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Tapisserie

Years ago, at a flea market in Paris I pickup up some old metal letters from a bakery in France that spelled out PATISSERIE. Being a baker, of course I was thrilled (although still despondent that someone else snatched up the matching BOULANGERIE letters…) and proudly displayed them on the shelf of my apartment. Since my apartment at the time was so small, shelf space…

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Cucumber Mint Cooler

I was astonished when I was eating a sandwich at Mokoloco, which I can pretty confidently say makes the best sandwiches in the world. Okay, perhaps that’s a bit of hyperbole, but every sandwich I’ve had there has been spectacular. From the Cuban sandwich made with pulled pork, ham, pickled vegetables, spicy mustard, and griddled on house-made bread, to a Katsu Meatball “burger” served with…

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Thin, Crisp Chocolate Chip Cookies

I recently put my foot in my mouth, again. Speaking at a writer’s conference and rambling on at the podium, as usual, I offered up that I don’t think of cooking or baking as love. It’s cooking and baking. Maybe because I was a restaurant cook for so long and spent decades pumping out food (which would have been a lot of love-making), I think…

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Sain Boulangerie

I was expecting something a little different when I took a stroll over the Sain boulangerie, a bakery I’d heard about, which was on my list of bakeries in Paris to visit. My friend Romina of Les Madeleines bakery was is in town, and she’s always up to visit new places, or places new to us, so I arranged to meet her there. I figured…

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The French Bastards

When the bakery sign went up, I thought, “Well, that’s rather audacious. I wonder what it’s going to be?” A bakery had been in that space, which had once been a pretty good, but had slid in quality, until one day, the doors closed for good. It’s a bummer to see a place decline but exciting when something better opens in its place, which happened….

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Fig, Tahini and Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies

Not many of us saw it coming, certainly not me, way back in 1989 when La Brea Bakery opened, and I thought, “Who the heck is going to buy freshly baked bread in Los Angeles? That’ll never work…” And the rest, as they say, is history, as La Brea Bakery and Campanile restaurant, the adjacent restaurant in the same Spanish-style building (that Charlie Chaplin built),…

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New York Restaurants and Bakeries

  Here’s a round-up of places I visited recently in New York City. One happy change (which is also happening in cities elsewhere) is the proliferation of excellent bakeries making top-quality artisan bread, as well as bakeries with a global focus. While Americans don’t buy bread daily, as the French do, you can get terrific bread and pastries if you know where to look. Restaurants…

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Le Petit Grain

A few months ago, I started following an interesting-looking Instagram account of a bakery in Paris that was making all their breads using natural leavenings, rather than commercial yeast. I didn’t know anything about it, but not only were they showing impressive loaves of just-baked breads, but they were also experimenting with croissants made with levain (sourdough). The results looked promising. After they opened, I…

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The Best Apple Tart in Paris

I take a tough line at calling something “the best.” As anyone who’s tried to get the best chocolate shop, the best bakery, the best bistro, etc., out of me knows I’m always coy with an answer. (Someone, however, once got so upset about it that they went on an online tear about me on one of those bulletin boards. Ouch.) Lest you think I’m not…

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