DORIE GREENSPAN

Jean-Georges, Johnny and the Macaroon

It’s not easy to take a good picture when both you and your subjects are laughing too hard.  Did I press “macro” instead of “auto”?  Was it something with the flash?  Who knew a point-and-shoot digital could make such a fuzzy picture?  Worse, who knew that I’d think the picture was just fine until I got home and looked at it without jolly tears of laughter rolling down my checks?  Here’s the offending photo:
 

The guy in soft focus to the left is world-class and world-traveling chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and the equally fuzzy guy on the right is J-G’s pastry chef, the super-talented (super-cute) Johnny Iuzzini.  I’ve known them both for a long, long time (I met Jean-Georges when he first came to New York in 1986 and I worked with Johnny when he was the pastry chef at Daniel and I was writing the Café Boulud Cookbook), but I still couldn’t have predicted what they were about to do.

Before lunch was served, Johnny, my friend Rica, who was also in Daniel’s kitchen and also part of the cookbook project, and I were just catching up. I talked a little about what I’d done in Paris the week before and mentioned the pastries I’d seen, tasted and heard about, among them personalized macaroons.

We had a great lunch – no surprise, I know – and way too many desserts, then it was time for the petits fours parade: chocolates, marshmallows and a silver tray of the tiniest macaroons imaginable.  My back was to the room and Rica and I were chatting when the waiters walked over and fussed uncharacteristically to find just the right place for the plates.  They put the dishes down, but they didn’t really move away.  When I looked down I could see why.  Again, it’s a very fuzzy photo, but here’s the macaroon tray:

That little spot on the lime macaroon?  That’s a picture of me that Johnny grabbed off the internet, shrunk down, down, down and stuck on the fragile cookie. 

Keep your monogrammed Hermes bags, Turnbull & Asser shirts and Cartier bracelets – anyone can have them.  I’ll take my one-of-a-kind picture-perfect macaroon, please.  Thanks guys!

M&Ms in Midtown

There are a few things I like to keep to myself, but last fall, when Baking was published, I ended up confessing to stuff that had been family secrets. Chief among my ‘fess ups was the fact that I burned down by parents’ kitchen and that I got fired from my first baking job. Actually, it felt good to get these things out in the open. A little after that I was urged to make another confession. I was on Faith Middleton’s radio show, The Food Schmooze, when Faith asked me what my secret guilty little pleasure was. Because I love Faith and because I’m not such a good fibber, especially when put on the spot like that, I told the truth immediately: I’m crazy about M&Ms. I’ve always liked them, but now that there are the new dark ones (they’re the ones that come in a purple – my favorite color – bag), it’s bordering on hopeless.

Here’s what I like most about M&Ms: I like that, in the privacy of your own mouth, without another soul knowing, you can crack the sugar coating, eat that completely, then press the now-naked little nubblet of chocolate against the roof of your mouth and let it melt. Eaten that way, one little M&M delivers an awful lot of pleasure for a surprisingly long time. And to keep that good thing going even longer, I buy M&Ms in the biggest-size packs I can find then divvy them up into ziplock plastic bags, so I can have one on the side of the bed (now you know all you have to know about me) and one in my purse, after all, you never know when the subway will get stuck and you’ll need something comforting to tide you over.

Being so nuts about M&Ms for as long as I’ve been – I was brought up on the “melts in your mouth, not in your hands” jingle and tested the veracity of it almost daily – I was pretty excited when I turned a corner on Broadway and discovered that there’s a huge, two-story store devoted to nothing but the little candy. Of course I dashed in, but my visit was brief – there wasn’t an M&M in sight, at least not one that you could eat. AARRGH. When I walked in, I felt like a kid in a candy shop; when I walked out, I still felt like a kid, but a disappointed grumpy kid who’d been let down by the grown-ups. Good thing I still had my plastic-bag stash within reach.

SO NOW HE TELLS ME: Seems like I didn’t explore far enough or high enough. Joshua, our son, says I missed a wall of M&Ms in every possible color as well as the opportunity to pick and choose only the colors I like best. Another AARRGH, but I’ll know for next time.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

We just got up to Connecticut and it's gorgeous, but sooooooooooooo cold.  Anyone who lives in chilly climes can just look at the fabulous color of the sky and know it's impossible to get that hue without temperatures that fall way below comfortable. 

I haven't been up here in a month or so and it felt good to push open the front door.  This is where I have the best kitchen - large, airy and light with lots of counter space - and where I can write most easily.  But boy it's cold!  Even with the heat going, just hearing the wind racing across the roof, seeing the pines bend and watching two little ducks searching for a sliver of unfrozen pond, all I can think of is hot chocolate in a mug that can double as a handwarmer.

Classic Hot Chocolate (adapted from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme)

2 cups whole milk

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup sugar

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted

Bring the milk, water and sugar to the boil in a medium saucepan, stirring until the sugar dissolves.  Add the chocolate and, stirring with a whisk, heat the mixture until one bubble pops on the surface.  Pull the saucepan from the heat and whip the hot chocolate for about 1 minute with an immersion blender or in a regular blender.  Serve immediately in large cups or pour into a container to cool.  (The hot chocolate can be made up to 2 days ahead and kept tightly covered in the refrigerator.)

To reheat the chilled chocolate, pour it into a medium saucepan, set the pan over low heat and cook, stirring gently, just until the first bubble pops.  Remove the pan from the heat, whip the chocolate for a minute with the immersion blender (or in a blender) and serve.

To make Cold Hot Chocolate (something you might want to do if it ever gets warm again):  Cool the hot chocolate, then chill it.  When the chocolate is cold, stir in 1/4 cup cold water, then whip the cold chocolate for a minute with an immersion blender or in a blender.  For each serving, put 1 to 2 ice cubes in a tall glass and pour over the chocolate.  Serve with straws.

Makes 2 servings

Hello New York

Where have all the flowers gone?  Yesterday in Paris I saw a magnolia tree that was just starting to bloom, and today in New York there are dark mounds of snow hugging the curbs and snow predicted for the weekend.  I guess it's going to be a while before mimosa makes it to the markets here.

Au'revoir Paris

 

Breathe In, Breathe Out

Once upon a time, many years ago, I was a fanatical runner, going out every day, whether it was hot, cold, snowing or pouring down rain, clocking miles and hours and arranging my life around my runs. And then I stopped. At least my body did – my mind kept going. Long after I gave up the sport, I’d have running dreams and, of course, I never forgot the lay of the land – I could tell where every dip and hill was in Central Park as well as how the road curved and where the purple forsythia bloomed, and I still can.

Now, every Monday I decide that I am going to start running again, or at least walking. (And, like everyone else in the world, I also decide that I’m going to start a diet.) Well, last week, I actually did start running and stretching and doing a couple of little crunchy things for the belly and yoga, too. And, I did it all because my friend Helene said, when you come to Paris, maybe you’d like to go to the park with me and my new coach, Meir. What we call a trainer, the French call a coach, but it’s all meaningless to Meir, since he’s Israeli!

Working out in my apartment with Meir this week made me realize how much I love moving and how much I’ve missed it. Can I continue to do it without him around when I fly back to New York today? We’ll see. To help, yesterday I took 85 pictures of Meir in various stages of pretzelness and calm.

I hope I can keep this up. What I know I’ll be keeping up is the “tea” I’ve been making after every session. It’s not really a recipe, but I’ve written it below. For now, I say " OM".

Ginger-Orange Infusion – more a rough idea than a recipe

1 orange or tangerine

Hunk of gingerroot

Honey, optional

Peel the orange – don’t worry about leaving some of the pith attached – and cut it into wide strips. Toss it into a pot of cold water, bring the water to the boil, drain the peel and rinse it under running water.

Peel a piece of the ginger and cut it into very thin slices. I toss a strip or two of orange and slice or two of ginger into a big mug and pour in boiling water. Sometimes I add honey and other times I don’t. I’ve been leaving the zest and ginger in the mug and pouring boiling water over them as I empty the cup. The first cup is really strong and spicy and then it gets milder and milder – and so do I.

Anne-Sophie Pic ***

 

Yesterday, the revered Michelin Guide did something exceptional—it gave its highest rating, three stars, to a woman! Anne-Sophie Pic is now the only female chef in France awarded such an honor. And while the award wasn't a complete shock to insiders, it certainly was a wonderful surprise. Le Figaro reported that the chef had earned her third star and that "she merited it a thousand times over." Everyone who's eaten at her Maison Pic and everyone who knows the chef seems to be on the same page this time—awarding Anne-Sophie Pic three stars is something she deserved.  (Click here to continue ...)

Talismanic Tickets

I've got a kind of fetish with Paris metro tickets.  Over the years I've come to think of them as good luck charms, so instead of tossing out the used ones, I tuck them into my pockets.  Silly as it is, when I'm miles from Paris, stick my hand in a pocket and feel a ticket, it makes me smile - always. 

And, odd as it sounds, I buy a 10-pack of metro tickets the day I leave town.  I make the 11-Euro purchase knowing I won't use the tickets then, but convinced that getting a carnet (the name for these packs) is the same as taking out an insurance policy guaranteeing my return to Paris. 

So far it's worked like a charm - I've been coming back for years!

Maxing Out with The Minimalist

I think my friend Mark Bittman (he of How to Cook Everything and Minimalist fame) and I started a new trend last night.  At 6:30, when everyone else in Paris was beginning l’heure d’apéro (the cocktail hour), we created l’heure des huîtres (the oyster hour), a pause in the day to sip, slurp and schmooze. 

Mark was in town researching some stories and, sensible man that he is, he didn’t want to take the overnight train to Venice on an empty stomach.  Yes, of course, he’d just had lunch and yes, of course, I was going to go straight from our rendezvous to dinner, but oysters, unlike the wedge of coconut-layer cake your mom wouldn’t let you have before supper, don’t seem to fill you up – they just seem to make you happy.

For our little indulgence, I took Mark over to my favorite oyster bar, Régis Huîtrerie (3 rue de Montfaucon, Paris 6; (0)1-44-41-10-07).  Just off the bustling Boulevard Saint-Germain and steps from the hubbub of the rue de Seine markets, Régis is a pristine-white oasis of briny calm.

There are just seven small tables in the spare, beautifully lit room, all with a view of the action: Régis or his second shucking some of the city’s finest bivalves, arranging them on ice and seaweed and serving them with mignonette sauce (red-wine vinegar and shallots) which, while fine for somethings is not, in my opinion, fine for oysters, particularly oysters as good as these; lemon, a quick squeeze of which is okay on an oyster, but no squeeze is fine too; and good dark bread and salted butter, a tradition, a treat and a must.

We ordered four kinds of oysters:

Belons, considered the ne plus ultra of oysterdom, they have flat shells and are often said to have a metallic (in a good way) flavor; Mark called the flavor coppery and the description is spot-on

Fines de claires, small round-bottomed oysters that spend about 1 month in les claires, or ponds, before they are harvested; the growing specs for fines de claires are about 20 oysters per square meter

Spéciales de claires, from the same clan as the fines, these oysters have a bigger flavor and larger size because they spend at least 2 months in the pond and are given more room to grow – there are only about 10 spéciales per square meter

Pousses en claires, the embodiment of the expression “big fish in a little pond”; the pousse en claire spends a leisurely 4 to 6 months in les claires and has plenty of room to grow to a remarkable plumpness – there can be as few as 3 oysters per square meter, which explains why les pousses en claires are relatively rare and always expensive

“It’s not often that the belons aren’t the best oyster on the table,” was Mark’s comment after his first of the pousses en claires.  He’s right – but when the belons are great and everything else is even greater, it means you’re awfully lucky.  And we were.

I’ve got just one more night in Paris and, while I’ve got a dinner date tonight, I’m thinking it just might be my responsibility to keep our new tradition of l’heure des huîtres alive. 

Sunday Market

I’m just back from the Sunday organic market and, although I said I wouldn’t buy anything because I’m not around for meals the next few days, I still came home with a basket heavy enough to make me huff and puff my way up the stairs.  Of course, I didn’t buy anything that could make a “real” lunch, but I bought enough treats to make me happy for the rest of the week.

Here are a few of the things I just unpacked:

Raw milk, a liquid so exceptional it deserves a prettier name, maybe even one that doesn’t include the word “milk”, since it tastes nothing like the stuff we buy in the supermarket.  I’m not a milk drinker, never was, but when I can get this milk, I rush home, pour a glass, drink it as though it is an elixir and think:  so this is why the word “wholesome” was invented.

Lentillons, small brown – although they’re referred to as pink – lentils from the Champagne region of France. They’re notable for their color and sweetness, both a consequence of their famed terroir; I’m hoping they’ll be notable as an afternoon snack – I’ll let you know. 

Half a multi-grain bread (my friend Helene’s got the other half), a petit pain with raisins, which looks less like a roll than the little bread of its name, and couple of English muffins handmade by Michael, The Muffin Man.

And, cheese, of course.  I bought a soft, spreadable – spoonable, even – goat milk faisselle, a fresh cheese which has been drained of its whey, and an aged chevre with a crust that looks like it was plucked from some fossil find.  That’s it in the picture.  This cheese started life about ten months ago as a pyramid of soft, pristinely white goat cheese; sometime this week it’s going to finish its life grated over pasta.