November 2008 Archives

Whenever I go to San Francisco, I stay with a friend of mine who generously offers to put me up as long as I'm in town. It's fun, especially since she likes to hit the off-price shops and her kitchen is filled with lots and lots of kitchen tools.

Since she knows I live abroad, where many of them aren't available, if I express interest in something she'll invariably say, "Oh, go ahead and take it. I can get another one easily."

After a bit of obligatory mock-protesting on my part, I grudgingly accept it, and in it goes, right into the suitcase. On my last trip, I noticed she had a pair of mini-tongs in her drawer, which were not only adorable, but fit too-perfectly in my hand.

One of the things that no one prepares you for when you write a book, is that people are going to be in touch, many that you haven't seen in a long, long time.

When Room for Dessert came out in 1999, I heard from people that I knew all the way back in high school.

Into my Inbox messages popped up, like "Hey David! That was sure funny when we stole your pants and underwear from the locker room, wasn't it?"

Or "Remember when I spilled the bong in my mom's car while trying to change the Gino Vannelli 8-track tape? Those were good times, weren't they?"

In the lively and fun-filled newsletter I slaved and slaved over, then finally sent out this weekend, I promised some holiday-oriented recipes around here, and this one is a doozy. Mincemeat is the mother-of-all holiday recipes. The holy grail to some, especially my friends across the Channel in England. But this version is much easier than any traditional recipe and you can use it shortly after you make it.

I don't know about you, but any dessert recipe that calls for one-pound of beef suet as its first ingredient, usually doesn't prompt me to head to the kitchen. So a lot of people, who upon hearing the word mincemeat...well, their first reaction is a prolonged and rather extended "EEWwwwww."

When I was in New York City in October I fell in love. Deeply and madly.

I'd swapped apartments with a friend and as I was leafing through her stack of new baking books, I became hopelessly smitten with one in particular: Baked: New Frontiers in Baking.

And even though both my suitcases were dangerously over-packed (although my new iMac was more than worth the five minutes I spent charming the United agent so he'd waive the overweight surcharges), and I already quite a few other cookbooks wedged in there, I reasoned there was always room for one more.

Disappointment can take many forms.

Some people are unhappy with their lawmakers. Others experience unemployment, infidelity, natural disasters, wrongful arrest, declining stock prices, or social injustices.

And then there's the poor folks that face cultural challenges on a daily basis, and have to deal with disagreeable bank tellers, reams of bureaucratic paperwork, and a France Telecom form promising a refund, but with absolutely no information on where to return it to.

Me?

I've got bigger problems around here. Much bigger.

When I moved to Paris, almost immediately I went looking for a tarte Tatin mold. The one I'd bought years ago in Paris, I'd left back in San Francisco.

I suppose could've packed it with me, for its third overseas journey but that would be one heck of a carbon footprint for a simple little pan, wouldn't it?

So I went to my least-favorite kitchenware shop in Paris, where the over-eager salesman, hearing my accent américain, tried to talk to me into a very, very expensive copper mold; the priciest option available. Extricating myself from his clutches (and his hand from my wallet in my back pocket) I left and walked over to Bovida, and bought a far less-expensive non-stick tarte Tatin mold, one that I've come to love.

It's annoying to come across a recipe raving about the taste or beauty of something exotic or unattainable. You can't please everyone (no matter how hard I try...) and although not everyone can find quince in their local market, they're not necessarily all that hard to track down. Heck, sometimes they're right in your own back yard.

Yet even if you do scope some out, the bummer is that quince aren't all that easy to prepare. But like most things that we so desperately want, they take time and patience, and they take work. If not, all us men would be walking around with abs like Daniel Craig.

No matter how hard some of us try.

A few weeks ago, I went to hear Alec Lobrano speak and read from his terrific book, Hungry for Paris, and someone asked if there were ethnic restaurants listed in the book. He replied that he didn't include them, because most visitors coming to Paris probably are looking for French food, so that's what he concentrated on.

He's right, of course. Lots of visitors do come here specifically to dine on classic French fare, but I also know that there are a certain number of visitors that eventually tire of so much meat and rich food, and are willing to explore some of the more unusual and diverse food available in a multi-cultural city like Paris. I also think that Americans (at least this one) are hard-wired to eat ethnic foods, namely anything Asian. Living in California, sushi, Korean bbq, and bun bo are pretty much a part of my normal dietary fare.

Since I arrived in Paris, I've noticed a strong uptick in the quality of Asian restaurants here. And I've also noticed there's much more of an appreciation of them, too.

The European Union just overturned regulations that will allow fruits and vegetables that aren't technically picture-perfect, to be sold alongside their more attractive counterparts. But the laws are still place until next July. I had no idea there was such a directive in effect, and I've been innocently part of a conspiracy, participating in, and abetting, illegal behavior.

According to EU directives, things like carrots must be "..not forked, free from secondary roots." Since I found that out, I've been much more careful about what I bring home. When I picked these out at the market, my carrots didn't seems to have any of those kinds of hideous deformations (imagine that...forked roots!...ick!), but when I unpacked my haul, I noticed that the specimen above found its way into my market basket. Accidentally, of course.

Because I have nothing else to do with my days, I decided it was time to upgrade the pepper in my peppermills. I think I'm coming late to that game, since I've read so many things urging...begging me...to use fancy, expensive pepper. But I tend to buy a bag of black pepper from a local Arab spice shop, which seemed good enough.

Or so I thought.

A few weeks ago, I found myself back in Goumanyat, and they had at least a dozen black and colored peppers to sniff.

This weekend, I'm going to my first-ever French wedding. I don't know if the Bridezilla phenomenon has taken root in Paris, but my friend insisted, nicely, that her gâteau de marriage be one flavor in particular: carrot.

I've written about a French-style carrot cake before, but she wanted an American-style one—nice and tall, with lots of billowy cream cheese frosting, bien sûr!

Normally when couples in France tie le nœud, a croquembouche serves as the wedding cake, which is a towering cone of sticky cream puffs filled with Bavarian or pastry cream, then drizzled with wispy caramel strands, tying whole damn thing together.

Wait just a minute. It's been about a week since I got back from Torino, and I told you about all the stuff I managed to jam in my craw at the Salone del Gusto, but I also spent a fair amount of time visiting some of the chocolate shops and caffès in this great city. Man cannot live by cured pork products and sheep's-milk cheese alone, can he?

He must eat ice cream, and on occasion, drink.

The day of my arrival, I didn't wait a minute. Moments after I tossed my suitcase in my hotel room, I made a beeline for Caffè San Carlo (Piazza San Carlo 156) for a couple of scoops of gelato, which I remembered so fondly from a previous visit. They didn't remember me, even though I thought I'd made quite the impression that last time, when I stood over the giant gelato machine and tried to climb in.

Or maybe they were trying to forget?

There's a misconception that the French don't eat junk food. While it's true that the drugstore shelves around here are lined with, of all things—drugs, there are some foods around that don't quite fall into the high-fallutin' AOC category elsewhere.

It's become commonplace to see teenagers swilling la Coca from plastic liter jugs on the sidewalks and it's not unusual to see a Parisian toting a bag from McDo. In the candy department, the dubious tagada, artificially-flavored strawberry marshmallow domes, I've unfortunately had served to me melted on top of a crème brûlée in lieu of a crackly layer of caramel (which was not an improvement, believe me...) and in more upscale desserts in trendy restaurants. Both I found rather icky.

But there is one junk food that I do share their affection for: les oursons guimauve.

In a country where one of the tenets is égalite, there are, believe it or not, some people who are more "equal" than others. It's one of the less-discussed French paradoxes. No, I'm not talking about the motor scooter drivers who ride roughshod through Paris, bombarding pedestrians on the sidewalks or breaking through traffic, cutting off buses, bicyclists, and generally wreaking havoc in their noisy, smoke-spewing wake.

It's les bureaucrats.

The other day I had to go to the bank. And in France, before you go to the bank, if you need to do anything other than make a withdrawal or deposit, you need to make an rendez-vous. Each client is assigned a bancaire who is in charge of your affairs. You can't just go to any bancaire; you have to go to yours.

So it's important that they like you.

Before I went away for recent my trip to New York City, as a gesture of extraordinary kindness to the person who I swapped apartments with, I cleaned out some of the scary things in my fridge. Nevertheless, she managed to find the African peanut butter, but curiously missed the luscious jar of salted butter caramel from Henri Le Roux in Brittany. What's up with that? I guess that means there's another apartment swap in my future.

Coming back, the fridge was still spotless, but after a few days, I realized there was too much empty space in there, so now it's back to being crammed full. Part of the reason is that I came across these gorgeous mixed carrots at the marche d'Aligre. It's hard to find vegetables like this around here, and if you do, for the price you pay, you may as well stay at a fancy hotel in New York instead and not worry about how clean your refrigerator is for incoming guests.

At the market here in Paris that day, the vendor has baskets bursting with all sorts of organic produce, all for €2.8 per kilo, for whatever you chose. I filled up my basket and handed it over, and when I got the tab, I realized that perhaps I should've exercised a bit more restraint.

About 25 years ago, I was traveling around Europe with nothing but an overstuffed backpack, which probably reeked of ripe brie from all the cheese I'd stashed into it. I was by myself, ending up befriending a Turkish woman, and we traveled together for a few weeks. She was a journalist and told me she'd gotten divorced, which meant that if she went to certain villages in her own country, she could be stoned to death.

As an American, who hadn't spent much time outside his own country, I was taken aback. I had very limited experience with the world outside our borders and never realized how lucky we Americans are.

Now that I've had a few days to digest everything I tasted at the Salon del Gusto, I thought I'd show you a fraction of what was on offer.

The event was an unparalleled opportunity to sample foods from all over the world, with a focus on Italy, of course, since that's where the event takes place. That meant an abundance of cured pork products and Italian cheese, like handmade ricotta which you could taste just after it'd been made, but also Mexican Chinantla vanilla beans, so ripe, fragrant and oily...and a few bars of chocolate stacked up here and there.