Skip to content

James Beard’s Amazing Persimmon Bread Recipe

Like most Americans, even French people aren’t so familiar with persimmons. They may see them at the market, look at their curiously, but don’t stop to buy any. Or if they do, they take them home, bite into an unripe one, make a face, and toss them out. One of my friends living north of San Francisco in Sonoma County had an enormous persimmon tree….

4K Shares

Continue reading...

Drinking French Booksigning in Brooklyn, NY

  It’s been quite a year! While my 2020 book tour was upended by a global pandemic – who’d a thought we’d ever be saying things like that? – I can finally able to have an event. If you’re in New York City, I’ll be at Slope Cellars in Brooklyn on Sunday, May 9th from 2 to 3:30pm signing copies of Drinking French. FINALLY! So…

3 Shares

Continue reading...

Drinking French Bar Boxes from Slope Cellars and K & L Wine Merchants

I’ve teamed up with two of my favorite spirit shops to offer specially-curated bar boxes with a selection of French spirits and apéritifs. And to sweeten the pot, for a limited time, each bar box includes a bookplate signed copy of Drinking French. Slope Cellars wine and spirits shop in New York includes a bottle of Old Forester Bottled-in-Bond Rye, Forthave Red Apéritif Bitters (a…

4 Shares

Continue reading...

What to Buy When Starting a French Bar at Home

Weeks before Drinking French came out, people were asking me what liquors and spirits to buy in anticipation of the book’s release. Skimming through the 160 recipes in the book, many of which are for cocktails and apéritifs, I offered up tips here and there, suggesting a few essential bottles that could be used for a number of recipes in the book. I also added…

170 Shares

Continue reading...

Vieux Carre cocktail

Making cocktails in Paris is fun. I love French and French-inspired drinks and spirits and featured many of them in my book, Drinking French. Recently, I wanted to make a Vieux Carré which is supposed to have Peychaud’s bitters in it. I had rye whiskey in spades, as well as the other ingredients, but the classic bitters eluded me in Paris. But I went to…

251 Shares

Continue reading...

One-Bottle Scotch Cocktail

Some people get irked when they want to make a cocktail recipe, and as they gather the ingredients, they find that some things are hard to get, or too expensive, and before you know it (as I do, very well), you’re doing a scavenger hunt across town, sleuthing out some elusive ingredient. Enter The One-Bottle Cocktail, by Maggie Hoffman. Before I saw the book, from…

140 Shares

Continue reading...

Eating, Dining, and Drinking in Edinburgh (part 2)

Continuing our edible (and drinkable) adventures in Edinburgh, I insisted after we hit the farmers’ market that we stop at Mary’s Milk Bar. A gazillion readers recommended it, and Charlotte and my friend Lani, were happy when we herded ourselves into Mary Hillard’s cozy shop. I love meeting ice cream makers and Mary was one of the nicest I’ve ever met. She started as a…

1K Shares

Continue reading...

Brown Butter Old Fashioned Cocktail

I recently did an event with Deb Perelman for our new books, L’appart and Smitten Kitchen Every Day. We’d both been traveling around, and not one, not two…but three times, we were in the same city at the same time, but didn’t see each other. One night, I was having dinner by myself before an event and after a two-hour slog through traffic, I needed a…

750 Shares

Continue reading...

Pumpkin Cheesecake with Pecan Praline Sauce

It’s that time of year again. And that only means one thing: time to start thinking about the holiday baking. In Paris, bakery windows fill up with Bûches de Noël (Yule log cakes) and bourriches (wooden crates) of oysters are piled up at the markets. The chocolate shops are crammed with people, buying multiple boxes as gifts, and people splurge on caviar and Champagne, one of the…

1K Shares

Continue reading...

A

Get David's newsletter sent right to your Inbox!

15987

Sign up for my newsletter and get my FREE guidebook to the best bakeries and pastry shops in Paris...