I recently read The Pedant in the Kitchen, which Michael Ruhlman also wrote up, and while I found it an enjoyable rant, one vexing thought that stuck in the author’s craw was recipe instructions that call for “a handful” of something. He didn’t know what that meant and wondered why recipes couldn’t be more precise. Writing a recipe that’s acceptable to absolutely everyone can be…
In the south of France, they’re pretty generous with les glaçons. It’s never any problem getting ice cubes, which are often brought to the table heaped in a bowl. And sometimes, they’re even already added to the carafe of rosé you’ve ordered, already for you. When ice is added to a drink, it’s called a piscine (pool) in France. Contrast that with Paris, where ice seems…
My favorite travel tip that I rarely advertise is to tell people I’m leaving a day prior to my actual departure. And tell them I’m coming back a day after I actually return. That way, I avoid all those last-minute crises as well as returning home and being slammed by a few weeks of backed-up panicky messages on my machine. I think everyone’s figured it…
“The great thing about socca,” Rosa Jackson told me, as we ripped into our second double order of the giant chickpea crêpe between us, “is that even if you’re not hungry, you can still eat it.” A few days later, while standing on the square in Vence, waiting while a young man poured chickpea batter onto a very hot oiled griddle, a timid young American…
While you might be familiar with the more famous “Panisse“, these are the real McCoy. Panisses are made from chickpea flour and shaped into hockey puck-sized disks. Once firm, their texture is similar to cooled polenta, and they’re cut into elongated bars and fried in very hot olive oil until crisp on the outside.
If there’s anything nicer than taking a break and heading to the south of France, I can’t imagine what it could be right now. My first day in Nice, we ran from socca stand to socca stand, tasting as many as we could. Fortified, we hit the wonderful market in the old part of town to select our fixings for a lovely dinner. The way…
No complaints about the food at Racines. In fact, it’s one of the best places I’ve eaten in Paris in a long time. Unfortunately I took some of the worst pictures of one of the best-looking—and probably the most heavily-inked—restaurateurs in Paris, so you’ll have to go meet Pierre Jancou for yourself.
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