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Tangerine Sorbet

There are a lot of desserts in my repertoire, but the one that I always have room for – and crave – is Tangerine Sorbet. Come winter, when the markets are loaded up with citrus, Parisians rifle through the piles on the market stands and buy ’em by the kilo. (About 2 pounds.) I do too, never failing to come home with a sack bulging…

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Homemade Tonic Water

Jennifer McLagan always seems to know what we want to read about, and cook, before even we do. She wrote a slew of popular and award-winning books, which include Fat (which bravely came out during the low-fat craze, and nevertheless was a big hit), Bones, and now, Bitter: A Taste of the World’s Most Dangerous Flavor. The book is a celebration of flavors that are on the cutting edge, taste-wise….

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Eating Around London

I never really “got” London. It was always this hulking city that I struggled to navigate, overwhelmingly large, with a subway system that seemed like a tangle of routes and directions that I just couldn’t unravel. But part of it is my fault as I never really spent a lot of time trying to figure it out. I just accepted defeat early on. So this…

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What is Nonreactive Cookware?

A while back, a friend made the Apple-Red Wine Tart (in Ready for Dessert), which calls for the fruit to be cooked in red wine in a nonreactive pan. I didn’t realize it at the time, but many people don’t know what nonreactive cookware is and he called to tell me the dessert was great, but his pan was stained. (And this was someone who…

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Restaurant Alain Ducasse

Uncharacteristically, I’ll spare you the specifics, but I need to catch up on about 147 hours of sleep. And while we’re at it, I could use a hug. And since the former isn’t necessarily easy to come by here, as is the latter, I was embrassé by dinner at Alain Ducasse restaurant. While it’s been tempting to remove the “sweet life” byline from my header…

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Monaco, Max, Martell, His Majesty, and Me

I’m tired. Or as Madeleine Kahn more bluntly put it in Blazing Saddles, “G-ddammit, I’m exhausted.” The last few weeks I’ve been racing around Paris in my dusty clothes, trying to find things like electrical switches, bathroom shelves, and making a decision about kitchen cabinet knobs for much longer than any sane person would consider prudent. And I’ve been averaging about three hours of sleep…

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Orange Creme Anglaise

When I started working at Chez Panisse, there was something called crème anglaise on the menu…and my job was to make it. Of course, I had no idea what crème anglaise was – other than something with a funny name that I got in trouble for pronouncing wrong on several occasions. But I pretended I knew what it was when everyone was talking about making…

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Cole Slaw with Wasabi Dressing

One of the great things about France is that people spend a lot of time talking to each other. True, it’s not so great when you’re behind someone in line and they’re carrying on a conversation with the sales clerk at the bakery as if they have all the time on the planet, when you’re hopping up and down behind them (and there are people…

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What is a Bergamot?

During citrus season in France, if you’re lucky, you’ll run across something called a bergamot. They’re not brilliant yellow like regular lemons, but a sort of orangey color, and when split open, they’re quite juicy and the flavor is much sweeter than regular lemons. In fact, they often call them citrons doux, which translates to “sweet lemons.” Last year when I was making bergamot marmalade…

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