When I took pastry courses a number of years ago here in France and in Belgium, I tended to want to focus on the chocolate classes because – well…gosh darn it, I love it so much. We’ve become the best of friends over the years and I am never far from my bin of chocolate that I buy in bulk. (Although at some point, someone is going to have to do an intervention.) But I like cooking and creating with chocolate just as much as I do eating it and homemade chocolate bars are simple and wonderful gifts. And if entertaining at home, it nice to bring out a homemade tablet that you’ve made yourself to serve with after-dinner coffee or glasses of Armagnac or Cognac.

The good thing is that you don’t need fancy – or expensive – chocolate molds to make chocolate bars at home. I have a stack of polycarbonate ones from my professional days of yore. But anything made of plastic will do. Since I can’t bring myself to throw away anything that might be reused, I pulled out a stack of cream cheese containers that are neat little rectangles and I used those this time around.

Continue Reading How to Make Chocolate Bars…

Somehow, I have a lot of fat. Fortunately most of it is in my freezer. I love duck fat and if you haven’t tried potatoes cooked in duck fat, I urge you to step away from the keyboard, go buy yourself a duck, render the fat, pluck some potatoes from your rooftop garden (if you live in Brooklyn), and fry them up. Then…Oy!… as anyone is likely say when they taste them.

But in spite of its slippery, unctuous qualities, fat isn’t necessarily a sexy subject to publishers. Niche subjects often get bypassed since they are always looking for the “market” for a subject or cookbook. And schmaltz? When was the last time you did a search for a cookbook on chicken fat? Yet certain things need to be written about, and I’m sure no one was all that interested in the dictionary before it was published, or a book about religious folks wearing flesh-cutting devices under their frocks, à la The Da Vinci Code.

Continue Reading Chicken Liver Pâté…

I suppose I’m doing all those things the diet-police are advising against – namely having fat and carbohydrates for breakfast in lieu of “healthier” options, like having a bowl of kale-flecked quinoa or downing a cilantro smoothie. But as much as I like fruits and vegetables (and herbs), the only thing I am able to face first thing in the morning is something a little less threatening – namely bread, salted butter, and coffee. And that’s all.

For a while I was adding a swipe of chestnut or buckwheat honey to my butter-smeared morning ritual, but since deciding that one seemed to be fighting the other on my plate (and who wants to referee their breakfast?), salted butter won out over the honey. Which has also been easier since I’ve been getting regular deliveries of salted butter from Normandy (thanks Jennifer!), which is so good that adding anything to it, like honey or jam, is the equivalent of putting herbs in a perfectly good smoothie.

Years ago I wrote about my crack baguette, the bread that I could never get enough of. Whose disappearance I still haven’t recovered from, even though it’s been probably five years since it was mercilessly snatched from my breakfast plate. At one point, someone tried to pin the demise of the bakery on me, for not giving up their address. (Because like cable television and mobile phone service in France, if something is working for you, you don’t touch it. You leave it alone.) But since living in a culture of c’est pas ma faute, I think I could hardly be blamed when the elderly couple that ran the bakery finally decided on retirement. And believe me, if I had sway over who could retire, I’d be working on that list at this very moment.

Continue Reading In Praise of Sesame Baguettes…

Origins of recipes are often funny and some of the stories are doozies. Many are found in more traditional places, like handed over from friends and relatives, some are found in cookbooks, and others are our own creations. Then there are those that come from who-knows-where, such as the one I found on a men’s room wall.

And then there’s this one, which got handed to me during a book event and meet-up that I had in Paris when a lovely woman from New Zealand gave me a tube of Vegemite, along with a photocopy of the recipe, saying it was amazing. (Interesting that she said the recipe was amazing, but when she gave me the Vegemite, she only followed that with a hearty chuckle.)

At the time I thanked her and put it in my bag, then it was transferred to my kitchen counter where it rested amongst a pile of papers that is optimistically called “recipes to try.” It languished there for, oh, maybe eight months, until I picked it up and gathered all the ingredients to make it. Then I promptly put them in the pan and placed them in a corner, where they languished together for another few months. Until I finally decided it was time to try it.

Continue Reading Ginger Crunch…

To begin the New Year on a sweet note, the publisher, Fleur de Lire, and I are offering free downloads of my Paris Pastry Guide app on iTunes.

There are over 300 bakeries, chocolate shops, ice cream salons, and more in this app, which features over 500 color photos of my favorite desserts and sweet treats in Paris.

You’ll also get my Top 25 list of my recommended “must go-to” visit places, an expansive glossary of French pastry terms, new GPS integrated maps that will guide you to the closest addresses, and more! Head over to the iTunes store and download it.

The Paris Pastry Guide app will be free only from noon on December 31th to 10am January 2th (Paris time.)

(UPDATE: Please note that this give-away has now ended. The app is available for purchase, and the Paris Pastry Lite version will continue to be available for free.)

Continue Reading Happy New Year-Free Download of Paris Pastry App!…

Whew! It’s been quite a year. There were some ups and a few downs. Looking back as the year draws to a close, I’m not sure they balanced out this time around. I had my share of moments when I just had to stop, take a deep breath, and do a little reassemble and reassess. One highlight might include the day at the mobile phone office when I purposely drew my head back then banged my head on the counter. (And no, repair of forehead dents isn’t covered by the French sécurité sociale, the national health insurance.) Another was when someone explained to me – and yes, with a straight face – that they don’t have USB ports in one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world.

There were a host of other things that were a little more serious, that I won’t inflict upon you. But I am pretty sure there are enough to stories from this year to fill a book. But I am also pretty sure that no one would believe me.

Continue Reading Pineapple-Ginger Sparkling Wine Cocktail…

Where do you go on a rainy afternoon if you find yourself near the middle of Paris? Quite a bit of the town has emptied out, as people make their exodus away from the city for the holidays. Those of us here are celebrating at home – or from the looks of things out there – doing a little last-minute scrambling for holiday gifts. There are cases of oysters on the sidewalk, sold by the dozen(s), and store windows are featuring foie gras, Champagne, candied chestnuts, and a few early galettes de rois (frangipan tarts.)

We were out-and-about near Les Halles, where the city has finally torn down the building which many feel has been a blight on the city since it was built, so there’s a bit of construction going on around there while they work on the new project. But those folks, too, seem to have taken a holiday breather as the regular sounds of jack hammers and cranes were replaced by, well, nothing. The neighborhood was well known for the giant Les Halles market, which had been replaced by Rungis out by the airport, but a few of the restaurants that retain the feeling of the era have remained.

Continue Reading Le Louchébem…

I always feel like a tourist when I got to a Japanese restaurant because if bento boxes are on the menu, I’ll scan the other choices, but will invariably choose the teriyaki chicken. I know, I know. It’s the “safe” choice – but I can’t help it. I love anything grilled, especially with a salty-sweet marinade punched up with fresh ginger, then charred over a blazing-hot grill to seal it into moist, juicy meat.

I may have an overload of adjectives in my food vocabulary (case in point: the last sentence of the previous paragraph) but I don’t have a grill, but shortly after I received a copy of Japanese Farm Food, I saw a grill pan on one of those ‘flash’ shopping sites in France and I snagged one. And after waiting six weeks, it finally arrived. Funny how they don’t seem to want to send it to you with the same urgency that they want you buy it.

Continue Reading Teriyaki Chicken…