DORIE GREENSPAN

Spring Ahead

Daylight Saving Time Made Easy

Bouchon Bakery: Thomas Keller Builds It, They Come

The Time-Warner Center, part office tower, part residence and part shopping plaza, was barely a story high and local papers were already naysaying it.  “New Yorkers will never go to a mall,” they said, “and, if they go, they’re certainly never going to eat there, no matter how good the food is.”  Jump ahead three years to the other afternoon, when I meet a food editor at Bouchon Bakery, Thomas Keller’s casual no-reservations restaurant set up, sans walls, behind the Samsung sign on the mall’s third floor. 

My editor friend, a savvy New York gal, born in the City, raised in Soho when only pioneers lived there and paints, not porcini, were the products of choice, looks perfectly at home there, dressed in New-York black, of course, talking on her cell, natch, and either comfortable with or oblivious to the stark surroundings, the echo of the atrium’s vast space and the bustle around the little podium, where a sweet guy is trying to write down names on the restaurant’s waiting list and round-up the people who have wandered away to ogle the goodies in the bakery’s cases down the corridor.

“I’ve embraced the mall,” declares my editor friend.  She and everyone else it seems: last week two other food editors chose Bouchon Bakery as our meeting place for lunch and dinner dates! 

Either New Yorkers are more easily swayed than we like to believe we are or we’re just crazy about good food.  Given that the T-W Center is the only place in New York to taste anything from Gray Kunz (Café Gray), Michael Lomonaco (Porterhouse) or Thomas Keller (Per Se and Bouchon Bakery), it's got to be about the food.  Actually, in the case of Bouchon Bakery, it's mostly about the food - the bright, fresh, open-faced sandwiches and the outrageously creamy quiches (any one of which will remind you why quiche remains a classic) - but it’s all about the TKOs, Thomas Keller’s take on the Oreo!

From the Kitchen Window

Sure it's pretty, but ...

Claire Damon, New Girl on the Block

Take a look at this woman because, while you may be seeing her here first, I think you'll be seeing her lots more in many more places. Her name is Claire Damon and she's 29, talented, soft-spoken, rosy-cheeked and the only woman to have her own pastry shop in Paris. And what a shop it is.  Hardly your corner bakery, Damon's des Gateaux et du Pain, which lives up to its name and sells both cakes (and tarts and cookies, too) and handsome handcrafted breads, is sleek, sexy and very sophisticated.  If you know Pierre Herme's shop on the rue Bonaparte, you'll have an idea about Damon's, since they were both designed by Yann Pennor's and both look more like luxe jewelry shops than patisseries.

The interior of the shop is black, white, spacious and dramatically lit; the ambient lighting is dim and a bit moody and the spotlights are just where they should be: shining on the wall of baguettes, the pyramids of preserves, the piles of rustic loaves and the simple, minimally decorated sweets.

On a recent visit to the two-month-old boutique, the long, narrow windows were showcasing still-life quality brioches and madeleines and a woman in white was meticulously arranging a basket of bread.  Asked if she was the chef, she stood tall, looked me in the eyes, smiled and said, "Oui, and the owner and salesgirl, too."

I don't think she'll be salesgirling for long - I can see her having to take time off soon for a few fashion shoots and tv spots (she's too gifted and beautiful not to be rushed by the media) -nor can I see her having a long-term hold on the distinction of being the sole woman pastry chef with her own shop.  Since she was trained by Pierre Herme (you can taste that training in her tarts), and since Pierre told me that more and more women are coming to his pastry school, Claire Damon may become a role model and trendsetter. For now, she's a singular sensation.

des Gateaux et du Pain, 63, blvd Pasteur, Paris 15

Paris Confidential - FYI

In case you didn’t get to see it, I wanted to tell you that I’ve got an article in the March issue of Bon Appetit all about ten of my favorite kind of out-of-the-loop places in Paris.It’s called Paris Confidential and, while I’d love for you to see the story in the magazine because the layout is great and Quentin Bacon’s pictures are so, so good, you can read it online.  And you can get even more suggestions of places to eat and shop in Paris if you listen to the podcast I did with Martha Simon, Bon Appetit’s online editor. 

If hearing about these places makes you think of some of your favorites, I’d love to know about them – unless, of course, you think they’re too confidential.

Swedish Visiting Cake

The water is still crashing over the dam, the rain is still strong and steady and the leak over the stove is still leaking – the roofer said he couldn’t get here until Monday (actually, he said he was “swamped” – really) – but I am in a much better mood and all it took was a couple of minutes in the kitchen. 

I thought I was going to make muffins and then the Swedish Visiting Cake came to mind (the recipe’s in Baking) and I could think of nothing else.  The recipe for his cake was given to me by my friend Ingela, who said her mother claimed that you could start making this cake when you saw visitors coming up the drive and have it ready for them as soon as they were settled into your home.  And mothers never lie. 

Making the cake just now reminded me for the nine-millionth time why baking is so dear to me:  it is a pleasure that engages all your senses.  In the 10 minutes it took me to get the mixture into my old cast-iron skillet, I rubbed sugar and zest between my fingers, watched a batter grow from thick and dull to lithe and shiny, caught the fragrance of lemon, vanilla and almond and had the satisfaction of knowing that I was making something completely by hand and that it would be something others would soon enjoy.

The fact that the house will smell like butter, sugar and vanilla for hours is just a happy extra.

Swedish Visiting Cake (adapted from Baking, From My Home to Yours)

Makes 8 to 10 servings

1 cup sugar, plus extra for sprinkling

Grated zest of 1 lemon

2 large eggs

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

About 1/4 cup sliced almonds (blanched or not)

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Butter a seasoned 9-inch cast-iron skillet or other heavy ovenproof skillet, a 9-inch cake pan or even a pie pan.

Pour the sugar into a medium bowl.  Add the zest and blend the zest and sugar together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and aromatic.  Whisk in the eggs one at a time until well blended.  Whisk in the salt and the extracts.  Switch to a rubber spatula and stir in the flour.  Finally, fold in the melted butter.

Scrape the batter into the pan and smooth the top with a rubber spatula.  Scatter the sliced almonds over the top and sprinkle with a little sugar.  If you're using a cake or pie pan, place the pan on a baking sheet.

Bake the cake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until it is golden and a little crisp on the outside; the inside will remain moist.  Remove the pan from the oven and let the cake cool for 5 minutes, then run a thin knife around the sides and bottom of the cake to loosen it.  You can serve the cake warm or cooled, directly from the skillet or turned out onto a serving plate.

Rainy Day Blues

This morning, there was water coming over the left side of the dam and just a trickle or three over the right; now, five hours later, the water is raging, the thrum is near-deafening and the roof is leaking over my stove. Drip.  Drip.  Drip.  Drip.  At least I can still use the oven.  I'm counting on muffins to make everything right with the world  - I'll report in later.

 

Eccentric Eggs from Daniel Patterson

Daniel Patterson of Coi Restaurant in San Francisco was the only American chef to be invited to this year’s Omnivore Food Festival in Le Havre, France. He walked onto the big stage, faced the audience and the camera crew from Cuisine TV (France’s Food Network), smiled shyly, greeted everyone in soft school-boy French and then proceeded to keep the mostly French audience of food pros, press and Michelin-starred chefs hushed and wide-eyed.

Patterson, an autodidact (the word, describing anyone self-taught in anything, seems to come more trippinly off the tongue of French- than English-speakers), is a writer, an author, the chef of a restaurant that fits squarely into the Omnivore ideal – it is small, original and ferociously personal – and a guy who’s curious about the world around him, which explains his collaboration with the perfumer Mandy Aftel (he used her essential oils in his first two dishes), his invention of kitchen tools (I want the metal plates he used to weight fish while it cooked) and his exploration into the eccentricities of eggdom.

While Patterson may be known for many other things, the Omnivorians will probably remember him for his poached scrambled eggs, a technique he developed and later wrote about in The New York Times.

Basically, you put a pot of salted water up to boil, beat four eggs, stir the water so that you create a little vortex, pour in the eggs, cover the pot, count to 20, then strain the eggs. What you get is not beautiful – if you want to give it a better look, you’ve got to roll it in a tea towel, a simple act that rounds out the eggs and allows you to call the resulting dish a roulade – but the texture is fabulous, almost like a soufflé, light and fluffy, but not uniformly set.

I was so intrigued by the method that I cooked up a quartet of eggs as soon as I got back to Paris and then I repeated the trick on our shores. Both times, the eggs were a success and I got a kick out of making them. Is it a parlor game? It might be. Is it worth playing? Yup.

A word about the eggs:  Patterson discovered that his technique works best with super-fresh eggs that have thick, cohesive whites (whites thin as eggs age – a bonus when you’re making meringue, a liability when you’re poaching-scrambling), but he and food scientist Harold McGee came up with a way to get the most out of eggs that are a little less than perfect:  crack each egg onto a slotted spoon and let the thinner whites drip down.

And a word on flavoring:  The eggs can’t be flavored before they’re cooked –everything has to happen afterward.  You can serve the eggs drizzled with butter or olive oil, sprinkled with herbs, covered with sauce or topped with grated cheese that can be quickly browned under the broiler; crème fraiche and caviar wouldn’t be bad either.

Daniel Patterson's Poached Scrambled Eggs

(adapted from The New York Times)

Makes 2 servings

4 large eggs

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (optional)

Fine sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Crack each egg into a medium-mesh sieve or slotted spoon, letting the thin white drain away. Transfer the remaining white and yolk to a small bowl.  Beat the eggs vigorously with a fork.

Set a medium saucepan filled with 4 inches of water over moderate heat.  Put a strainer in the sink.  When the water is at a low boil, add a few large pinches of salt, then stir in a clockwise direction to create a whirlpool.  Pour the eggs into the moving water.

Cover the pot and count to 20. Turn off the heat and uncover the pot.  The eggs should be floating on the surface in ribbons.

While holding back the eggs with a spoon, pour off most of the water.  Gently slide the eggs into the strainer and press them lightly to squeeze out any excess liquid.

Scoop the eggs into bowls, drizzle with olive oil,  if desired, and season with salt and freshly ground pepper.  Or, if you'd like, turn the eggs out onto a clean dishtowel and roll the eggs to shape them into a cylinder; slice into rounds.

Serve immediately.