October 2007 Archives

Parisians don't celebrate Halloween.

There's no trick-or-treating, no garish displays at le pharmacie, no need for mothers to warn their kids about razor blades in les pommes, no teenagers tp-ing the trees by the Seine. And there's no candy corn.

But we do have pumpkins. Lots of them.
And that's how I'm celebrating Halloween this year.

I love roasting and eating pumpkin, and I don't miss stepping over all the smashed ones in the street the following morning.

But candy corn?

I love candy corn (preferably stale) and I really do miss it.

Now that's kinda scary...

During my interview at Chez Panisse, as I sat across the table from Alice Waters in the main dining room at the restaurant, she asked me, "What do you eat at home?"

Since I'm not exactly convincing when lying, I told her.

"I eat popcorn, mostly." And continued, "I'm a restaurant cook. I don't have time to eat at home."

(Although I did conveniently omit the fact that it was microwave popcorn...)

In spite of that, or because of my chutzpah, I got hired and worked at Chez Panisse for a long time. What nailed it for me and endeared me to Alice, years later, wasn't her politics or her philosophy on cooking. It was when I told her, "I really like to drink coffee leftover from the morning, with milk in it, that's been sitting on the counter all day."

And she said, "Me too."

A reader recently inquired that her and her husband were planning to visit France and since he couldn't tolerate any gluten, is there anything that I could recommend? She had attached a list of words in French for acceptable grains, like oatmeal and barley,

So I flipped through my French dictionary and looked under Special Dietary Needs, but there was a blank space. I didn't know what to tell them. I was (almost) defeated. I finally recommended that they rent an apartment so they could do much of their own cooking and more importantly, they should frequent the same restaurants over and over so that staff got to know them.

Not many people, no matter where they're from, are aware of which products have gluten. Even me.

For example, I didn't know that most soy sauces had gluten, as well as many bottled salad dressings, malt vinegar, various mustards, processed meats, and even some toothpastes and lipstick. (I could certainly give up one, but not the other.) And apparently I'm not the only one unaware gluten-free lifestyles: Even my local health food store stocks their gluten-free bread, unwrapped, on the same shelves with the regular bread, crumbs mingling and all.

For those who need to avoid gluten, France may present more of a challenge than other countries, which was confirmed when I tried to find some tips online for gluten-free dining in France and turned up little information.

So here are a few helpful hints that will help you navigate French restaurants and dining, how to deal with waiters, and where you can find gluten-free products and foods in Paris, including a gluten-free restaurant and take-away shop.

Back online!
And catching up on my reading...

Chefs vs Bloggers: Shuna's letter to Michael Ruhlman

Going cold-turkey for a day.

Scary!

Write your own cookbook.
(But why no help offered to work on mine?...)

Strike Two!—I guess Sarkozy doesn't have quite the mandate he thinks he does...

Where to take a good pounding.

Blast off!...those wacky Americans...
(via Kate)

Name that restaurant!

Food Photography Video Tutorials (Real and imagined)

Where are the wine bars of Paris?

Visit the Salon du Chocolat à Paris.

Street Scam

Turkey-Time Tutorial

Taste Paris Pastry History

While I wait for my life (ie, my television and internet) to return to normal....(although I'd be happy if they'd just return. period)...I left my perch in the Wi-Fi equipped Place des Vosges long enough to have a really nice dinner at Mon Vieil Ami, that I thought I'd recount. I was going stir-crazy sitting at home and was so bored that I almost had to work. Imagine that!

But since I procrastinated enough, which included scrubbing the knobs on my washing machine (yes, really...) and the ones on the oven too, then tackling a batch of ice cream using some leftover mascarpone in my fridge that had one day left on it, I am back in the Place des Vosges once again, sans chocolat chaud, but connected.

What more could a guy want? Yikes...now that's a loaded question.
I couldn't wait for my internet connection to return to normal, so I thought I'd offer forth a short, quick write-up of a great dinner I had last night. And judging from your very kind comments, I know 98% of you are sympathetic to my situation—and perhaps the other 2% are meanies, content to laugh at others' misfortune. So excuse any errors, mis-whatevers, and typos while the chill slowly creeps into my fingers here on this cold park bench. And since I'm sitting, need I say where else the cold is creeping into? Perhaps when I get home I'll take a chocolat chaud sitz-bath.
With marshmallows, thank you ver much.

(ha!...my first typo...)

My dining companion hier soir from Los Angeles was missing vegetables after eating too many rich meals while in Paris, so she was thrilled with the menu offered at Mon Vieil Ami. My first course was roasted beets from the gardens of Joël Thiebaut (sp?...I'll correct the spelling later.) In the huge terrine buried amongst the ruby-red and golden beets were four well-caramelized, succulent, sweet-sour chicken wings, as well as some raw beets that had been shaved into ribbons, added for good measure. Why not?

We both ordered the same entrée, which I love, since I hate to share.

Just a note that my internet and cable everything has been down for the past week. And because that's not enough, my some messages from certain servers are being blocked and/or returned for whatever reason.

But rest assured, there's no one here taking care of the problem.

After calling several times at 8€, or $11 a pop, and getting disconnected in lieu of speaking to someone, I've given up. So I'm now adopting a wait-and-see attitude since I just can't unshake from my brain the belief says that if I pay for something, I should (feasibly) get something in return. Which ain't happening.

(Although the recording says if I sign up for their new telephone service, I'll no longer have to pay to wait on hold. But honestly, I don't think pitching their services to customers while they're irate is wise marketing.)

So if you've sent me a message and haven't gotten a response, or it's been returned—c'est comme ça...which basically means 'too bad'.

C'est ma vie...

(And if you see a guy in the Places des Vosges bundled up in a winter coat, typing with blue, frozen fingers, that would be me. Please buy me a chocolat chaud....it's cold out here!)

After dinner at a friend's apartment this weekend, they rolled out a sizable wheel of cheese to eat before dessert...which since moving to France, has become my favorite course of the meal. But usually you present one or a few selected cheeses, not a big round.

Nevertheless, they slapped it down in the middle for the table where the host took a hunting-type knife, started hacking off shards of it, and passing them around the table. As we started eating, all of the sudden the whole table went completely quiet. (Which is a real rarity in Paris.)

We all looked around the table, and everyone's eyes lit up; "C'est incroyable!"

1. I just learned that you can receive updates to my blog via email. Simply go to Feedblitz and do it.

It's super-simple and you don't have to create a password or sign up for anything.

Who knew?

2. If you have some time to waste or need a good laugh, these are hilarious.

I mean, really hilarious.

3. And if you're in Paris this Sunday, don't forget to stop by the Richard Lenoir market in the Bastille to say hi and get your book signed.

I can't promise I'll be as hilarious. But I'll give it a shot.

There's a pretty lively debate over at Amateur Gourmet about the recent appearance of Alice Waters on The View. I'm not going to attempt to put words into anyone's mouth, but there seems to be a lot of mis-information about the message that Alice is trying to bring across.

Alice is an idealist, which is someone who imagines things that are...'ideal'. We need people like that. If no one imagined anything but what already existed, or nixed any new ideas, we wouldn't have telephones, electricity, flour, tires, espresso makers, and the Spice Girls reunion.

When I started at Chez Panisse back in 1983, few people knew what mesclun, goat cheese, or blood oranges were. Now they're common in many supermarkets like Safeway, and sold at reasonable prices. I recently paid $5.99 for a box of Rice Krispies in New York, so I don't buy the argument that convenience foods are cheaper than 'healthy' foods. Quaker Oats are about half the price, although you can't make Rice Krispie Squares out of them.

I've had a hankering to try Heidi's recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies with her secret ingredient—mesquite flour—for the longest time. But although the mesquite flour I eventually found encompasses several continents, like I do, it's not available in the one I live in. So when I went to Texas, which I figured would be the epicenter of mesquite last June, I wandered the well-stocked aisles at Central Market in search of it. And lo and behold, there is was.

Looking at the label, I was surprised to find that it was imported...from Argentina. By a California company. And there I was, in a supermarket in Texas, buying it. Which I then brought back to France.

This upcoming weekend I'll be signing copies my books, The Perfect Scoop and The Great Book of Chocolate here in Paris!

I'll be at the Richard Lenoir market in the Bastille at the booth of Régis Dion, who carries the most fabulous fleur de sel you'll ever taste, hand-harvested by his family in the Guérande, which will be available to sample.

His booth is located near the center of the market and I'll be there Sunday, October 21, from 10:30am-11:30am.

Hope to see you there!

Feel free to bring your own books, and brand-new copies will be available for purchase: The Perfect Scoop (20€) and The Great Book of Chocolate (12€)...or both for only 30€.

If you're planning to come, you're welcome to reserve copies by email so we can plan on having sufficient books on hand.

For those of you who live elsewhere, you can now order fleur de sel and sea salt directly from Régis via his website: Traditions Guérande (In French). He ships internationally and his prices are very reasonable.

(If you don't speak French, Freetranslation.com will do it for you.)

I have a knife block on my counter armed with a sharp, ever-ready arsenal of knives for almost all kitchen purposes. There's a nice, long bread knife, several fancy Japanese knives, a terrific 3-inch paring knife I bought in 1983 at Columbus Cutlery in San Francisco that I lost my first week at Chez Panisse and found it ten years later sitting in a silverware bin, a jumbo Martin Yan Chinese cleaver, and a flexible boning knife, which we used to simply call a 'boner' in the restaurant.

(Which we did simply because in our juvenile fashion, we got a kick out of asking our fellow cooks, "Can I use your boner?")

But the one knife I reach for 97% of the time in my 4½-inch Wüsthof serrated knife. I bought mine at a cookware shop in Ohio that I was teaching at. And when I saw them at Zabar's in New York last week for only $7.99, I started thinking what a fabulous little knife this baby is and how dependent I am on mine.

Dirt cheap, I've had my handy little knife for about six years and it's still as sharp as the day I bought it. (Actually, it seems to get sharper and sharper. Either that, or my other knives are getting duller and duller.) I use mine for everything: slicing crusty baguettes, tomatoes, perfectly-diced beets, cutting up fruit, and a gazillion other things. It does every job with the greatest of ease and its small size also makes it fabulous for space-challenged cooks.

For the money, it simply can't be beat. You can find them online for $11.99, but you can generally pick one up at a good price at your local cookware store.

I think I need to move to New York City for a whole year to eat at all the places that were on my list to try. Although, honestly...I could certainly just go to Zabar's everyday and die a happy man. And for all the scoffing that Whole Foods gets, I'd be thrilled to have a store with the range of fine products that they do. Sure it's not all local, or organic. But it's nice to find a major supermarket chain carrying healthy foods, unscented products (which I stocked up on), a huge selection of local cheeses, plus chocolates from all over the place, near and far.

And for anyone that wants to complain about 'Whole Paycheck', go out and pick a basket of raspberries in the blazing-hot sun...then figure out how much it's worth if you were to sell it?

So I came back cranky, probably because I had to suffer the indignity of the flight attendants physically unhooking my fingers from the outside of the airplane door at JFK Airport so we could leave. Luckily I brought an extra empty suitcase and stocked it up with maple syrup, dried California apricots and sour cherries, and a few other odds and ends as souvenirs. But while in New York, I had plenty of delicious moments...

If I had to name one of my Top Ten foods of all-time, it would be the Black & White Cookie. Although it's getting harder to find freshly-made ones that aren't shrink-wrapped, in New York. But good things come to those who search...

I once made them (from a recipe in here), and realized it was a dangerous proposition. The good thing about making them yourself is that you can make them slightly smaller than the jumbo 7-inch disks you normally find.

And speaking of abnormally-sized Black & Whites...holy mother-of-Black & Whites!...

It's a Black & White Cake!

Who says New Yorkers are pushy?

Although I couldn't convince him to cut in line, watch me teach Adam Roberts how to Shop Like A Parisian in New York City.

(And yes, the camera does add 10 pounds...either that, or I seem to be sporting a Pinkberry-Belly.)

must

have

more

Pinkberry

While it's true that languages evolve over time, I didn't realize in the short five years since I've been away, the English language has become barely comprehensible to me.

Roaming the busy streets of Manhattan, I picked up a Learning Annex flier. Another change I've noticed is that all you need is a plunging neckline in a V-neck sweater, lots of hair, and gleaming-white teeth to make a KILLING in real estate.

If only I'd been born a big-busted woman, I be raking it in scooping up foreclosures instead of ice cream!

On another page, a gentleman promised to 'Unveil the Great Questions of the Universe' for the low price of only $39. Now that, my friends, seems like the deal-of-the-century. Unfortunately I won't be here and I'll miss it, but if anyone goes, please let me know the answers. We can split it 50-50 and I'll just have to be content with knowing a mere half of the secrets of the universe.

One of the best markets anywhere, and a great place to start a whirlwind culinary week in New York, is the Greenmarket, which takes place a few times a week in Union Square.

New York's Greenmarket is a colorful riot of fresh corn, technicolor heirloom tomatoes, fresh-made Ronnybrook ice cream (which I didn't get to try since my consorts put a damper on things and said it was too early in the morning and I didn't think I could finish a pint by myself), tiny little chili peppers, sweet amber-colored maple syrup and some respectable locally-made cheeses.

I'd be happy to go on and on and one, but the visit was recorded for posterity on video. Stay tuned...

Greenmarket
Union Square
NYC

Speaking of corn, ever since the Second Avenue Deli closed their doors, life hasn't been the same. Even though I live thousands of miles away, just knowing Sharon Lebewohl and her crew were there slicing mounds of corned beef and pastrami was always enough to make it my first, and often last stop too, on trips to New York.

Martha Stewart Everyday Food

Today I'll be a guest on Everyday Food on Martha Stewart's Sirius cable radio channel, live from New York. The segment is scheduled to air around noon.

Good Food

I'll be featured on Good Food with Evan Kleinman this Saturday, October 6th. The program airs live from 11am-Noon on KCRW in the Los Angeles area. In the segment, we'll tour my favorite outdoor market in Paris which was (obviously) taped a few weeks ago, and really fun.

I can't wait to hear it myself and see if they kept in all the goofy stuff I said, and you can meet Jacques, my olive guy!

If you can't listen to it live, you can easily download the broadcast and podcast from their web site.

Becoming A Chef

And although I should filed under un-becoming of a chef, pals Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg featured me on their Becoming A Chef blog. You might remember when I interviewed the two here for their latest book What To Eat With What You Drink, which won the IACP Award for Book of the Year.

Not that I had anything to do with it; I'm just glad I didn't hurt their chances.

Tune in!

Last time I was in Chicago, it was a few weeks before Christmas and I joined the queue for Garrett's Caramel Corn. The line wasn't that long...or so it seemed, and when people told me the wait was two hours I didn't believe them. That is, until after I'd waited for 20 minutes and barely moved three steps forward.

So I left and decided to forget about it.

But later that night, I was, like, "Damn, I am so craving my Garrett's."

And the next day I joined the line again only to be subjected to another endless wait. Although I'm Parisian and believe that lines are only for other people, I quickly deduced that I'd better not take cuts in front of any of those hardy midwestern-types who could kick my butt back across the Atlantic.

I left empty-handed and sad—but who isn't more thrilled than I am that Garrett's opened in New York City? Who's happier than I am now?

If you go, get a mixed bag; half-caramel and half-cheese corn. While I normally shy away from 'cheese-flavored' snacks, Garrett's cheese corn is insanely-good and I've been known to plow through a 3-gallon drum of the mix in a startling short time.

I just wonder when they're going to open in Paris.
If they do, that'll be the end of me.

Garrett's
560 5th Avenue
and
242 W 34th St/1 Penn Plaza

Another thing to love about New York—
You only need to look two ways before crossing the street.

Instead of three.

I'm always complaining that in Paris, you can never find what you're looking for.

Let's say you need shoelaces that are 110 cm. You'll go to the shoelace department at the enormous BHV department store and on the wall of shoelaces, they'll be 90cm...100cm...105cm...109cm...111cm.

But 110cm?
Of course not.

So here I am in New York presumably the greatest shopping city in the world. And I can't find one of those things that keeps tortillas warm. I've checked Williams-Sonoma and the insanely-huge Bed, Bath and Beyond (where the security guard tailed me for a good 10 minutes...so maybe the stereotypes are true that Americans don't like Parisians).
And lastly, Zabar's.

As if I need an excuse to visit Zabar's, one of the great food places in the world. If they don't have it, it ain't available.
(It wasn't, btw...)

But oy vey!...all the pushing and shoving and jostling.

People were getting mad at me, so I had to tone it down.

Nope. I ate three.

Okay, so I had a little help....

The City Bakery
3 West 18th Street
New York City