Next week, I’ll be doing two events in San Francisco… Booksigning at Omnivore Books The event is from 2 to 3pm at Omnivore Books in San Francisco (3885B Cesar Chavez Street). Super-duper chocolate treats will be provided by the fine folks at Charles Chocolates of San Francisco. There will be a short talk at the beginning followed by a booksigning. Due to the size of the shop,…
When I was in high school, our principal came up on stage during assembly one morning and stood there for a moment, until he got our attention. After a long pause, he inhaled deeply, and said, “We have a very sick person in our midst.” Nobody moved, and we were all kind of stunned for a minute, hearing such a grave pronouncement. Finally, we learned the…
When people ask me “Why did you move to Paris?” I’ll usually stop, point to the nearest cheese shop or bakery, and let them figure it out for themselves. There are a lot of pastry shops in Paris, over a thousand of them. But the first was Stohrer, which opened in 1730 by pastry chef Nicolas Stohrer, the pastry chef for Louis XV of France and his…
I’ve had a long love affair with Chartreuse liqueur, even before I visited the monastery back in the 1990’s. We were led through a somewhat terrifying display of hooded monks (not real ones, fortunately, but long-face replicas), the kind you see in historical or agricultural museums in France that are meant to depict a historical representation of something, even drying prunes – likely for educational purposes, but always…
I’ve been in San Francisco this week, doing some events – which is actually an excuse for eating my way around town. San Francisco is a city that seems to reinvent itself every few years. But what thing that keeps going in the same direction is the quality of the food and the ingredients that are available. I’ve spent time with a French artisan butcher, met…
I was never afraid of keys until I moved to Paris. People have all sorts of phobias, many that seem curious to others who don’t share them, such as auroraphobia, a fear of Northern lights and euphobia, which is a fear of good news. Papyrophobia is a fear of paper, and macrophobia is a fear of long waits. But I’ve never heard of a fear of keys,…
[UPDATE: Pasdeloup has closed, and new owners opened Kubri in the space, an excellent Lebanese-inspired restaurant that’s well worth going to.) It wasn’t until recently that I became very in awe of bartenders. I used to just go in and order a beer when I was younger, not really aware that these people are the pastry chefs of the beverage world. Now that I’m older,…
[UPDATE: As of September 2022, after 46 years, Madame Acabo has retired and closed her shop in Paris.] When a gas explosion that happened in the basement destroyed her shop, many couldn’t believe that one of their favorite chocolate shops in Paris was gone, including Denise Acabo herself. I visited her shortly afterward and she was in shock, missing her store – but most of all, missing…
I don’t like cliques (unless I’m part of it, of course…) and I have to say, one that I’m happy to be a part of is the brotherhood, and sisterhood, of ice cream makers. I wasn’t the first person to write a book, The Perfect Scoop, about making ice cream. But it landed on the cusp of something that was happening: People were rediscovering ice…
Join me on my Spring 2026 book tour for my latest book, The Great Book of Chocolate
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