Dorie Greenspan
Blogger Buzz: Around My French Table is Here, Enfin!
Sep 1st
Well, according to Amazon, Around My French Table is officially out in the world! It’s a surprise to me, since I thought the book wasn’t going to be available until October 8, but it’s a great surprise – I’m thrilled it’s arrived. And oh how I hope you will like it!
The book is filled with my favorite recipes (more than 300 of them) for what I think of as ‘elbows on the table’ food from France. It’s the unfussy, delicious food that my friends and I make in France. This is not a by-the-rules book on French food. It’s not Mastering the Art of French Cooking (what else could be?). And it’s not a book of traditional French food (a Basque tortilla made with potato chips is hardly traditional), although it’s got its share of time-honored recipes – I can’t wait for you to try the Cheese-Topped Onion Soup! Instead, it’s my personal take on the bright, fresh, simple food that’s being cooked today in the country of my heart. Oh, and there are lots of stories and lots of gorgeous, gorgeous pictures by Alan Richardson.
> Continue reading at Dorie Greenspan
Blogger Buzz: In the Kitchen with Yves Camdeborde, David Turecamo and Puff Pastry Pizzas
Aug 16th
Last week I had the kind of experience I adore: I got to spend a morning in the kitchen of Le Comptoir with my Paris neighbor, Yves Camdeborde, the restaurant’s rightly celebrated chef, making Tuna-Mozzarella Pizzas, a recipe he gave me for my new book, Around My French Table. And while we were cutting and arranging the pizzas (it’s more arts and crafts project than recipe), the amazingly talented David Turecamo was there to record the action. Can you see him just behind Yves?
You’ll be hearing more about the shoot soon – and seeing the video and getting the recipe – but in the meantime I’ve been thinking about the puff pastry rounds we used for the pizza and how incredibly easy they are to make, and how many different things you can do with them, especially now when the markets are full of great fruits and vegetables.
>Continue reading at Dorie Greenspan
Blogger Buzz: Bread and More Bread – Snacking on the Rue Rambuteau
Aug 5th
Disappointed to discover that my cheese shop, Laurent Dubois on the Place Maubert, was closed for renovation and that the usual roving market at Maubert-Mutualite had more clothes than food — ah, summer in Paris — I went on a wander across the river, into the Marais, past l’As du Fallafel (I was tempted to belly up to the counter, especially since there wasn’t a line, but it was too early in the morning … even for me) and then along the rue Rambuteau, which means only one thing to me: Pain de Sucre, the matchbox-size patisserie with the lovely square tarts, luscious marshmallows and breads chockful of things like nuts and fruits and grain and seeds. But alas, it’s summer in the Marais too and Pain de Sucre was closed.
There’s a foccaceria next door to Pain de Sucre that I’d never noticed before and, once noticed, I passed it by — does anyone know and love the place? must I go back and it give it go?. I kept walking down the street and came to a patisserie I hadn’t seen before either, Atelier Huré. Huré looks modern and almost like a chain (actually, there is only one other Huré in Paris and it’s on the Place d’Italie), but no matter because I was drawn in by the display of ’fantasy breads,’ as the French call pretty much any bread that’s not in the traditional repertoire and almost every bread that has an add-in.
> Continue reading at Dorie Greenspan
Blogger Buzz: Paris Sweets – Ice Cream Sandwiches
Aug 3rd
Last Friday I had eclairs for breakfast and today I had ice cream for lunch. I consider this kind of whim-eating one of the joys of being a grown-up: there’s no one who can tell you you’ve got to eat your spinach first. Actually, writing this I realize that trying squeeze a sweet in before noon doesn’t always work, even when you’re as grown-up as I am. I’m reminded of a morning when I’d gone into a cafe on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for a coffee and, just as I was about to order it, I changed my mind and asked for a frozen yogurt instead. “Madam,” said the clerk, “it’s only 9am. You can’t have ice cream for breakfast!” Try as I did, he wouldn’t give it to me.
Thank goodness I had no such altercation with the lovely young woman who sold me this ice cream sandwich at Patisserie Sadaharu Aoki. The ice cream is my favorite Aoki flavor, black sesame, a marvel, and the cookie is a thin, not-very-sweet (which means perfect) chocolate sable (or shortbread).
> Continue reading at Dorie Greenspan
Blogger Buzz: Paris Sweets – Breakfast with Hugues Pouget of Hugo & Victor
Jul 31st
Last night, at dinner I was reminiscing about how lucky I’ve been to work with so many extraordinary chefs. Of course, I worked with Julia Child (who wasn’t a chef and who would correct anyone who called her one; this despite the fact that the name of her long-running television series was The French Chef), but I also worked with, among others, Daniel Boulud and Jean-Georges Vongerichten on the savory side, and on the sweet side, Pierre Herme, Johnny Iuzzini and Lionel Poilane. And so I think I know a little about what makes chefs great. There’s their talent, that’s almost a given; there’s their energy – they’re built with super-chargers that aren’t standard equipment among us ordinary mortals; there’s their skill at organization and production (not a glam quality, but a really important one); and there’s their intelligence, a kind of intelligence that includes creativity, but that also includes the ability to express, share, explain that creativity and, in doing that, inspire and teach others.
The chefs in my personal pantheon of culinary heroes have these qualities, and so does Hugues Pouget, the pastry magician in Paris’s newest luxe patisserie, Hugo&Victor.
> Continue reading at Dorie Greenspan
Blogger Buzz: Out and About and Only Just Beyond My Doorstep
Jul 28th
You know it’s a good day when you turn the corner and find someone handing out cups of fabulous Grom Gelato (actually, it was sorbetto) in your all-time favorite flavor: apricot. There she was, The Grom Girl, on the corner of rue de Buci and rue de Seine (Grom is at 81 rue de Seine) and, needless to say, for a few minutes she was the most popular girl on the block. I’ve never seen Grom give away free ice cream on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, but then they don’t have as many competitors there. In a one-block radius in this Paris neighborhood, Grom keeps company with Amorino, It Mylk (frozen yogurt), Cacao et Chocolat and Ben& Jerry’s. And I bet I’ve left out a few. This little stretch, which is usually bustling with locals and tourists (when it’s not the quietest weeks of summer, as it is now), has become ice-cream central.
Having had dessert first — always a good idea, I mean, what if I ran out of time? — I went off to a meeting at with (fabulous, wonderfully talented) David Turecamo at Le Chai de l’Abbaye on the rue de Bourbon le Chateau. The street’s only about 3 inches long, but it has a great gallery, two high-fashion depot-vente boutiques, a.k.a. thrift shops, and my favorite wine shop in all of Paris, La Derniere Goutte.
> Continue reading at Dorie Greenspan
Blogger Buzz: Au Revoir New York/Almost Bonjour Paris
Jul 26th
In about 10 minutes I’ll be in a taxi heading for the airport and Paris, where, odd as it may sound, I hope you’ll be hearing from me more often. It’s been a book-busy month. Even though Around My French Table doesn’t come out until October, July has been spent preparing for my book tour, organizing recipes for classes and getting ready for the fall. It feels a little like an early back-to-school, but not really. (When everything’s settled, I’ll post my schedule and hope that I’ll get to meet a bunch of you as I criss-cross the country.)
While I’m in Paris, I planning to put together a visual story of the book, about which more as I work on it.
> Continue reading at Dorie Greenspan
Blogger Buzz: Pierre Herme’s Cherry-Pistachio Tart – the Recipe
Jun 25th
I was riffling through The Cook’s Book, a volume apparently now out-of-print, in which famous chefs from around the world were asked to talk about techniques and give some of their favorite recipes. So, for example, you’ve got Ferran Adria on Foams, Charlie Trotter on Fish & Shellfish, Ken Hom on Chinese Cooking, Dan Lepard on Breads & Batters, Rick Bayless on Mexican Cooking and Pierre Herme on Pastry & Sweet Doughs.
I hadn’t looked at the book in a while and was surprised when – as though it were meant to be – I opened Pierre’s section and found his Croustillante aux Cerise et Pistache, or, as it’s called in the book, Streusel Tart with Pistachios and Cherries.
> Continue reading at Dorie Greenspan
Blogger Buzz: The Eiffel Tower – an Inside Look
Jun 22nd
Remember my friend David Turecamo‘s spectacular video about the Poilane Bakery? The one in which Lionel Poilane shows me how to make the shop’s famous butter cookies, Punitions? Well David, my friend, my neighbor in Paris and the guy best known to CBS Sunday Morning viewers as “Our Man in Paris,” has done something wonderful — again: He’s collected some of his clips on a new site, Paris Files.
> Continue reading at Dorie Greenspan
Blogger Buzz: Sweet Cherry Sweets – Le Comptoir’s + Pierre Herme’s From Paris and My Little Connecticut Crumble Too
Jun 11th
Michael and I dashed into Paris after our cruise and flew out three days later, having had just barely enough time to see a few friends, eat some good food and have the gas and electric meters read in the apartment. You didn’t think life in Paris was all patisseries and pretty bonbons, did you?
But, playing completely out of character, I’d managed to plan ahead and so was able to score a table at Le Comptoir for dinner the night we hit town. I love Le Comptoir (there, I’ve said it for the hundredth time), but it’s tough to get into. They don’t take reservations for lunch or weekend dinners and the weekday dinners that you can reserve for are usually booked eons in advance. Luckily for me, I live down the street from Yves Camdeborde’s little gem, so I can pop in on the off hours or just have a glass of wine and a nibble at Avant-Comptoir next door…
> Continue reading at Dorie Greenspan
Dorie Greenspan
May 3rd
Dorie Greenspan is a contributing editor to Parade Magazine and a long-time contributor to Bon Appétit. In the past 20 years she has written cookbooks – ten, to be exact – and won five James Beard and IACP awards for them, including Cookbook of the Year. She has also been named to the James Beard “Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America. She’s been the co-author on two cookbooks with Pierre Hermé, written the Café Boulud Cookbook with Daniel Boulud, and had the great honor and terrific fun of writing Baking with Julia, the book that accompanied Julia Child’s PBS Television Series. Dorie’s latest book, Around My French Table, will be published in October, 2010.
Top 3 Paris Tastes
- The (made-with-three-different-kinds-of) Vanilla Macarons from Pierre Hermé
- Aged Comte from fromagerie Laurent Dubois
- Just about any wine suggested by Juan Sanchez at La Dernière Goutte
Website
Books
- Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours
- Baking: From My Home to Yours
- Baking with Julia: Savor the Joys of Baking with America’s Best Bakers
- Paris Sweets: Great Desserts From the City’s Best Pastry Shops
- Desserts by Pierre Herme
- Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme
- Waffles: From Morning to Midnight
- Pancakes: From Morning to Midnight
- Sweet Times: Simple Desserts for Every Occasion
Blogger Buzz: A New Paris Patisserie – Hugo & Victor
Apr 3rd
This tart and the pastry shop from whence it came take the cake for drama! While Pierre Herme may have created the first patisserie in the style of an haute-couture bijouterie, the new Hugo&Victor has taken the idea about as far as it’s ever gone.
Although there are some croissants and simple sweets on a table and some teas in a display case — the kind that might hold a signed copy of the Declaration of Independence — the stars of the boutique are safely enclosed in framed and sealed boxes built into the sleek black walls.
> Continue reading at Dorie Greenspan