here.

Although I haven't tried the thousands of variations of granola floating around (and in Why Stealing is Wrong?, I got my comeuppance for trying to pilfer another one), this is what the French would call le top du top—the best of the best.

(I don't know what they call "comeuppance" in French, but I seem to get mine frequently around here. Like the other day, when I was feeling cocky because I finally managed to extricate myself from my nefarious cable company and went to the France Telecom office to see if I could finally get one of those fancy iPhones like absolutely everyone else has. "C'est pas possible, monsieur", I keep hearing, even after I reason to them that I want to switch to a much more expensive plan, giving them more money, and let them sell me a pricey new phone. They say it may be possible, peut être, sometime in 2010. But I ain't gonna garde mon souffle...)

This Wednesday, October 28th at 7:30pm, I'll be at the American Library in Paris discussing my favorite topic—dessert!

Doing a culinary tour in Paris is always fun, because not only do I get to meet some new people and make new friends (important...since the old ones keep deserting me), but I get to revisit my favorite places in Paris. And this week, we made a detour in Lyon as well. So there was a lot more to see, and eat...

Lyon is a wonderful city. Kind of a miniature version of Paris, but younger, more spacious, and more relaxed. The people are plus cool, and in less of a rush—perhaps because they are so busy digesting all that rich food down there.

I've written about Bernachon before, and this trip, we had an especially warm greeting in their adjacent café, starting with puffy brioche and warmed pitchers of hot chocolate, made with the famed bean-to-bar chocolate that's fabricated just a few doors away.

It's no secret that I love Bernachon chocolate.

A recent phenomenon in Paris are Broadway shows coming to town.

In the past few years, plays like Grease, The Lion King, and West Side Story (and, bizarrely, Anne Frank, Le Musicial) have arrived amidst a fanfare of happy-go-lucky billboards in the métro. I don't think the words "infectious enthusiasm" or "feel-good musical" are part of the French vocabulary, but pretty soon they might be.

So don't be surprised if you come across a Parisian whistling "Greased Lightning" or "Beauty School Dropout" on your next visit.

I love musicals as much as the next guy (well, 10% of them, anyways...) so when I saw an ad for La Mélodie du Bonheur, I immediately wanted to call Romain to see if I should get tickets.