A friend of mine, another David L (who also worked at Chez Panisse with me and is now a chef in Switzerland) comes to visit me often, and it's one of the few times I let someone else into my tiny kitchen. He's a terrific cook, and perhaps the only person who is more picky about the way things should be in a kitchen than I am.
David and I like to roam about town looking for things to eat but we always we have a falafel at L'As du Falafel on the rue des Rosiers, in the Marais when he arrives. I usually insist visitors to Paris go there during their trip, since I would rank their 3.5 euro falafel as good as many 3-star dining experiences (and better, and cheaper, than one I recently had.)

Recently we were at the Richard Lenoir market, off the Bastille, and on sunday (the market is thursday and sunday) there are two of the nicest young women from the Savoie selling products from their region. They've got everything from buckwheat squares of pasta, rugged mountain cheeses, and cured meats. David (the other one) was excited to see this sausage which is studded with nuts!

It seemed pretty wacky to me to put nuts in sausage, isn't it? But the nutty, crunchy almonds are terrific and I can't wait until next sunday since, as you can see, I'm almost at the end of my, er, sausage.

It's finally up, my new blog. (Actually I've been blogging before it was cool, beginning in '99) but new software is making this much easier, or so I've been told.

We've been working months on getting things ready with a vivid new design.

You'll find lots of new postings, sometimes daily, mostly about things I'm finding to eat, recipes, places I visit, and more.

There's also a place for readers to post comments, which I read and respond to.

Please be patient with this site for the next few weeks as I learn how to post text and pictures (it's ain't as easy as making brownies...)

There may be typos, misspellings, accents missing, and general chaos, but once I get things up and running smoothly, you'll want to visit often.

Thanks, and 'a bientôt'

David

There's plenty of clichés about Paris in the springtime that are true. But what I really am happy to see are the return of the radishes. I love radishes, and by the looks of things, so do Parisians...

Wow!
I can't get enough of them and I always get two bunches, since I eat one right away, dipping each crisp, spicy radish in a bowl of fleur de sel.

One radish vendor told me eating radishes will make you sleep better.
Lars, a German friend, told me to save the leaves and make soup (which sounds icky), and Chinese medicine practitioners eat daikon white radishes to 'cool' down. I remember as a kid, in my first (and only) garden I planted radishes, which actually grew!... unlike much of the other things I planted. I discovered it wasn't much fun pulling weeds when everyone else was playing, so the garden was abandoned after the first radish harvest.

Luckily radishes are in abundance right now, and I can buy them weekly at my local market in the Bastille, and I'm using them as much as I can. Aside from dipping them in salt, I thinly slice radishes and toss them with coarse frisée, toasted hazelnuts and hazelnut oil; a terrific salad served with a round of fresh or aged goat cheese. Trimmed radishes, split lengthwise, are tasty served alongside Tapenade.

Apologies to all for not updating the site, but I've been working on the overhaul and can't wait to get it up... which will be shortly. There will be lots of new content, a new look, as well as very frequent updates and lots of recipes. I've also been very busy planning and leading chocolate tours and working on some new recipes for chocolate classes in December of 2005 at Sur La Table stores. I just finished a major article about Paris chocolates for the October issue of Hemispheres, the magazine of United Airlines. So plan a trip on United in October if you want to read it!

So it's springtime here in Paris.

At my outdoor market, I've been buying colorful blood oranges from Tunisia and Spain and making refreshing sorbets, then candying the peel to serve alongside. (My grandmother never let me throw anything away...) As the weather gets warmer, dinner's often a simple salad of peppery arugola and watercress sprinkled with a drizzle of argan oil, my favorite oil, made from argan nuts that have been munched by tree-climbing goats in Morocco, after which they're "expelled", then laboriously pressed.

I've also been baking tagines (Moroccan casseroles) using spring lamb and plump, sweet prunes from Agen. And sometimes dinner will just be a slice of Terrine Gascon which I get from my local butcher, made from shredded duck confit and I suspect an overdose of duck fat. (I figure if I down enough rosé with it, that will dilute the richness in my system.) There's also many new cheeses that I'm trying at my fromagerie, such as an earthy, crumbly, and pungent bleu cheese from Savoie, ripe and gooey brie de meaux, and a new favorite, Langres, a copper-colored knob that when sliced, reveals a soft, creamy interior with the lovely sweet-pungent smell of fresh cream, grass, and barnyard.

One Of My Favorite Bakeries in Paris, L'Autre Boulange

And I've been trying as many new chocolates I can get. I've had some lovely bars from Green & Black's organic chocolate from Great Britain, as well as handcrafted Tuscan chocolates from Slitti and Amedei that I'll be visiting with guests in May during my upcoming Italian Chocolate Tour.

For those of you unfamiliar with Tuscan chocolates, they are some of the finest chocolates you'll ever sample. Wish you were coming along?

If you've missed the opportunity to come to Tuscany with me, I've just announced a week of chocolate and cooking classes with cookbook author Susan Loomis in September, at her lovely home located in Normandy, one-hour from Paris. See below for details.

Each winter, the International Salon d'Agriculture occurs in Paris at the enormous Porte de Versailles exhibition center. The French are in love with anything agricultural. I recently saw a huge, room-sized map of France artfully composed of vegetables and fruits from the various regions.

And they love cows. (Well, living in a country with the most exceptional cheeses in the world, I am beginning to worship them as well.) When I last went to the post office, I was offered their newest stamps, which featured a cow. When I showed them off to some French friends that came for dinner that night, there was much ooh-ing and ahh-ing.

Although I do like cows as much as, um, the next person...I was more intrigued by the food representing all the regions of France and several other European communities and Africa. I bought a hunk of nutty Gruyere from the Swiss pavilion that was really, really good and sweet-scented, slender vanilla beans from the Antilles.

There was lots of unusual seafood to gasp at, delicious Basque foie gras conserved with pimente d'espelette (smoked pepper powder), and much wine to sample, as well as Pommeau, an aperitif of Calvados brandy blended with apple cider.

I'm Thinking of Giving Up Fish

I meet some lively Africans from the Ivory Coast, who split open a cocoa bean and fed me the slippery seeds within. If you've never seen a cocoa bean, they're beautiful pods filled with slippery, almond-sized beans imbedded in a creamy liquid.

African Cocoa Beans

Although the Salon is great fun, it's always mobbed and this year was no exception. The one thing you never want to do is get between a French person and food. Otherwise, look out!