David Lebovitz

I'm always surprised when people say that they don't have time to cook. I mean, aside from reproducing, physiologically, we don't really exist on this earth for any other reason. (Unless someone knows something that they're not telling me.) Feeding ourselves is really our most basic human need.

Now if someone said, "I don't have time to clean up afterward", then I can totally relate. I spend at least 40% of my life standing in front of a sink, washing dishes. When people ask if they can come and help me test recipes, I always say, "Bring rubber gloves!" And that's the last I hear from them.

This is one of my very favorite, go-to dinners. It's incredibly easy and there's hardly any dishes to wash; just toss chicken pieces in olive oil, vinegar, soy sauce, and shallots in a baking dish. Season with salt and pepper, and pop it in the oven.

I'm happy to be taking care of two things with this recipe. One is that about a week ago, I was late to the market, arriving near the end, when everyone was packing up to leave. Scanning quickly to see what I could procure in a short amount of time, I passed by a stand where one fellow lorded over an enormous pile of organic bananas, and was hollering, "Un euro, deux kilos!...Un euro—deux kilos!"

Since that's roughly a buck for a little over four pounds of fruit, I stopped right there, and took as many as I could carry off his hands. And then, he threw another bunch in my basket after I paid. So I had a whole bunch of bananas...five, to be precise...which was great. But I was a little concerned about having what looked to be like around fifty bananas for just one person.

Once home, as they started ripening during the week, seemingly all at once, a mild panic set in. So I called into service a recipe from my archives, one of my all-time favorites: Banana and Chocolate Chip Upside-Down Cake.

When I was speaking at the Blogher Food Conference last year, one of the organizers was telling us that on the last day of each month, she carries out what she calls E-mail Amnesty Day. On that day, she deletes all her e-mail in her Inbox, then issues an all-points-bulletin to everyone she knows that if there was anything important in there, to e-mail her again. She swore that it drastically reduced her e-mail and any meltdowns one might have trying to answer it all.

I thought that was an interesting idea, and when I looked around my apartment the other day, (which wasn't half as scary as my Inbox), I realized that I had a huge miscellany of half-bags and jars of stuff left over from various baking projects, odds and ends that I was saving, which I said to myself (at the time) that I'd certainly use in the future. And this weekend, I thought it was high time to do something about it and get rid of them all, to do an exhaustive, clean sweep and get rid of everything.

What also prompted the purge was when I read where Adam made something called "Compost Cookies", a recipe which includes anything you wish to dump in it, from chocolate chips to Fritos.

Like Pistachio Gelato or Polenta Ice Cream, this recipe might fall into the category of "Things You Can't Make" for some of you.

Yes, bergamots aren't something one runs across everyday in the supermarket, or even at greengrocers. But mid-winter, depending on where you live, you just might get lucky and happen across some, as I recently did. Twice! (Although the second time took a bit of moxie.)

There's conflicting information what a bergamot actually is, but it's definitely a member of the citrus family and most consider it to be a relative of the bitter orange, which might have been mated with a lemon at some point in its dubious past.

They say that you know you're holding a glass of wine from Cahors if you can't see your fingers on the other side of the glass through the wine. Which is why the malbec wine from Cahors is nicknamed "black wine".

Peer into a glass of it, and it's easy to see (or should I say 'not see') why.

I didn't know much about the wine, or the region, before my recent visit. I just knew there were allegedly a lot of truffles, foie gras, and duck dishes cooked up in the Lot. So when I was asked by some folks who were shooting a film about the regional specialties if I wanted to tag along with them, I happily accepted.

(In addition to shooting the grapes, and getting a truffle or two ready for its close up, we made a video of me, too. Which, if I don't come off as too much of a dork, you'll see on the site when it's finished.)

For the first five years in Paris, I wouldn't go to Scoop. I'd walk by, scan the selections of hamburgers and "les wraps", and keep going. Even though I was intrigued with the list of house-made ice creams, I'd always reason to myself, "I didn't move to Paris to eat a hamburger."

I was reading recently about a site called My American Market that carries American foods, mostly targeted at expats living in France. There's some hard-to-find baking products, like unsweetened chocolate and molasses, but there's also plenty of goofy stuff, like muffin mixes, trail bars, and something called Molly McButter.

Believe it or not, there's been a spate of cupcake places opening in...of all places—Paris.

I haven't been in to any of them, but I should probably go at some point since I'm not sure if it's just a fad that's going to end soon, or something that might be here to stay. Parisians aren't especially fond of cakes with thick layers of frosting or blue icing, and sugary roses don't have quite the same nostalgic effect here as they do in America.

A lot of people come to Paris and ask me what they can bring. I've kind of had to stop mentioning things when I ramble on here, because if I casually mention that I would kill for a box of thin mints, every guest that comes to visit for the next three years arrives with a dozen boxes of thin mints. So please, don't bring me any thin mints. Except those After Eight mints. As evidenced by the empty brown, envelope-style wrappers littering my apartment, I love those. (Oh, and I like Planter's Peanut Blocks, too.)

Since I got in trouble recently for using...shall we say, a less-than nutritionally correct ingredient, on my last trip to San Francisco, folks will be happy to hear that I discovered fresh, wholesome pecans for sale at Costco.

Here's some of the frequently asked questions people have about cocoa powder, and its use in recipes:

What's the difference between Dutch-process and natural cocoa powder?

Dutch-process cocoa powder is made from cocoa (cacao) beans that have been washed with a potassium solution, to neutralize their acidity. Natural cocoa powder is made from cocoa beans that are simply roasted, then pulverized into a fine powder.

What does Dutching do?

Aside from neutralizing the acidity, Dutching cocoa powder makes it darker (see photo below, right) and can help mellow the flavor of the beans. Some artisan companies in the United States don't Dutch-process their cocoa as they claim their cocoa beans don't need to be acid-neutralized. Most supermarket brands of cocoa powder in America, such as Hershey's and Nestlé, are natural cocoa powders.

Can I use Dutch-process and natural cocoa powder interchangeably in recipes?