David Lebovitz's Blog, page 36

Mesquite Chocolate Chip Cookies

A few weeks ago, I was talking to someone about chocolate chip cookies, which is one of my favorite subjects. The French like them, too. They just call them les cookies, as if they didn’t need further clarification. But every time I make a batch of chocolate chip cookies, I have zero trouble handing them off to people. Who can resist a chocolate chip cookie, especially when it’s warm, with oozing chunks of melted chocolate surrounded by chewy oatmeal, and soft, butter-rich dough?

I’ve got a number of chocolate chip cookie recipes on my site; salted butter chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chip-tahini cookies, buckwheat chocolate chip cookies, and (of course) chocolate-chocolate chip cookies, with a double…I mean, triple dose of chocolate. But one I just revisited was this one made with mesquite flour. And let me tell you, you’ll want to revisit it, too, once you make them.

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Echo Deli in Paris

I don’t get out for lunch as much as I used to, or want to, but a dizzying amount of cafés, restaurants, and pastry shops have opened while I was holed up writing books. One that was getting an inordinate amount of good word-of-mouth, from friends and other restaurant owners, was Echo Café.

Entering the restaurant late morning, I was startled by the amount of sunshine that was flooding the place due to its location just across from an open place. I got there at 11 am and there wasn’t much going on. But by the time I left, the place was packed with sun-starved Parisians flocking to the café during their lunch break to get some Vitamin D, as was evident on a busy weekday afternoon.

But the other very good, and better, reason for the crush of Parisians is Chef Mailea Weger who worked at Gjusta and Gjelina in Los Angeles, places I’ve wanted to go on every single trip to L.A. that I’ve been on, but I’m usually on the other side of the city. And as anyone familiar with L.A. traffic knows, it’s a long haul from one side of Los Angeles to the other.

But proof that good things – and good food – come to those who wait, Mailea has arrived in Paris. And I was primed to go.

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Farro Risotto (Farrotto) with Radicchio and Bacon

This dish came together rather serendipitously on a Sunday afternoon. I was up to my elbows testing recipes and was looking for something savory for dinner that didn’t require too much prep, or dishes afterward. I’d brought home some colorful radicchio from the market, I had some bacon (don’t I always?), and there was a packet dried mushrooms in a kitchen drawer. So I gathered everything up and searched through my grains, to see what was in there.

I eat a ton of pasta, specifically whole grain pasta, which I can’t resist, especially if there’s garlic or radicchio involved. (And bacon, of course.) But in between a few bags of pasta was a small sack of petit épeautre (wheat berries) and a similar-sized bag of something unlabeled, which I was sure was farro. Whatever it was, the two bags came out to about 1 cup, which was just the right amount to make a wheat berry risotto, or farrotto.

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Benoit Castel Pastry Shop

There’s an exciting wave of pastry places opening in Paris. The last time that happened to such an extent was when Pierre Hermé kicked off a new wave of excitement about la pâtisserie nearly two decades ago. What new is that many of the pastry shops are outside of traditional areas. Visitors often say they want to go to places “off the beaten path,” and the combination of a compact city along with a prompt métro system means you can get anywhere in minutes, not hours. So getting to other parts of Paris is simply a matter of getting on the métro, or hopping in a taxi or car.

The new places aren’t just for out-of-towners, though, their main focus is to be a pastry shop for le quartier – for the neighborhood, because most Parisians don’t want to go halfway across town to pick up a loaf of bread or a pastry. They want it now. And I can’t say I blame them.

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Malva Pudding Cakes

Before a recent visit to Los Angeles, I’d heard a lot about Sqirl, a quirky restaurant with a funny name. People were imploring me to go. So much so, that if I didn’t, I’d be racked with guilt for the next five to seven years. (Which I think was the intended effect.) Whatever it was, it worked, and when planning to meet up with a friend, I suggested we go there.

Since he lived in Silverlake, he was familiar with Sqirl, and said we should go mid-morning to avoid the lines. I’m of the age where I don’t want to wait in line anymore to eat. At least I thought I was.

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L’appart Book Event at WHSmith in Paris

I’ll be at WHSmith booksellers in Paris for a talk and book signing at 6 pm Thursday night (Feb 8). The event is open to all, although you’re welcome to RSVP on the Facebook Event page. See you there!

 

A Visit to the All-Clad Cookware Factory

There’s nothing I love more than a factory tour, especially when it has something to do with food, or cooking. So I jumped at the chance to visit the All-Clad factory while on book tour. Pittsburgh is a city known for its metal industry – most notably, steel, and while much of the metalworking factories have wound down, or closed, All-Clad is still going strong.

I was first introduced to All-Clad cookware when I started working in restaurants. The pots and pans were rugged, easy to manoeuver, and not too heavy, so as a line cook, you could lift a whole stack of skillets when setting up your station, but they were strong enough to stand up to restaurant cooking, which involves a lot of unpredictable heat, and banging around. I threw a sauté pan against a wall during a particularly stressful service, which fortunately missed a lot of people in its trajectory. The pan also survived my tantrum, unscathed.

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Black Bean Soup

When I was leafing through ¡Cuba! – Recipes and stories from the Cuban Kitchen, I was reminded how much I like black bean soup. In theory, black bean soup is just a dark bowl of beans and doesn’t sound all that exciting. Which is probably why I hadn’t made it in a while. Also black beans aren’t that easy to come by in France. There are lots of wonderful beans in France – haricots Tarbais, flageolets, and haricots de Soissons, but the cultures (and cuisines) that use black beans don’t necessarily skew with French cuisine, hence their paucity.

Black beans have a particularly rich flavor, much more so than others beans, and lend themselves to being paired with ingredients that have a lot of pizzazz, like peppers, tomatoes, cilantro, and tangy sour cream. You have to dig a little deeply to find them, so I was grateful when I was on book tour and someone handed me a bag of Rancho Gordo black beans. (Thanks to the woman who gifted them to me!) When I got home, I couldn’t wait to use them. I’d been looking for a reason to revisit this soup, that’s a favorite of mine, and here it was – or is.

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Seeded Multigrain Crackers

I love my trusty DSLR camera, but it weighs a ton, and lugging it even around my kitchen when I’m baking means I’m not as nimble as I’d like to be. (I’m a baker, not a photographer, as several people noted regarding my previous post.) So I treated myself to a new camera and am getting to work on making the pictures here more casual. Once I figure out what all those dials, knobs, and levers on it, that is.

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Caramelized Endive and Blue Cheese Tart

When I first heard about tarte Tatin, nothing sounded better to me. What first seems like way too many apples packed into a skillet, then caramelized and baked under a blanket of buttery pastry, then turned out and served warm, became one of my favorite desserts.

I’ve had recipes for them in several of my books, but also enjoy the savory version. I’ve seen upside down tarts made with fennel, tomatoes, carrots, and other root vegetables, but an upside-down caramelized tart with Belgian endive always appeals to me the most. The contrast between the slightly bitter, chewy, spears of endive, make the base for a perfect savory tart, especially in the winter. And I don’t think anyone would disagree.

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