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Cornmeal Cookies (Zaletti)

If I had to name one food that I couldn’t live without, chocolate would be right up there. Salted butter is on that short list, too. Seeded bagels, California dried apricots, black and white cookies, osetra caviar (if money, and sustainability, were no object), lobster rolls, French fries, and really good fried chicken would also be on that list. Not as fancy as some of…

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I Love Macarons!

For some reason, the world went a little nuts for Parisian macarons in the past year and everyone, from New York to New Delhi, seemed to be fascinated by these little sandwich cookies. Notice that I said “Parisian” macarons, since you won’t find these too far outside of Paris. Folks in the rest of France make more traditional macarons, made from a simple meringue with…

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Pierre Herme’s Ketchup Macarons (Ketchup Cookies)

When you make desserts in a restaurant, the most important thing you can do is to smell anything made of plastic before you put anything in it. I remember someone made a big batch of crème anglaise one morning…and that evening, when I went to serve it, I opened the lid and the overpowering smell of garlic blasted forth, rendering the whole batch useless. A…

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Chocolate Biscotti Recipe

The pastry department is always the most popular part of the kitchen amongst the rest of the staff in a restaurant. For one thing, anytime there is a staff birthday, you’re called into service to make the cake for the party. And since everyone has a birthday, everyone has to be nice to you the other 364 days of the year. Another thing is that regular…

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Chocolate-Dipped Florentine Recipe

Living in Paris, it isn’t always very interesting watching television, which I sometimes like to do during dinner. Sure there’s some great French channels, but I’m kinda lazy when I’m eating and prefer the English-language ones, which usually means CNN International. So I often find myself flipping through cookbooks while I dine, glazing over the text and scanning the glossy photos. But when I came…

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Lemon-Glazed Madeleine Recipe

This is the post I never thought I’d write. I never wanted to tackle madeleines. I thought they were something that…darn it…you just needed to eat when you’re in France. Like hamburgers and bagels, I didn’t think everything translated cross-culturally. If you wanted a madeleine, darn it, you came to France to have one. I mean, did you ever have a bagel in Banff? Do…

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Chez Panisse Gingersnap Recipe

During my interview at Chez Panisse, as I sat across the table from Alice Waters in the main dining room at the restaurant, she asked me, “What do you eat at home?” Since I’m not exactly convincing when lying, I told her. “I eat popcorn, mostly.” And continued, “I’m a restaurant cook. I don’t have time to eat at home.” In spite of that, or because of…

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Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

The French like chocolate as much, or even more, than the rest of us. That includes Clotilde Dusoulier, who writes the blog Chocolate & Zucchini. If you’re a reader, you’re privy to her charming stories about her life in Paris accompanied recipes. And you’ve also likely heard of her book: Chocolate & Zucchini: Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen. Turning the pages and reading about her life…

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