David Lebovitz's Blog, page 6

Graham Cracker Cake

I am a bad blogger. While others are posting recipes for green bean casseroles, newfangled stuffing, and yet another way to improve turkey (it’s amazing how many ways there seem to be, and they just keep coming…) this year, I’m back to digging into my recipe files, finally getting around to making some of the recipes I’ve clipped over the years.

This usual-sounding cake was one of the clipped recipes that have been patiently waiting for almost a few decades (as was the case for this chocolate hazelnut tart and these butterscotch bars), and I’m just now tackling. If a cake made with crushed Graham crackers and spicy speculoos cookies, along with butter, whole wheat flour, and flaky sea salt, sounds good to you, you’re not alone. I traveled across the Atlantic with it!

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How my family is celebrating Christmas in Paris this year

Hello, Emily here. When David asked me to share how my family will celebrate during the festive season this year I was impressed he was so organized in advance… before realizing that there’s less than 5 weeks until Christmas Day! So without further ado here are all the fun things we’ll be enjoying over the next few weeks (you can find my 2019 and 2020 versions here).

Wherever you are in the world, I wish you a happy holiday season and hope that you have the chance to connect with family and friends, whether in person or from afar.

– Emily

How my family is celebrating Christmas in Paris this year

As Christmas decorations appear all over town, and I take the last of the pumpkins off our mantlepiece, I’m finally making a start on holiday preparations. I’d put off planning this year as we strongly considered spending Christmas in Australia (where I’m from) but as travel is still restricted in my home state we’ll have to wait a little longer to see Santa in shorts again. So we’re getting cozy, hoping for snow and I’ve decided this is the year I’ll finally learn some French Christmas carols. Joyeux Noël!

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Booksigning at Fiasco! Wine & Spirits in New York City This Weekend

Photo by Brad Thomas Parsons

Join me and the wonderful Ivy Mix, author of Spirits of Latin America, bartender and co-owner of Leyenda Bar and Fiasco! Wine & Spirits (1148 Union Street, Brooklyn, NY) for a booksigning this Saturday, November 27th from 3 to 4:30pm.

Ivy and I be signing our books with a sample of something to sip for the holidays that she’ll be mixing up.

(And read further down for news of a booksigning by Romain Pellas in New York City this weekend, too!)

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Paris Booksigning at La Cuisine in Paris This Weekend

This weekend, Sunday November 21 from 3pm-4:30pm, there will be a booksigning and get-together at La Cuisine cooking school in Paris.

On hand will be copies of Drinking French, L’Appart and The Perfect Scoop available for purchase and signing (see below for advance purchase info) and you’re welcome to bring already-purchased books too. It’s a great chance to pick up a book for yourself or for holiday gift-giving!

 

 

Thanks to the generosity of La Cuisine cooking school for hosting the event and we’ll be offering samples of wine, cheese, and cocktails from some of our favorite French purveyors!

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Chanceux

The other day, for some reason, the subject about the “decline of French cuisine” which had been much-discussed and debated about subject a decade ago, came up. At the time, books were written about it, a Time magazine cover featured a sad mime bemoaning the end of French culture, newspapers wrote articles bemoaning faltering bistros and wondering ‘‘Who could save French cuisine?’, and French television reporters rifled through the garbage of esteemed bistros and restaurants to show empty packages of pre-prepared and frozen foods that likely had been served to customers. The future of French cuisine was a subject of international interest.

People asked me to chime in on it, too. It was a rather loaded subject because there were a lot of issues surrounding any “decline,” but it was also hard to define – “What is French cuisine?” Yes, it’s Duck confit, Hachis Parmentier, œufs mayonnaise, éclairs, and Paris-Brest, but the new generation of cooks began recasting the focus of food in France, putting the quality and diversity of the ingredients first, and supporting local producers while taking cues from the various regions and cultures in France (which has always been the foundation of French cooking), rather than sticking to a codified script.

So I was excited when Chanceux opened in my neighborhood recently. I’d met Thomas Lehoux a few years ago, and featured him in Drinking French because he decided to improve the reputation of French coffee (another hotly-contested issue) and opened Belleville Brûlerie, a small-scale coffee roasting company that he founded in Paris with his business partners.

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Poule au pot

 

King Henry IV of France promised “a chicken in every pot, every Sunday” to the French back in the 17th century and things haven’t changed much since then. Chicken remains a classic French Sunday meal, as the lines for roast chickens prove at the markets and butcher shops on the weekends will attest to.

People in France eat chicken on other days of the week but some consider it a second-place meat and for years beef was seen as the most luxurious and healthy choice. My first housecleaner told me that I needed to eat beef on more than one occasion, to be healthy. In recent years beef consumption has been falling in France, but I often choose chicken over beef, which Romain teases me about, saying it’s très américan to order it so often at restaurants, and sometimes call me le chicken man. But when I made this Poule au pot for him recently (at home, so he was happy), he said it was the best he’s ever had. And as you can tell, he’s a tough customer.

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Roasted Figs

This year, for some reason, fig season just refuses to end this year, which is fine with me. Figs have two seasons; the first is usually late summer and the second begins mid-fall. The second crop is better-tasting and toward the end of the season, the prices drop as the bounty increases. I was at the market the other day, planning to buy some figs, when I noticed a vendor selling them for €5 (~$6) per flat. So I scooped them up, or rather, tried to pack the lug of them into my shopping bag, and headed home.

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Chocolate, Tahini and Buckwheat Marble Cake with Chocolate Glaze

Gosh, it seems so long ago when food blogging started. But once word got out, others started jumping in. Not only were there new and even more diverse voices from around the world to be heard, but the next geners were better with their cameras than the rest of us were, setting the standards for the future. (For me, it was quite a learning curve. All I used to know how to do was bake cookies and cakes!) One who really stood out was Aran Goyoaga of Cannelle et Vanille. Her photographs were stunning, she was also from the Basque region, from a family of pastry chefs, so her recipes were solid too.

As people like Pim of Chez Pim went on to open a series of amazing Thai restaurants and earning a Michelin star, Clotilde became a personal coach, Adam of Amateur Gourmet moved to LA to be a screenwriter, Graham of Noodle Pie became an editor and writing coach, Elise, who moved back home with her parents and learned how to cook, sold her massively successful blog, and Matt of MattBites became a much sought-after food photographer, and Aran opened her own photography studio and wrote three cookbooks, including her newest Canelle et Vanille Bakes Simple. Whew!…has time flown by or what?

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Cheesemaking Class at Paroles de Fromagers

There’s nothing wrong with being a tourist. In fact, one of my favorite things to do in Paris is to “play tourist,” which means you get to do something fun around town rather than live like a local and stay home and do paperwork. The stars aligned when my friend Jane from La Cuisine cooking school and I both wanted to take a cheesemaking class at Paroles de Fromagers in Paris. I’ve been to a number of cheesemaking caves around France, but never one in Paris. So we signed up.

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Labneh Balls

I don’t want to brag, but back in the day, I was a real DIY trailblazer. Before bread machines, before instant pressure cookers, before the rise of the Cuisinart, before whatever came (and in some cases, came and went…like the motorized ice cream cone), I had a yogurt maker. It was a marvel of sleek pop design, made by Salton. Yogurt started booming in America thanks to a clever ad campaign by Dannon, and the machine meant that anyone could DIY their own yogurt with this boat-shaped contraption, which seemed like a miracle to me.

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