While many things have been replaced by technology, keys are still with us: stiff, sharp metal objects we carry around in our pockets and handbags, messenger bags, and backpacks. We live in fear of losing them or getting locked out for a lack of them. While digital locks have made inroads somewhere, here in France, we live in the land of keys, and I regularly carry around almost a dozen or so every day, attached to a key ring that has fobs, badges, buttons. I don’t know if there’s a comparable word in French*, but I feel like a high school janitor.
I also recently added an Air Tag to the mishigas after I lost my keys six months ago and literally had a panic attack. Not because I was worried someone was going to find them and break into our apartment, but because it would have cost me over €600 ($700) to replace them, not to mention all the paperwork attached to getting them remade. And as I recently learned, all the time that it takes.
I’ve lived in cities like San Francisco and New York, and having a key made cost $2 a pop at my local Ace Hardware store. When I was in New York last year, I had a key made but didn’t have any cash on me. The guy just looked at me and said, “Fuggedaboudit.” Here, I would have had to submit to a prise de sang, giving a blood sample and getting fingerprinted, with a promise to give them my first-born male child, before I’d be able to leave without paying.
I was thrilled when Sami Tamimi told me he was coming to Paris. Sami recently released his third book, Boustany: A celebration of vegetables from my Palestine, so I invited him into my kitchen to make a recipe from it with me. And the weather was so nice, we decided to prepare it outside.
Sami is the co-founder of the Ottolenghi restaurants and delis, and the author of Falastin, one of my favorite cookbooks, which explores his Palestinian heritage through stories and recipes from his homeland. Boustany focuses ore squarely on the vegetable dishes of Palestine.
Sami’s book features a bounty of recipes that focus on vegetables, such as salads like the Fridge-raid fattoush, and there are beautifully verdant Gazan fava bean falafels. I’ve never made falafels, but his recipe and the gorgeous photo that accompanies it make me want to. Other recipes that I’ve bookmarked are the spicy Shatta condiment, Bulghur wheat dumplings & lentil soup, and Ouzi phyllo parcels, which are individual dishes filled with rice, orzo, vegetables, nuts, and spices.
Where does chocolate fit in? Well, like tomatoes and squash (which are lavishly featured in the book), chocolate is also technically a fruit. And besides, who doesn’t love chocolate?
Since I’ve been in the chocolate mode, thanks to The Great Book of Chocolate coming out, I was glad Sami was up for doing some baking and showed up ready to make hisTahini, Halvah, and Coffee Brownies.
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Pan-baked tahini, halva & coffee brownie (Qahwa w Halaweh brownie)
“Imagine yourself sitting in one of many coffee shops dotted around the souk in Jerusalem’s old city, having a piece of chocolate and a strong, sweet Arabic cardamom coffee. One mouthful of this dessert can almost definitely transport you there. It’s a dessert meant for sharing, to be spooned straight from the pan. A great, easy, chewy and fudgy brownie which can be ready in under 20 minutes. It hits all the right spots for chocolate lovers like me.”
“This is the recipe exactly as it appears in Boustany. If you have watched me make these, you will know I improvise. I add more coffee if the batch I have is weaker, that sort of thing. The recipe below is the version I trust, so start there and make it yours.” - Sami Tamimi
Rounded ½ cup / 150g tahini paste
½ cup / 120ml lukewarm water
Heaping ½ cup | 3% oz / 110g granulated sugar
2 large eggs
½ cup / 20g unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tbsp instant espresso coffee
¼ cup / 1 oz / 30g all-purpose flour
½ tsp ground cardamom
½ tsp ground cloves
½ tsp baking powder
salt
1½ oz / 40g dark chocolate chips or chocolate roughly chopped into ¼ inch | ½ cm pieces (70% cocoa solids) (½ cup chopped)
For the toppings
1½ tbsp sesame seeds
1½ oz / 40g dark chocolate chips or chocolate roughly chopped into ¼ inch | ½ cm pieces (70% cocoa solids) (½ cup chopped)
⅓ cup | 70g plain or vanilla halva, broken into chunks
vanilla ice cream
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease a 8-inch | 22cm square baking pan or dish with sunflower oil and set aside.
Put the tahini and water into the bowl of a stand mixer, with the paddle attachment in place, and mix on medium-high speed for 2 minutes, until pale and smooth. Reduce to low speed, add the sugar, then the eggs, one at a time, and mix for a further 2 minutes.
Sift all the dry ingredients, using a fine sieve, and add them to the tahini mixture, along with aheaping ¼ teaspoon of salt and the chocolate. Mix for a minute more. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
Sprinkle the top with the sesame seeds and chocolate and dot with the halva. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the edges are set and the center is not runny (it needs to be slightly wet). Set aside for 10 minutes before serving.
Serve with vanilla ice cream.
The brownie can be stored in the fridge for up to a week.
A highlight of writing Drinking French was getting to meet, and highlight, some of myfavorite creative people in Paris, and in France, who are part of the cocktail scene, which has rapidly expanded over the years, turning Paris into one of the world’s most exciting cocktail destinations.
Franck was one of the heroes in Drinking French, and as you can see in thevideo, there are more pictures of him in my book…than of me.
After working in an art gallery in Paris, Franck went on to work at the highly celebrated restaurant, Le Châteaubriand, where chef Inaki Aizpitarte was invigorating, and shaking up, the world of French cuisine. Franck saw how the world of cocktails was changing outside of France, and decided to delve into cocktails as well, creating cocktails that leaned into French spirits and ingredients.
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In his book, art, film, and Franck’s distinctive style intersect with his expertly made cocktails, which are deceptively simple. Most are careful revisions of classics such as the Tunnel, a reimagined Negroni served in a coupe glass. And his Yellow cocktail is a masterful mixture of Yellow Chartreuse, gin, lemon juice, and Suze gentian liqueur. (It’s one of my top three favorite cocktails of all time.)
What began as an extraordinarily charming (twenty-seat!) café tucked into a magnificent Hector Guimard Art Deco building, Cravan has extended to a four-story building in the heart of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés, where Franck invited me to stop by for a French 75 on a warm summer afternoon. It was cool perfection in a glass.
To make his interpretation of the French 75, Franck infuses London dry gin with agastache, known in English as dried anise hyssop. I’ve included the recipe for the infusion and the simple syrup after the cocktail recipe.
1 ounce (30ml) anise hyssop-infused London dry gin 1/2 ounce (15ml) simple syrup 1/2 ounce (15ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice 1 dash of absinthe Lemon twist Brut (dry) champagne
Combine the gin, simple syrup, lemon juice, absinthe, and lemon twist in a cocktail shaker. Fill three-quarters full with ice. Cover and shake vigorously for two seconds. Double strain the mixture into a chilled coupe glass.
Top with champagne and serve.
-To make the anise hyssop-infused gin, mix 1 3/4 teaspoons (5g) dried anise hyssop flowers with 24 ounces(700g) London dry gin. Cover, shake gently, and refrigerate for 24 hours. Strain, then filter the gin through a premoistened paper filter, such as a coffee filter. Store refrigerated.
Dried anise hyssop, which is different than anise, can be found at herbalists and well-stocked natural food stores. A few places to get it online: Reverie Farm, The Herb Loft, and Etsy. I’ve not tried the cocktail without the infused gin but you could give it a go with uninfused London dry gin.
-To make the simple syrup, heat 3 ounces(90g) sugar with 3 ounces (90g) water over low heat, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.
-A dash of absinthe adds a little je ne sais quoi to cocktails. Pastis and anisette have a similar flavor profile and you could use one of those, sparingly.
I used to wonder why, in cities like New York and Paris, everyone claimed that they could never, ever live anywhere else. Then, when summer rolled around, everyone would say they can’t wait to get out of town.
I’m a city person and I like Paris best in the summer. A majority of people have left, so it’s a lot quieter. You can get into all those restaurants that you normally needed to book weeks in advance. And while the markets are more sparse, shops selling produce from small producers have been doing their best to keep their stores stocked, in spite of a lot of fields and farms and vineyards being decimated by successive heatwaves, and now, wildfires. One of our neighbors has been dropping cigarette butts in our backyard, which is as dry as a haystack, so we’re praying our building doesn’t go up in flames, too. But for the time being, Paris has been spared.
We have friends, a couple who live part-time in Ardèche, and when they invited me to come for a few days, I erased everything I had scheduled in my calendar and took a two-hour train ride to stay with them. That region is called the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, especially known for sausages, wine, and its famous chestnuts, les châtaignes d’Ardèche, which have protected AOP status in France.
It wasn’t quite chestnut season, and people are worried about the effects of the heatwaves on the chestnut trees, but I picked up a jar of chestnut paste at one of the farm tables at the market. Sometimes the chestnut spread is made with candied chestnuts, but generally at the markets, the varieties are less sweetened, and looser, like the one in the jar, above, that I bought.
Chestnut spread is delicious served with plain yogurt or fromage blanc, or if you buy the ones made with candied chestnuts sold in a tube, like toothpaste, when no one is looking, people squeeze it directly into their mouths.
I often joke with Romain that when we stay with friends in the summer, invariably they have a bowl of apples and pears, regardless of the season. It’s a bit perplexing to me because when apricots, plums, peaches, nectarines, and cherries are in season, I buy far more than I need because I’ve been waiting all year for them, and it’s a treat to have them so readily available, and so delicious.
One stand at the market in Lamastre had so many apricots that I thought I would faint. They had three or four varieties, and if I wasn’t taking the train home, I would have bought a few cases, especially those marked down for jam-making.
Fresh apricots sold for a song, for jam-making.
My friends who live there were scandalized about one vendor selling his tomatoes for €4,50 (~$5) per kilo (#2.2), when all the others were selling theirs for €3,50 ($4) per kilo. As a city dweller, both were a bargain to me. It made me reconsider the urban lifestyle that I’ve chosen.
The flavor of the tomatoes was also worlds away from any tomatoes we get in Paris. I see why people are so eager to get out of town!
I’ve had (non-French) people tell me, “Oh, no…no one in France would ever drink wine out of a box!” Well, now I’ve got photo proof that they do.
(Someone once insisted to me that no one in Italy would ever dream of buying jarred tomato sauce. The jars sold in grocery stores, they told me, were for tourists. If you’ve ever seen the tomato sauce aisle in an Italian supermarket, you’ll wonder how so many tourists manage to bring all those jars of sauce home with them.)
Wine in a box isn’t a bad thing. It’s wine that’s meant to be drunk daily, not saved for ten years in a cellar. The box keeps the wine fresh; the bag inside the box compresses as the wine is poured, so the wine isn’t in contact with air. Plus the boxes are arguably more ecological (and easier to ship and store) than bottles. Also, you can see the savings on the price: €16 ($18) for the equivalent of 4 bottles of organic wine. Not bad!
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Eggs from our friends’ chickens
Another delice were the fresh eggs from our friends’ henhouse. They were so beautiful, and it was wonderful having a fresh egg for breakfast every morning.
Thankfully, I wasn’t worried about taking a half-dozen eggs home with me, although I carried them carefully on the train. And my friends promised to bring me some medlars from their tree when they’re ready to pick…
…which I use to make rose-colored medlar jelly. With all the jams and jellies that I make, maybe I am a country boy after all?
For those following the food processor drama (and for those who aren’t: My KitchenAid food processor bowl broke and was collecting gunk in the handle, and no replacement is available. And yes, I checked everywhere.) I’ve finally resolved it.
When I worked in restaurants, we always used a Robot-Coupe, the original food processor, which could handle anything. The problem in Paris is that the cost for them is pretty steep: Prices for new models are north of a thousand bucks, and I didn’t know if my occasional use of one justified the price. So I did what everyone in France does: I checked out Le Bon Coin, which is the 9th most-visited website in France, right after Google.
You can pretty much find anything in France on Le Bon Coin, from medlar trees to an apartment in Paris, or your dream house in the countryside.
Using the search term “robot culinaire,” I landed on a vintage one (above), just like the ones I used in restaurants. It was a mere €80 ($91) but they didn’t want to ship it, so I had to pass. I set up an alert and a couple of days later, one turned up in Paris.
I’ve honed my bargaining skills in France — as Romain once said to me, “No one is ever going to offer you a deal. You have to ask.” So I did, offering what I thought was a bit low, figuring the seller would come back with a counteroffer in the middle. She came down a bit, and in the few hours that I ruminated whether to just buy it, a notification showed up — Offre acceptée.
While it wasn’t in the excellent condition she mentioned, it was a solid “very good,” and heavy as a motherf**ker. I placed the machine in the basket of my bike and with every turn, the weight of it threatened to pull me down to the curb, so I rode extra carefully, and slowly, much to the ire of other cyclists. In the U.S., it’s cars that are aggressive to bicyclists but in Paris, it’s the other cyclists who pose the hazards.
I, and the machine, made it home in one piece, and it’s now sitting on my countertop. It weighs a ton so it’s not convenient to store in a cabinet. Romain asked me, “Is that where you’re going to keep it?” when he saw it on the counter. He’d already banished my stand mixer to a distant shelf, which makes it harder to bake (I guess I should use as a counterargument all those cookies and cakes he’s missing out on?), but if he wants the Robot-Coupe to go into a cabinet, he’s going to have to put it in there himself and take it out when I need it.
As we enter August, I took advantage of waning cherry season to pick up a load of fresh cherries and turn them into compote, to freeze. It’s nice to pull out a packet of cherries in the winter to serve with ice cream, tangerine sorbet, or frozen zabaglione, which is a great recipe that doesn’t require an ice cream freezer to make.
I pitted and sautéed them until they were cooked through. If you let them sit overnight, the juices will thicken further and the cherries will turn a deeper red color. If you want to freeze them, just put the cherries in a freezer-safe storage container and save them for a rainy, or snowy, day. Mine are now in my freezer, ready for winter. (Which I’m not.)
When I was in San Francisco on tour with The Great Book of Chocolate, I was invited to the Williams-Sonoma testkitchen to bake bouchons with test kitchen directorBelle English. We hadSO MUCH FUN! (Paid subscribers: You’ll find the recipe at the end of the newsletter.)
When I lived in San Francisco, I was one of those weirdos, or cool people, who had a Saab. Yes, I was crazy enough to drive a stick shift there and I pitied the people in their fancy BMWs who’d ride my tail on those steep hills, unaware that you had to have lightning-fast reflexes to shift into gear when a red light turns green, to avoid your car backing up an inch or two. Unless you got the timing precisely right, down to a nanosecond, my bumper might tap their front fender.
Fortunately I was pretty adept at shifting on the hills, but the few times I missed and tapped someone’s bumper, I never got out to see if I caused any damage. I just chalked it up to their fault, paving my way for a move to France, where things are inevitably pas ma faute.
Considering how expensive that car was to maintain, the knob on the gearshift was made of cheap plastic. They offered a wood option to replace it for $70, which seemed like a lot of money at the time. I ruminated over it for a few weeks (unlike my Robot-Coupe) until a friend said to me, “David, how many times are you going to touch that knob? Isn’t it worth getting a nice one?” So I caved and bought one, and she was right.
My friend Sarah caused a bit of an online kerfuffle when she poked fun at a hairbrush store in Paris beloved by influencers, and there’s always a line (yes, for hairbrushes) to get in. I don’t fight with people online but I beg to differ about brushes; I love the kitchen brushes at La Trésorerie that are handmade of wood and with natural bristles. And since there’s no line, the shops are free of influencers.
I saw one while shopping for a bottle brush at La Trésorerie and made the mistake of posting a picture of it on social media. It wasn’t cheap, so I had to ruminate over that too…and people wonder what I do all day… When I went back to the store to buy one, they were out of stock.
Search results turned up copies online but I found the website for the family-owned company that makes them, which was so engaging, and their brushes were so beautiful, I decided to spring for a handmade one. (The company’s website, Bürstenhaus Redecker, has every type of brush you can imagine.) When I was in Denmark, we happened upon a great kitchenware shop and I hesitated for about four seconds before picking one up.
Besides that it’s handmade by a family-owned business, there’s a lot to like about this brush. It stands vertically on the counter so takes up less space, and has a reassuringly strong magnet that snaps the brush into place, and it stays there.
I’m not sure where to get them outside of Europe. I noticed they have them on Amazon, and companies like Boston General Store and Flotsam & Fork carry the brand, but you may need to do some digging to find this one. Maison Empereur carries them in France, but they can no longer ship to the U.S. In the UK, they sell them here and here. If you can’t find one and resort to buying a copy, I won’t judge you…since I got carpal tunnel unearthing those links.
And being me, I am saving all the crumbs, which I hope quash any online kerfuffles about the price. I hope you collect enough of them to pay for the brush.
As promised, below is the recipe for the dark chocolate Bouchons from The Great Book of Chocolate that I made in the Williams-Sonoma test kitchen. As you can see in the video farther above, we loved eating them, as did the crew who were filming us 😊…
One of the first “recipes” on this blog was No-Recipe Cherry Jam, posted in 2005, which wasn’t quite a recipe. Nevertheless, a lot of people successfully used those guidelines to make cherry jam over the last fifteen years. The basis for it was how I’ve been making jam forever, using 3 parts sugar to 4 parts fruit puree. The standard ratio is to use equal parts sugar to fruit puree but I like to use less.
I often make cherry jam with sweet cherries, which are what one usually finds at the market. But if you can find sour cherries, those are wonderful in the mix, but when fresh, they have a short shelf life so should be used, pronto.
So feel free to mix things up, cherry-wise!
Unlike other recipes, making jam can require a bit of using your instincts, rather than relying on set times and temperatures. Checking the jam texture on a chilled plate is the best way to tell you when it’s done. (As an example, jam usually sets between 218-220ºF,103-104ºC, but this one set a few degrees higher.) Because cherries are low in pectin, this one often “sets” a few degrees higher, although don’t expect cherry jam to be as stiff as other jams that you might be used to, or buy. It’ll be a bit runny, which is just how it should be.
One tool I do recommend is a cherry pitter. Not everyone has one, and they do fall into the “single use” category, but come cherry season, mine gets a good workout. I wrote more about why you should get a cherry pitter here.
The biggest question I get about jam recipes is people asking about reducing the amount of sugar in them. Sugar in jam does a couple of things. One, it helps the mixture jell, along with any natural pectin in the fruit. And two, it preserves it. If you use less, the jam will be runnier and won’t last as long.
Europeans tend to like their jams runnier than their American counterparts, so in the morning, you can have a European experience when you spoon some of this jam on your morning toast, as we do.
Unlike other jams that wrinkle when you do the wrinkle test (putting a spoonful of jam on a frozen plate, returning the plate to the freezer and when the jam wrinkles with you nudge it, it’s done), this one will be more like thickened syrup. It’s done when it’s thick and sticky and holds its shape for a few moments after you drag a spoon through it (below.) The cherries will be shiny and glossy, like beautiful ruby-colored jewels.
If you only have 1 pound (450g) of cherries, feel free to cut the recipe in half. The liqueur is optional but heightens the flavors of the jam. Use only enough so it complements the fruit – you don't want to overwhelm it. As mentioned, this jam will be a bit on the runny side when "set." Sour cherries will produce a softer-set jam than sweet cherries.
Course Breakfast
Cuisine American
Keyword cherries, cherry, jam
Ingredients
2pounds (900g)sweet or sour cherriesor a mix
2 1/2cups (500g)sugar
freshly squeezed juice of one medium lemonplus additional juice if desired
1-2 drops of almond extract or 1-2 teaspoons of kirsch or another liqueur, such as amaretto or vodka
Instructions
Remove the stems and pit the cherries. Put them in a large non-reactive pot. If using only sweet cherries, add 2-3 tablespoons of water to the pot. (Sour cherries will exude enough liquid on their own so no need to add additional water.) Put a small plate or saucer in the freezer.
Cover the pot and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the cherries are wilted and cooked through, about 10 minutes.
Remove the lid and stir in the sugar and lemon juice. Increase the heat to medium-high and cook, stirring frequently until the mixture thickens. It's hard to say how long it will take, but when the mixture resembles the sixth picture in the post, the one in the pot with the bubbles, turn off the heat and test the jam by putting a small spoonful on the frozen dish. Return the dish to the freezer for a few minutes until the jam on it is cool. Run a spoon through it and if the liquid is very thick and leaves a clear patch, as shown in the photo in the post, it's done. If not, return the plate to the freezer and continue to cook the jam, testing it at various intervals, until it's done. (If you want to use a thermometer to check the jam, it should be ready somewhere between 220º and 225ºF, 104º-107ºC.)
When ready, turn off the heat and stir in the almond extract or liqueur (or both, if you wish). If desired, you could add an extra squeeze of lemon juice to balance the sweetness. Ladle into clean jars.
Notes
Storage: This jam will last several weeks in the refrigerator. If you wish to can it, you can find instructions here.
La chaleur (the heat) has been the topic du jour around here this summer, due to the record-breaking temperatures that made France hotter than the Sahara Desert. While that got a lot of international press, there’s something that no one’s been talking about: The success of hot sauce in France. And no one was more surprised about it than me.
Like it or not, stereotypes often contain a kernel of truth. Americans have a reputation for being loud. French people are thought to be rude. Anyone who’s lived above or even on the same street as a late-night café in Paris can tell you that there are some very loud Parisians. (Either that, or they’re Americans with an excellent command of French, and perfect French accents.) And the later it gets, the louder they get. And last time I was in the States, as an American, I forgot that people don’t stand as tightly together when waiting in line as they do in France (to prevent line-jumping), and I rudely cut in front of half of the line when I noticed a two-foot gap between two people and assumed that was the end of the line. Thankfully a woman yelled, “Um…SIR!!!” at me, tipping me off that there were other people waiting.
It’s hard to paint any culture with an all-encompassing brush, but I will say with certainty that a lot of French people avoid spicy food. French diners in restaurants will ask the waiter, “Ça pique?” and demure against ordering anything on the menu that may pique their palate.
“The hottest naan in your region.” As for being the hottest sandwich in Paris, I don’t know if there is a lot of competition.
In restaurants, waiters will reassure customers that anything with chiles in it are of the variety that are très doux, very mild, and they ne piquent pas — they don’t bite. The last few times we ate at Le Servan, where items on the menu often feature a condiment where chiles are involved, invariably the server will warn us not to worry, they won’t bite. But with more authentic Asian restaurants popping up across Paris, many will use a little chili icon, or a row of icons, to denote the spice level of each item on the menu.
I was recently at an Asian restaurant where, when you order, they ask how spicy you want the food, on a scale of 1 to 3. The table of young Frenchmen next to me were quick to reply: “Zéro.”
A variety of sweet (doux) chiles at the market in Paris.
When I’ve hit the markets looking for chiles that have a bit of heat to cook with, vendors are quick to (re)assure me that the peppers they are selling are doux, when it’s the spicy ones that I’m after.
I’ve been asked over the years why people in France don’t like spicy food, and here are some of my responses:
I had so much fun when Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen came to my kitchen in Paris and made a batch of Chocolate-Olive Oil Spread, a delicious recipe from The Great Book of Chocolate.
The spread is easy (and fun!) to make, and is just one of the more than 50 recipes in the book, which includes Chocolate Mug Cakes, award-winning Blue Chip Chocolate Chip Cookies, Individual Warm Chocolate Cakes, Chocolate Truffles, Homemade Rocky Road, Chili with Chocolate, and lots more.
When I go to the U.S., I can only bring back three cookbooks* due to stringent measly luggage allowances. Getting anything delivered can be a challenge here, but nowadays, anything you receive will rack up customs, duties, and taxes. They used to be more lenient with books, but someone has to pay the bill for cleaning up the Seine, I guess, so why not make it cookbook collectors?
During book tours, such as mine in May for The Great Book of Chocolate, I’m usually at cookbook stores and find myself surrounded by cookbooks, and have to resist immersing myself in all of them. But alas, I can only bring a few back with me, and one was More than Sweet by .
I was not only intrigued by the striking photos and bold layout of the book, but appreciated Marie Frank’s creativity, which often blends the lines between sweet and savory.
As I dove deeper into the recipes, some of the ones I wanted to give a go contained at least one ingredient that I didn’t have on hand, and would be challenging to find. The braised cherries that were paired with this recipe called for one makrut leaf. The mango sorbet in the Vacherin called for a teaspoon of locust bean gum or fruit pectin (which is optional). Her gorgeous plum galette called for ground Sichuan pepper, and the hojicha snickerdoodles called for — yup — hojicha. But boy, do they sound good!
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I was also intrigued by the addition of lots of lemon zest in the Miso-Lemon Chocolate Chip Cookies. But she makes a compelling case for the zest, saying it provides the perfect balance “among the savory, salty, and sweet” flavors, so I’ve got those bookmarked as well as the snickerdoodles with roasted green tea.
Marie Frank does begin the book with a treatise called How to Use This Book, which includes a passage: ”I strongly encourage you to change the flavors with the seasons or simply to suit your personal preferences,” which is reassuring to those who want to go off-script.
I decided to make the Olive Oil Panna Cotta because I always have olive oil on hand, and we’re also in the midst of summer fruit season and I had plums on hand, which I thought would pair nicely with the creamy dessert, rather than the cherries.
I’m often asked by readers about which olive oil to buy, which is difficult because a lot of the choices are based on where you live. When I moved to Paris, I lived above an olive oil store and just went downstairs with an empty wine bottle and filled it with one of the owner’s olive oils, which were stored in large tins with spigots.
Now I get my olive oil from friends in Sicily, which I buy in 5-liter (5qt) tins, and they only ship within Europe. Understandably, they like you to buy a certain quantity to make the shipping worthwhile. I used to get a whole bunch of friends together to make a large enough order for them to ship. But I often forgot who ordered what, or who’d paid and who didn’t. So I’m sure my poor accounting skills have given someone a complimentary tin of olive oil, at my expense.
[One good olive oil I tasted recently was Arkè extra-virgin, which they sell in consumer-friendly bottles and 2-liter tins. Good mail-order sources for olive oil in the U.S. are Market Hall Foods, Zingerman’s, and Corti Brothers.]
I also wondered about the recipe instructions, which said to pour water into the molds and then shake out any excess before filling them to prevent the panna cottas from sticking. I never tried that so thought I’d do an experiment, lightly oiling half of the ramekins, as I normally do, and using water on the other three, to see if there was a difference.
My tray with three of the oil-coated ramekins on one side, and the other three, on the other.
The next day when I went to unmold them, I realized I forgot to put water in the non-oiled ones. D’oh! Since we were in the middle of one of our many heatwaves this summer, let me tell you, strange things happen when the temperatures remain in the triple-digits for over a week and you get a little loopy. So I can’t tell if the water method works, but I do know the oiled ones slipped right out.
And, thanks to my inattentiveness, I also know that if you do nothing, they’ll come out a little floppy, above, but are equally delicious. And if you want to pour the mixture into glasses and serve it in those, there’s no need to do anything to prepare them before adding the panna cotta mixture.
I loved the texture and flavor of this olive oil panna cotta. We happened to be outside and I did think, looking over at our lemon verbena plant, “Hmmm…I wonder what this would be like infused with lemon verbena?” Or maybe a fig leaf or two?
Panna cotta is the perfect summer dessert. It’s easy to make and goes well with summer fruits. She pairs it with braised cherries but I made the plum-raspberry compote from Ready for Dessert to go alongside, cutting eight pitted plums into eighths (or sixths, if small) and simmering them in 1/4 cup (50g) sugar, 1 cup (250ml) water, and half a vanilla bean, just until the plums are soft.
Once cooked, remove from the heat and stir in a basket of raspberries. I usually let it stand for an hour, but they’re even better if you let them sit overnight, refrigerated or at room temperature, which gives time for their juices to thicken. Other possibilities are apricot-cherry compote or oven-roasted figs.
For those who use sheet gelatin, Marie Frank says you can use 2 1/2 sheets of platinum gelatin, soaked in cold water, in place of the powdered gelatin. If you go that route, soak the sheets for about five minutes, wring out the excess water, then whisk them into the warm cream mixture until dissolved.
In a small bowl, sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water and let stand 5 minutes.
Warm the cream, milk, and sugar in a medium saucepan, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. When the mixture just starts to bubble, remove from the heat and whisk in the softened gelatin, stirring until it’s completely dissolved.
Add the olive oil and a big pinch — what would call a “three-finger pinch” — of salt, then use an immersion blender to emulsify the mixture. If you only have a standard blender, let the mixture cool until it’s tepid, then blend.
Lightly oil six ramekins or similar-sized custard cups with a very light coat of unflavored vegetable oil.** Or, you can assemble six serving glasses to use, which don’t need to be oiled since you’re not unmolding them.
Transfer the panna cotta mixture into a measuring cup or pitcher with a spout, and divide the mixture between the ramekins.
Chill the panna cotta for at least 12 hours, or overnight. To serve, run a knife around the outside of the panna cotta to loosen it from the sides of the ramekins, and invert them onto dessert plates. If they don’t slide right out, hold on to the ramekins and plates and give them a firm shake, which should loosen them enough to slip out.
Serve with a fruit compote, if desired. You could also serve them with shavings of dark or milk chocolate, or with a little pour olive oil on top and a few grains of flaky sea salt.
*The hard thing about going on book tour is that I go to amazing cookbook stores and see all the incredible cookbooks and want to bring all of them back with me.
**As mentioned, the original recipe said to rinse the ramekins in ice water and shake out the excess, but don’t towel-dry them, rather than oiling them. My experiment didn’t work but if you try it, let us know in the comments how it works out.
As I mentioned in my last newsletter, Norway has been on my bucket list of places to visit in my lifetime. I’d heard about the magnificent fjords and wanted to see them before I kicked the bucket. (Thanks commenter Paul, for pointing out how we similarly, and oddly, use “bucket” in English.) Several friends kindly gave me lists of restaurants they recommended, but I nixed any place that served dinner as a lengthy tasting menu. I’m no longer interested in (is anybody?) sitting at a table for four hours while being presented with course after course of little things served on rocks, or in spoons, while the server carefully explains each one before you eat the little mouthful, then they whisk away your plate (or rock) and bring you another.
When people travel they often say they want to eat where the locals eat. But in a city like Copenhagen, which has less than one million inhabitants, or even Paris, anywhere that’s good is going to have a mix of visitors and locals.
It’s easy to get wrapped up in trying to eat at “the” places, although in most cities nowadays, you need to do a little planning and make reservations if you want to get a table for dinner. I tend to do a deep dive into a city while planning a trip, but most of this trip was meant to be relaxing. So the first part was a couple of days in Copenhagen, then we were scheduled to depart on a boat to see the Norwegian fjords, which left from the Danish capital.
It’s been hotter than heck in Paris, and we’re in the midst of our third heatwave. One way our friends in Italy beat the heat (and get their coffee fix) is to make affogato, a dish of ice cream “drowned” in espresso, with liquor sometimes added, giving it an extra kick.
I met Margot Lecarpentier when writing my book, Drinking French. Margot is the owner and head bartender of Combat, one of my favorite cocktail bars in Paris, and she stopped by to make a spirited affogato for me, under the shade of our fig tree.
Affogato is often made with vanilla ice cream but Margot asked me to make a batch of chocolate sorbet, which was perfect with the mix of liquors she stirred up.
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The amaro Margot chose, Rabarbaro Nardini, which is made from rhubarb and has a husky flavor that works beautifully with the other ingredients. There are a lot of amaros/amari out there, and ones such as Fernet-Branca, Braulio, and Dell’Etna, have their own distinctive vegetal notes. You could use one of those, or whatever is available.
You can certainly change the other ingredients to your liking as well, such as swapping in amaretto for the coffee liqueur, or whiskey for the rum, although as I noted in the video, her recipe — as she made it — was truly the best affogato I’ve ever had.
[btw: In the video, you’ll notice some steam drifting across the table. That’s water for heating the ice cream scoop 😄, which helps make nicely-shaped scoops.]
In the video, we shared a generous scoop but you can use this recipe to make two individual portions; feel free to adjust quantities to your taste. Vanilla ice cream is the classic, but Margo thought it’d be fun to use my Chocolate sorbet, and her instincts were spot on.
3/4 ounce (20ml) of each; dark rum, amaro, and coffee liqueur
2 generous scoops, or several smaller scoops, of ice cream
2 shots of espresso
Mix together the rum, amaro and coffee liqueur in a small pitcher or measuring cup.
Put a scoop, or several scoops, of ice cream in two separate ice cream dishes.
Divide the liquor mixture over the two portions of ice cream and add a shot of espresso to each one.
When you move to a foreign country, or even another city, one of the first things you need to do is find a doctor. It’s especially intimidating if you don’t speak the language and don’t understand the health care system, and don’t know how everything works. Twenty-five years later, I’ve learned that nobody in France fully understands how the French health care system works.
I was talking to a French insurance broker about that recently, and he said, surprisingly, that foreigners often understand the system better than native French people since they have to figure out how it works, whereas French people don’t really have to (or want to) understand it as it’s just part of their lives.
I was lucky to find a French doctor who spoke English, who also happened to be what I call a “legacy” doctor. Because she’d been working so long, she knew all the top doctors and specialists, and they knew (and liked) her. So I was always well taken care of when I went to a doctor who she referred me to. Most doctors in France have a different bedside manner than some of us might be used to.
A visiting friend from the States was hospitalized in Paris and he kept referring to doctors and nurses by their first names. No one said anything, but I could see them tighten up a bit when they were called “Pierre” or “Christine,” rather than “Monsieur” or “Madame.” I was thinking I should try that sometime, just to see what happens, or to see if it breaks the ice…but I’m not sure I’d get the same “pass” as he did, as a foreigner.
My doctor retired last month and I learned an important lesson: Find a doctor who is younger than you.
It’s hard to find a généraliste, a primary care physician, in Paris, and I was fortunate to have one that was very engaged with me and my care. She did call me by my first name, unlike every other doctor I’ve been to in France, which I gave her a pass on since she knew me pretty well. Often she seemed more interested in talking about chocolate than she did about the rash on my thigh.
I managed to get some good material out of her, albeit a few stories that I wasn’t sure I could repeat. Once when I was removing my pants in her office, I sprained my finger. “Oh, you gay men and your skinny jeans…” were her words of consolation for my crooked digit. The one on my hand, that is. Another time she poked my tummy, which bounced back like Poppin’ Fresh, the Pillsbury doughboy, and told me I should lose some weight. If she knew so much about gay men, she would know that you should never, ever touch our stomachs if we’re over fifty. And my job is to eat. If I’m not eating, I’m not working. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.
We had our final appointment last month, which she booked specifically for me because she wanted to say goodbye. She’s going to be taking a big trip that includes Tahiti, Brazil, and Australia, and I told her that I was going to Scandinavia, which had been on my “bucket list.” She looked puzzled, so I had to explain in French why a travel list could also be a bucket. (Which I don’t understand either.) And although people in France don’t hug their doctors, I couldn’t resist doing so on my way out the door. And yes, I’m now wearing looser jeans, thanks to both of her observations.
So now I need to find a new doctor, hopefully one that knows better than to touch my stomach. Hopefully, she or he will like chocolate as much as I do. Almost every woman I’ve met in France is happy to talk about chocolate, so maybe I’ll stick with women.
Right after the second weekend of June, we sailed off to Scandinavia. Being my life, of course,there was a one-day baggage handler strike planned at the Paris airports on the day of our flight. I was on turbo-hold with Norwegian Airlines for a little over an hour seeing if we could move our flight to the day before (discount airlines are great…er, until you need help), until I gave up. Then I had the brilliant idea to send our luggage ahead using Sendmybag.com.
Their website clearly explained the process and the price, which wasn’t super expensive - around $75-100 per bag - but then there were some additional dripping charges such as a tracking fee and a postage fee if you want luggage label holders mailed to you. And I was hit with $47 for a “fuel surcharge” due to the escalating price of fuel, which jacked up the price. But still, it was worth it. The only glitch was that the guy picked up the luggage a few hours before the designated pickup time. Thankfully I was home, and when any kind of delivery in France arrives (or in this case, departs), you breathe a sigh of relief.
I was a little nervous since deliveries are notoriously chancy here, but it worked, and our luggage was waiting for us when we arrived at our hotel in Copenhagen. Whew!
Part of an exhibition by French artist Sophie Calle at the Louisiana Museum, near Copenhagen. Worth the day trip!
Now that summer is in full swing, I’m doing my best to use all the beautiful fruits and berries I’ve waited all year for. One of my favorite recipes is this versatile fruit crisp, which you can adapt to any other fruits that are in season:
I also make a lot of jams in the summer, and one of my favorites is Strawberry jam, which we enjoy this time of year, but is especially welcome in the middle of winter. Everyone I know who is married to a Frenchman says that they are jam-eating machines. (Who knew that someone could plow through that much jam at one sitting?) So I hide a few jars, just to make sure they’ll be some in January.
As a jam-maker, I plow through plenty of jam jars and am always on the prowl for more.
When we moved into our apartment, there was a very kindly older man who I’d see shuffling around in the hallway and mailbox area of our building. He moved slowly and would sometimes acknowledge me, and other times, not. Romain and I were often concerned that he might get preyed upon by people who roam around and when they see an elderly person looking dazed, go up to them and say they’re owed some money, and offer to take them to an ATM and help them withdraw some cash to repay them. 😡
So we kept an eye on him, until we stopped seeing him. Then, a few weeks ago, we met a man in our building who told us that was his father, who had passed away, and he’d come to clean out his apartment. Of course, like everyone in Paris, we’re interested in real estate (as well as being nosy neighbors) and asked to see it, before it hit the market. It wasn’t a large place and had a very modest Parisian kitchen. In spite of the balcony, and the view, my eyes were fixed on the empty jam jars in the kitchen. I guess the older you get in Paris, the more empty jam jars you amass — especially if you’re not a jam-maker and giving them away.
Even though we felt okay asking to see the apartment, the jam jars were a different story and I didn’t want to ask if I could have them. A few hours later, however, when I saw the fellow hauling bags of stuff out of the apartment and walking toward the garbage room, I heard the clanging of glass in the bags and asked if they happened to be jam jars and if so, could I have them?
As most of you have heard, last month there was a vicious heatwave in France, with temperatures close to 44ºC/111ºF in one part of the country. While some say,“It’s hot in________ [fill in their city], too,” the heat is different here, and people aren’t prepared for it, nor is Paris adapted for it. We’ve had heatwaves since I moved here in 2003, but the problem with heatwaves is that once they’re over, people forget about them.
Anyone who’s been entangled in any sort of French bureaucracy call tell you that the French tend to be process-oriented, focusing on the process, rather than being solution-oriented. And anyone who’s been in France during the summer knows that air-conditioning is rare to nonexistent. But because things like to get discussed…and discussed and discussed…air-conditioning was talked about a lot more this year, and more people were buying them, even those who were convinced they’d get sick from them. (In spite of that, 2025 people didn’t survive this last heatwave due to heat-related illnesses. In 2003, that figure was nearly 15,000.)
It’s a subject that comes up a lot and two good analyses from locals take a deeper dive into it: Paris is Boiling by and France has seen the future, and it’s an inferno by , which concludes that there’s a lack of a centralized plan of action,* which is unfortunate in a country that excels in coming together to provide for its citizens.
Norway
Somehow, I had the foresight back in March to plan our trip to Scandinavia, which coincided with the heatwave in France, so we missed it. (Non, je ne regrette rien.) In Norway and Denmark, it felt like summer in San Francisco: cool, overcast, and often foggy. But beautiful. We ate well and saw some magnificent scenery—those fjords! I was going to share more in this newsletter but I had to catch up on everything I set aside while on vacation, as well as finish Widow’s Bay. During one episode, there was a scene that actually made me jump off the couch. So I’ll write about our trip in a separate post, coming soon…
-David
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When I was revisitingThe Great Book of Chocolate, one thing that fascinated me in the world of chocolate was chocolate alternatives, which don’t contain a trace of cacao, or cocoa, so they aren’t really chocolate.
Many of us remember our old nemesis, carob, whichtraumatized a generation (possible paywall.) As part of that generation, I was curious to see it re-emerge, as well as to find chocolate alternatives made with sunflower seeds, fava beans, upcycled grape seeds, and malted barley. I ordered half a dozen of them to try and wrote more about them in the book.
I was initially put off by the smell of the one I got from Win-Win, which smelled like beans, but not cocoa beans. Still, I like to keep an open mind when writing books, and I baked the Individual Warm Chocolate Cakes from the book with the Win-Win Dark Chocolate Alternative and was surprised at the results, which I shared with my friend Margot, owner of Combat cocktail bar in Paris, who has great taste:
What you don’t see in the video is the aftermath of the three uneaten cakes, which Romain and I snacked on afterward, and I found myself lopping off bites of cake the rest of the day. So while I’m not ready to give up on real chocolate, it’s nice to know there are alternatives out there.
Closing out here with a few of my favorite summer recipes that I wanted toshare…
I can’t resist pasta any time of the year, and Pasta alla Norma uses summer eggplant and basil, which will transport you to Sicily. At least it has that effect on me:
A live video chat I did with prompted me to make his Lemon blueberry cake, which is punctuated with lots of juicy blueberries, blanketed under a brightly flavored, crunchy glaze:
In my continued effort to promote white chocolate, which is the subject of some derision (lighten up, folks!), cocoa butter-rich white chocolate pairs perfectly with zippy fresh ginger, and this ice cream is a great accompaniment to a summer fruit crisp or cobbler:
It’s said that Pan bagnat is a salade Niçoise in a roll, which is pretty much the case. Filled with lots of raw vegetables, hard-cooked eggs, flakes of tinned tuna, and punctuated with salty olives, stuffed in a roll bathed (bagnat) with good olive oil, these summer sandwiches are perfect for picnics or backyard lunches. Do-aheaders will appreciate that they’re best made in advance:
If you like my Basil vinaigrette, give this Tarragon vinaigrette a try, especially if you have any overload of tarragon in your garden, as we do. It’s great drizzled over summer tomatoes or with grilled fish, chicken, or vegetables:
In fact, I served it for lunch today, with a composed salad of radishes, bonito, avocado, hard-cooked eggs with anchovies, green beans, and torn basil from our garden, which is thriving in this heat…
*There is a plan to harness the water of the Seine and use that to partially cool down the city. Spoiler: The plan is scheduled to be completed in 2042 and the cost is estimated to be €2,6 billion/$2.9 billion; by 2050, temperatures in Paris could reach 50ºC/122ºF.
Americans seem to be obsessed with ultimates. Magazines, websites, and social media have made people think that the goal of everything is hyper-crispiness. Don’t get me wrong. I like crispy, too, especially when it comes to fried chicken, French fries, potato chips, baguettes, and fruit crisp toppings. I even spent a few months working on a proposal for a cookbook of recipes of only crispy foods, which I think was ahead of its time. I’m sure by now someone else has done it.
But one thing everyone wants to know is how to keep the bottom of pie dough crispy. News Flash: If you cover something relatively fragile with four-to-six times its weight of fruit (which is 90% water), and bake it for 30 to 45 minutes, you shouldn’t expect that layer of dough underneath to remain as dry as a Wasa bread.
I’ve never heard anyone in France asking (or complaining about) dough that’s not crispy on the bottom of a tart. And that’s in a country where complaining is the national sport. In defense of that, complaining in France isn’t considered a negative thing. It means that you’re exigeant, or discerning. So perhaps that’s why I fit right in.
I’m away until the end of the month, traveling, and (fortunately) escaping the heat in Paris. Here’s a summer recipe I thought I’d reshare that’s easy to make, and captures the essence of the season. It’s definitely going on rotation when I get home! - David
Tarts, or galettes as they’re sometimes called, are a great way to use summer. I know some people are timid about making dough, but this dough couldn’t be simpler, and it’s very hard to screw up.
And if it’s warm where you are, it comes together in a flash. Just be sure to chill the butter and I know sometimes people chill the flour as well, but I’ve never done that. (I actually learned to make puff pastry in a hot restaurant kitchen, in the summer. So making this kind of dough seems to me like a walk in the park…)
Regarding the mustard, to be honest, I’m more of a fan of Dijon mustard than Romain, who prefers the grainy type. But during the mustard shortage last year, we could only get grainy mustard, so I had a lot of that on hand. But I remain on team Dijon.
Serves 8 (Although everyone always wants a second slice so realistically, it serves 4)
Polenta will make the dough a little less smooth to roll out, but I do like the taste and texture of the coarse bits of ground corn, so it’s worth it for the flavor. You can use fine polenta or cornmeal or additional all-purpose flour (or a whole-grain flour, such as teff or buckwheat) in place of the polenta if you want to leave it out.
I love fresh ricotta with this tart, but you could try it with another cheese that’s relatively moist but won’t melt into a puddle, such as feta or provolone.
I’ve added corn kernels to this tart before baking when I had a hankering for corn. (Fresh or frozen will work.) You can finish the tart with fresh herbs, such as basil, tarragon, savory, or parsley.
For the dough
1 1/4 (175g) cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup (35g) polenta or cornmeal
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 ounces (85g) unsalted butter, chilled and cubed
5 tablespoons (70ml) ice water, plus more if necessary
For the tart
1/4 cup (60g) Dijon or whole-grain mustard
3 medium tomatoes (~1 1/2 pounds)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
6 ounces (170g) whole-milk ricotta
1 1/2 tablespoons melted butter
Parmesan cheese
To make the dough, mix together the flour, polenta, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or make it by hand by putting the dry ingredients in a medium bowl (and use a pastry blender or your fingers to mix the dough). Add the cubed, cold butter and mix until the pieces of butter are the size of large corn kernels. Add the water and continue to mix until the dough starts to come together. Use your hands to gather the dough and shape it into a disk. If the dough feels too dry to do that, add more water, 1/2 tablespoon at a time, until it comes together. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap or your favorite eco-friendly alternative and chill for at least an hour. (The dough can be made up to 3 days in advance.)
To make the tart, remove the dough from the refrigerator. Unwrap it and, holding the disk of dough perpendicular to the counter, rap the sides of the dough on the counter, turning it as you go, to soften the edges, which helps them stay together and not get too ragged when you’re rolling out the dough.
On a lightly floured countertop, roll the dough out to a 14-inch (36cm) circle, turning the dough and sprinkling more flour on the counter and the dough to keep it from sticking as you’re rolling.
Place the dough on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Preheat the oven to 400ºF (200ºC) while you assemble the tart.
Spread a layer of mustard on the dough, leaving a few inches/centimeters empty around the perimeter, which you’ll fold over the filling later.
Slice the tomatoes about 1/3-inch (1cm) thick and layer them in concentric circles, overlapping them a little, over the mustard. Sprinkle the tomatoes with a little salt and freshly ground pepper. Fold the edges of the dough over the tomatoes to make an outer crust.
Place chunks of ricotta cheese over and, in some places, partially tucked under the tomatoes. Brush the edges of the dough with melted butter and grate Parmesan cheese over the entire tart, including the crust.
Bake until the tomatoes are soft and cooked through and the crust is dark golden brown, about 35-40 minutes. Slide the tart off the pan onto a wire rack and let cool for about ten minutes before serving.
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I met Carlos Moreno when he was delivering taco kits during the pandemic, when we all wanted to eat “out,” but were stuck eating in. Prior to that period Mexican food wasn’t well represented in Paris. (A lesser-known fact is that France tried to colonize Mexico twice in the mid-1800s.) I loved Carlos’ food and we had a few nice conversations on the sidewalk when he made his deliveries.
Since then he’s gone on to open his own restaurant in Paris, Comer. As I mention in the video, you might not think you want to go to a Mexican restaurant in Paris, but I can assure you that yes, you do. It’s really, really good.
His cooking is based in traditional Mexican fare with lively moles and amazing salsas, as well as a menu that changes based on the season and what’s available, which includes tostadas with raw tuna crudo, peas and citrus, tacos with pork al pastor, a mille-feuille of fresh tomatoes with housemade salsa macha, and a truly melt-in-your-mouth horneado of beef. One item on the dessert menu that’s a particular favorite are his mole brownies, which are slightly spicy, and served with a vanilla atole sauce and mezcal.
I was happy that when I asked Carlos to stop by and make his famous brownies with me, he said yes. We didn’t make the vanilla atole sauce (you can find my recipe here), which he spikes with mezcal at Comer, but the brownies were delicious all on their own. I hope you enjoy them as much as we did making them!
I was recently gifted an overload of strawberries: I bought four baskets from a vendor at the market, whose booth I shop at often, and he threw in two extra baskets for free, the equivalent of a carte de fidelité (loyalty card) in Paris. So I’ve spent the past few days washing, hulling, cutting and cooking my unexpected bounty.
I’ve been making a number of things with the gorgeous strawberries. But I also realized that while I have a Strawberry-Rhubarb Jam recipe on the site, I didn’t have a strawberry jam. So here it is.
Although I’m giving you a recipe for the amount of strawberries that I used, you can use the same proportions if you have just a basket…or a bushel. You’ll just need to do a slight amount of math. Only the cooking time will change, so keep an eye on things.
Jam-making is not something you walk away from and you need to rely more on look and feel, rather than exact times. Another thing about jam-making is that fruit and berry jams are always better made in small batches; the shorter the cooking time, the better the flavor. So if you have more than 2-pounds (900g) of strawberries, consider making jam in a couple of batches rather than one big one.
Many traditional recipes use an equal amount of sugar to fruit, by weight, but I find it’s okay to decrease it to these proportions. Sugar is both a thickener and a preservation agent. If you reduce it too much more, your jam may not thicken and won’t keep for a long time. (Which is okay if you want thinner jam, you keep it in the refrigerator, and eat it relatively quickly.) This recipe can be scaled up or down, depending on how many strawberries you have. But if you want to make a lot more, best to make it in a couple of batches. To prepare the jars, pour boiling water into them, as well as into the lids. Let them sit 5-10 minutes, then carefully pour out the hot water and set them upside down on a cooling rack until ready to fill.
Since I keep my jams in the refrigerator, I don’t put them up them in a traditional sense. I usually just overturn the jars and let them cool, which provides a reasonable seal, then refrigerate them. I find my jams keep well this way for up to one year. Check the National Center for Home Food Preservation website for instructions on how to can fruit jams.
Note: Last season strawberries tend to have less natural pectin than ones that arrive earlier. So your jam may be less jelled. One strategy is the finely grate a green apple into the strawberries before cooking them, which adds pectin. (There are guidelines here for using liquid and powdered pectin.) I don’t mind the slightly runnier jam and it’s terrific on yogurt or served with fresh goat cheese for dessert.
Ingredients
2pounds (900g)strawberries
1 1/4pounds (2 2/3 cups, 580g)sugar
onelemonorganic or unsprayed
optional: kirsch (or eau-de-vie, or crème de cassis)
Instructions
Wash and hull the strawberries and cut them into quarters. If some are larger or smaller, just make sure the pieces all about the same size.
2. Toss them in a large pot, such as a Dutch oven casserole made of a nonreactive material, with the sugar. Cut the lemon in half, squeeze the juice into the pot, and add the lemon halves to the berries. Stir well, cover, and let sit a couple of hours (up to 8 hours) at room temperature, stirring one or two times while they marinate.
Put a small plate in the freezer. Turn the heat on under the strawberries to medium-high and cook the strawberries, stirring occasionally, as they reduce and the juices thicken. If a lot of foam rises to the surface, skim it away. When the syrup is the consistency of warm maple syrup – it will take about 10 to 15 minutes or so, depending on the pot and berries, turn off the heat and put a spoonful of the jam on the frozen plate and return the plate to the freezer. Check it in a few minutes; if it wrinkles when you nudge it, it’s done. If not, return the plate to the freezer and cook the jam a little more, testing it again. It may take a few times before you get it to the right consistency.
When the strawberry jam is done, remove the lemon and stir in a few drops of kirsch, if using, then ladle the jam into the prepared jars.
A few days ago I ran into our neighbor, who kindly invited us for dinner this weekend. She was the first neighbor we met in the building, over our shared back wall, and we hit it off, right off the bat. People in Paris can have complicated (or, um…thorny) relationships with neighbors, which I wrote about in my book L’Appart. But we scored with this one. We now trade keys, look after each other’s apartments when one of us goes away, accept packages for each other, and even call on each other if there’s an emergency.
I offered to make dessert and decided to scoop up as many of the beautiful fresh apricots I could find, let them ripen a few days, and turn them into a fruit crisp, which are called crumbles in France. That’s a term picked up from our neighbors in England — un crisp doesn’t come off the tongue as readily as un crumble, but both sound a little funny to me with a French accent. But now that I’m on the 🇫🇷 team here, I call them crumbles, too.
But for now, I’m going to write them as crisps, and this is my favorite, go-to crisp topping. What makes it extra-crisp is the addition of polenta. It’s from my book Ready for Dessert, which is subtitled my “best” recipes, and it really is the best crisp topping, if I do say so myself.
I use very coarse, stone-ground polenta since that has the most crunch, although regular polenta works well, and while I’m not as much of a fan of instant polenta as others are around here, that works too, as does cornmeal. As for the nuts, I generally go with almonds since they go well with stone fruits, but you can use walnuts or pecans if you prefer.
When I wrote my first book, back in 1999, I assumed people didn’t have food processors, although I think they may be more common these days? My KitchenAid food processor* has a broken bowl so the handle is filling with gunk, and they don’t sell replacements. I miss having a classic Cuisinart food processor, which I had in the States, and it was really a workhorse in the kitchen. (Even Wirecutter agrees with me.) But they’re not available in France.
I’m thinking of springing for a Robot-Coupe, although with a starting price of €1200 ($1390) 💸 I’m going to hang on to my food processor until the day dies, then consider my options.
While I prefer to mix the topping in a food processor, you can also mix it in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, or by hand if you chop the nuts first. When I make it, I pulse all the dry ingredients until the mixture is sandy, then add the butter and pulse it rapidly a few more times, just until I see small clumps sticking together. I like large, discernible bits of crisp topping in the finished crisp rather than a smooth, sandy texture.
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Ice cream, of course, is the preferred pairing with a warm fruit crisp. I just happen to have a lot of ice cream in my freezer at the moment, but the one I’m going to bring is the leftover apricot kernel oil ice cream that I made to impress a chef friend who came to make an upcoming video with me.
That was one of those recipes I shared back in 2008, when a few companies were making apricot or plum kernel oil, which has become harder to find. Some of it is sold for cosmetic purposes and isn’t intended for food use. I used the last of my bottle, but Vanilla, Cinnamon, White Chocolate-Fresh Ginger, or Malted Milk ice cream are great accompaniments, or just serve the crisp warm with a pitcher of cold heavy cream on the side.
We’re fortunate to have a lot of fresh apricots available to us right now, but if you want to swap inslices of nectarines or peeled peaches, reduce the sugar in the filling to 2 tablespoons. In place of the cherries, feel free to swap in blackberries, blueberries, or raspberries, or just use more apricots.
In place of the kirsch and almond extract, you can use 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract, total. You can make the topping up to one week in advance and refrigerate or freeze it.
Topping
3/4 cup (110g) flour
2/3 cup (100g) polenta
1/2 cup(65g) lightly toasted almonds, walnuts, or pecans
1/2 cup (90g) packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons (4 ounces, 115g) unsalted butter, cubed and chilled
Make the topping by pulsing together the flour, polenta, nuts, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt, just until the nuts are slightly broken up. Add the cubes of cold butter and pulse until the butter is well integrated. Pulse a few more times until little bits of the mixture begin to clump together.
Preheat the oven to 375ºF (190ºC).
To make the filling, in a medium bowl, mix together the sliced apricots, cherries, sugar, flour, kirsch, and almond extract. Spread the fruit into a 2-quart (2L) baking dish, then strew the crisp topping evenly over the fruit. Resist the urge to press it down so it’s completely flat; I think it’s best when it’s a little unevenly baked, so you get lots of crunchy bits here and there.
Place the baking dish on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or aluminum foil, shiny side down. Bake in the oven until the top is golden brown and there are thick juices bubbling up around the edges. When you poke a paring knife into the center, if it meets no resistance, it’s done. If the topping is getting too dark before the fruit is fully cooked, you can drape a sheet of aluminum foil over the top and finish cooking.
The exact baking time depends a bit on the ripeness of the fruit but will take around 40 minutes to bake. Serve warm or at room temperature, with a scoop of ice cream or heavy cream.
*A number of people chimed in the comments, a few saying Cuisinart makes replacement bowls, but my current food processor is (or was) made by KitchenAid, and I’ve not been able to find a replacement bowl after a considerable amount of searching. (I’ve had mixed results ordering replacement parts online. A few times the item didn’t fit the machine I had, even through the item description said it did.
The model number of my KitchenAid food processor is #5KFPM771EWH0 - if anyone finds one, let me know : )
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When you write a cookbook, a question people frequently ask is, “What’s your favorite recipe in the book?” It’s hard to say because if a recipe wasn’t one of my favorites, I wouldn’t have put it in a book. I don’t have kids, but some people say that’s like asking a parent who their favorite child is. (Although I suspect if that question was asked to parents anonymously, some might have an opinion on that.)
When a recipe goes in one of my books, it’s generally been tested between three to five times, minimum, and sometimes up to seventeen, which was one recipe I got particularly obsessive about. (Often if I don’t get it by the sixth or seventh try, I give up because I think it just might be too fussy or difficult.) Years ago I was at a culinary conference talking with Flo Braker, an expert baker and cookbook author, and a young woman came over to us, who said she was working on her first cookbook. “Sometimes I have to test a recipe three times!” she told us.
When she walked away, Flo turned to me and said, “Oh my goodness, you’re lucky if you get it right by the third try.”
When The Perfect Scoop came out, I had an unofficial system of calibrating which recipe was my favorite. Because I was churning up so much ice cream, and a freezer can only fit so much ice cream in it, I had to give my trials away as fast as I could to make room for subsequent batches. But the one I didn’t give up was this one: Malted Milk Ice Cream.
This year I was happy to revise and update two of my books: Ready for Dessert and The Great Book of Chocolate. Anyone who cooks or bakes knows that when you make the same thing over and over, after a while, you might change an ingredient, or figure out a new technique for making it that’s faster or more effective.
I thought - why not toast the malted milk powder first? How smart would I be, adding that step to the recipe? Feeling very satisfied with myself, I started heating the powder in a skillet and within a few seconds…
As someone who is passionate about cookbooks, I’m always up for talking about them with other cookbook collectors. I know there are lots of cookbook collectors out there, but one who really stands out is , who writes the Cookbookery Collective newsletter, which she describes as:
…a hub for the cookbook community—authors, eaters, cooks, editors, publicists, publishers, agents, and aspiring authors alike. It’s a place to celebrate all cookbooks, new and old, blockbuster and under-the-radar. It’s a place to hear from your favorite authors and talk amongst ourselves in the comments section. It’s a place where everyone is welcome, whether you have just a handful of beloved books or a collection in the hundreds.
I couldn’t have said it better, except to add what a wonderful resource Jenna, and her newsletter, have become to the cookbook community, which features interviews with cookbook authors, including me…
…plus seasonal round-ups of the latest cookbooks to hit the shelves, previews of cookbooks that are about to be released, as well as recipes from her favorite cookbooks.
Not only does Jenna write a newsletter, she’s also the food director at Real Simple magazine, the author of five cookbooks, and runs a personal chef business. Whew!
In addition to her other activities, Jenna is now a novelist, having penned her first novel, coming out this Fall, The Foreign Correspondent’s Wife, a mystery set in Paris.
I was thrilled to get a chance to sit down for this podcast episode with Jenna to talk about our favorite subject: Cookbooks! We talked about everything, from what makes a good cookbook (and what drives her crazy in a cookbook) to how she decides which cookbooks that cross her desk she holds on to, and which ones she lets go. We also discussed what she thinks of influencer cookbooks, and talked about one of the big questions of our time - how will AI affect cookbooks, and will it (or can it) replace them.
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I hope you enjoy my chat with Jenna as much as I did…and let us know in the comments what are some of your favorite cookbooks, and why.
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