Aside from the massive safe in the Banque de France, probably the toughest place to get in to in France is the Ecole de Grand Chocolat Valrhona in the little town of Tain l'Hermitage. Admission to the professional cooking program I attended is by invitation only, and several times of the year, pastry chefs and chocolatiers from all over the world come to Valrhona to watch and learn how their chocolate is made. And even more important, to discover the best and tastiest ways to eat it.

Our chef-instructor was Philippe Givre, who was good-natured, but never let us forget that we were there to work-work-work. And he was perhaps the best example of the hard-driving pastry chef.

A woman who writes highly-regarded bread books recently contacted me. She's coming to Paris, to ask me some questions about various bakeries and their baguettes, and which I liked. I wrote her back, that I didn't want to sound like a dick, but when you live in Paris, you usually buy your bread from the local boulanger (there are four within a block of my apartment) rather than slogging through packed métro stations, being shoved from side-to-side en route or sitting next to some teenage yakking and tapping madly on their iPhone (pronounced EE-phone), and making two or three connections to get to some charming little bread bakery only to find out that they're closed that day, for a fermature exceptionnelle...from 1:37 pm to 4:06 pm...every forth Wednesday of months ending in "e".

I hate to have that whiff of "I'm over it, missy" air about me, but if I have a four hours to kill, I'm not inclined to spend a that time crossing Paris in search of a loaf of bread. Not that there aren't breads worthy of taking a trip like that, but if I have four hours to kill, I need to spend it doing something useful—like I did yesterday, when I used those few hours to go to three different supermarkets to find the lait frais demi-écrémé which I use in my morning coffee.

I have two strategies for finding good restaurants, which I use often—especially when traveling. I've never, ever been steered wrong using them, and I'm happy to share them with you.

One method I employ is to walk into a fish market and ask them where to eat. Fishmongers always know where to find food that's impeccably fresh and those strapping young men never fail to steer me towards the best addresses.

The other method I rely on, if it's lunchtime, is to walk around and see what restaurants are packed-full of older businessmen. Most often they've worked in the neighborhood for a long, long time and have their favorites—which is usually because of the good food.

Here's latest information about Paris transit passes. Tickets and passes are available in métro and bus stations, as well as RER and train stations, and kiosks at Orly and Charles de Gaulle Airport. You'll also find a link at the end for a listing of other places in Paris to buy transit tickets and passes.

Please note that many of the métro stations have changed and the people in the ticket booth no longer sell tickets. The major stations, however, are still manned by cashiers. Most of the transactions are now done by bilingual machines which don't take American credit cards, although the machines they do take cash and coins in euros. I recommend bringing exact change in coins when you go.

Paris passes are generally good for zones 1, 2, and sometimes 3, which are sufficient for most visitors. Tickets to the airports or to Versailles are best purchased separately.

In my opinion, if your arrival dates jibe with the ones for the Navigo Découverte, that's the best pass as it allows unlimited travel so you don't have to fumble and worry with tickets and transfers.

I'm often asked about kid-friendly things to do in Paris. Since I don't have any kids (at least I don't think I do...) I asked my friend Paul Bennett, a writer who runs Context Travel and has three small children, to contribute a guest post: Top Ten Things to Do in With Kids in Paris. Thanks Paul!... -DL

It always sounds glamorous when I tell people that my wife and I split our time between Paris and Rome. But that runway-model images wears off pretty quickly when I mention that we have three kids and a dog and spend far less time sipping kirs at sidewalk cafes than stacking the kids on top of each other in order to fit ourselves on the metro during a rush-hour dash to school, debating the pros and cons of each arondissement's public pool, or waiting desperately for the ferris wheel to open in the Tuilleries--the high point of a kid's year in Paris, let me tell you.

Is Paris child-friendly?

There's sort of some rhyme and reason to my cheese-buying habits. One fromagerie might have the most amazing butter, so I'll trek over to the place St. Paul to buy a packet of it. But if I want a round of Selles-sur-Cher, I'll go to the fromager at the marche d'Aligre who always has beautiful ones on display. For St. Nectaire and Cantal, I'll only buy those from the husky Auvergnate dude at my market on Sunday mornings and refuse to even taste one from anywhere else. His are just so good, I don't bother doing any comparison shopping.

Last week my neighbors from San Francisco came to visit and I took them to my Sunday market, where I figured we could gather the ingredients for a semi-homemade meal, sans the tablescape.

(Because of the terrific feedback many of you had from her pain d'épices recipe, I invited Flo Braker to do a guest post, and she graciously accepted, presenting my all-time favorite cookie of hers...)

This traditional Belgian cookie, known as almond bread (pain d'amande), is a favorite from my catering baking business in the early 1970s. The raw sugar's light golden color and distinctly old-fashioned flavor, similar to that of turbinado-style sugar, gives this cookie its unique taste, texture, and appearance.

Well, I wouldn't say it was exactly stealing. But last time I was in the states, I was going through one of my frighteningly-full storage lockers (there's your glimpse into the glamorous life of international living...) and while rifling through cookbooks, I came across my own personal book of handwritten recipes, a fat mess of pages, stained with butter, eggs, almond paste, and lord-knows what else, that I compiled during my years working in restaurants.

It really is a treasure trove of recipes and I was thinking I should start a "working my way through the book" blog, dedicated to doing each-and-every recipe in there. Then I thought the better of it and got that idea out of my mind—fast.

The main reason being that most of the recipes make a hundred servings and call for things like 80 egg yolks or 5 1/2 cups of honey or 8 quarts of heavy cream.

It's tough call, but I'd have to say that Flo Braker is my favorite baker in the world. Having known her for a few decades, I can't think of another baker that I like more. And I won't apologize to any other bakers out there, because I think they'd pretty much agree with me. When I was writing my first book, I remember leafing through her book, The Simple Art of Perfect Baking, amazed how this gorgeous, elegant woman had made cake-making such a seemingly simple affair. I was in awe.

Eventually I was lucky to meet Flo in person when we were wrapping boxes of chocolates and candies for a big benefit that Chez Panisse was organizing and we hit it off immediately.

So much so, that when my mother passed away, Flo called and said just two words to me: "You're adopted."

(Although she way rather coy when pressed for a move-in date....)

Proving that just because you have good ingredients, doesn't necessarily mean you can make them good. True, it's harder to go wrong with stellar vegetables, seafood, and meat, but a recent dinner at L'Assiette proved that a little finesse, and seasoning, can transform decent ingredients into something pretty good. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case on a recent visit.

For many years, L'Assiette was the "go to" restaurant in Paris. When I worked at Chez Panisse, every cook who came here simply had to eat the cuisine of Lulu Rousseau, the beret-wearing woman who cooked simple food, and did it very well. The food came with a slightly hefty price tag which was mitigated by the good food on the plate. She sold the restaurant and I recently went back for a visit. The prices remain high, but what's on the plate doesn't exactly justify them

Panna cotta is incredibly easy to make, and if it takes you more than five minutes to put it together, you're doing something wrong. I'd made them before, but never realized what a fool-proof dessert it was until I saw my friend Judy Witts make them at one of her cooking classes in Florence.

Sometimes we Americans have a way of overdramatizing things, and make things harder than they actually are. But I saw Judy quickly put together this Panna Cotta at the beginning of her cooking class in no time flat, to be served a few hours later.

After we ate the fabulous meal which we'd all made together, she effortlessly unmolded them into bowls, and there was our dessert. I was pretty impressed.

To Use Powdered Gelatin

-Sprinkle the granules of gelatin over the surface cold water or liquid. Use 1/4 cup, 60ml, or whatever quantity is called for in the recipe, per envelope. Do not dump them in a pile, as the granules in the middle won't dissolve.

-Let stand for 5 to 10 minutes.

-Add warm liquid or heat gently, stirring until dissolved. To verify the granules are melted, lift the stirring utensil and make certain that there are no undissolved granules clinging to it.

To Use Sheet Gelatin

-Soak sheet(s) of gelatin in a bowl cold water for 5 to 10 minutes. (Figure about 1 cup, 250ml, cold water per sheet.)

-Once soft, lift sheets from the cold water.

-Wring gently to remove excess water, than add to warm liquid, the quantity called for in the recipe, stirring until dissolved. If adding to a cold mixture, melt the softened sheets in a saucepan or microwave over very low heat, stirring just until melted completely. Then stir in the cold mixture gradually.

I'd say a good 20 to 30 percent of my refrigerator space is given over to pickles. I love anything pickled—onions, cabbage, cauliflower, zucchini, and chile peppers. If it's pickle-able, you're likely to find a jar of it buried away in my far, deep recesses of my refrigerator. In fact, all of the above (and more) are in there right now, marinating as we speak. Or as I type, I should say.

Unfortunately that doesn't leave much room for anything else, which is something I have to live with. I suppose I could start canning them, but then I'd have to find somewhere to put all those jars. But there's no way I'm giving up a single pair of the thirty-two sets of shoes in my closet, or a single space on my groaning cookbook shelf, to give way to a place to store them.

I think I'm almost at risk of turning into one of those people who die, and afterward pictures of my apartment filled to-the-brim with stuff, appear on websites and daytime talk shows, to the horror of viewers from coast-to-coast.

When I proposed an article to the Los Angeles Times about unusual ice creams, I was surprised when took me up on it. Yikes! So I went to work, inventing recipes for some new flavors, and adding a tangy twist to a frosty favorite.

So no foolin'...if you're looking for some all-new wacky flavors to churn up, head to my article 31 Flavors? Think Outside the Carton for three new kooky concoctions.




Related Links and Ice Cream Recipes:

Recipes to use up leftover egg whites

How long does ice cream last?

Tips for making homemade ice cream softer

Recommended equipment to make ice cream

Recipes to use up leftover egg whites

Making ice cream without a machine

The ice cream shops of Paris

Meet your maker: buying an ice cream machine

Compendium of recipes for ice creams & sorbets

What is gelato?

Let's Make Ice Cream!