DORIE GREENSPAN

It's in the Bag: Say Good-bye to Plastic

When I bought a collapsible shopping cart in New York so that I could walk my haul home the 20 blocks from Fairway and Citarella rather than put eggs, fragile fish, crusty bread and rare olive oil at risk in a taxi, my friends teased me about reaching the age when I needed a “granny cart”. Cut to Paris, where I bought a singularly unattractive but very efficient shopping cart and my friends said nothing. After all, there’s nothing to say when all you’ve done is follow the national traditional.

Everyone I know in Paris goes to market with either a cart or a large basket.  In fact, there was a time when it was just about necessary, because shops and street-market vendors didn’t have much to offer in the way of packaging. Fruit would go into little paper bags, but there were no shopping bags in which to consolidate your purchases; bread had a strip of paper around its middle so you could grab it; cheese was wrapped in a single piece of paper; ditto meat, fish, pate, anything, really. And it all went into your basket.

But those days are gone.  The good news is that if you’ve forgotten your cart, there are always plastic shopping bags. The bad news is there are always plastic shopping bags – they’re as ubiquitous in Paris as they are in the States and they’re just as environmentally noxious.

The plastic-bag problem has been around for a while now, but it seems to have reached a tipping point because designers, the first to spot or create a trend, are now offering chic shopping bags, some, like the bag from Hermes, so expensive ($960!) it wouldn't seem right to use them for anything less luxe than caviar or white truffles. 

While I wouldn’t turn down an Hermes shopping sack, the bags I’m stockpiling – and giving as gifts – cost 90 (euro) cents and come from Monoprix, my favorite French general store.

You can buy the black nylon bag (see above), which folds up and fits into a pocket-size carry case (as does the silk Hermes bag), at the cashiers and, if you use them, your own cart, basket or sack, you get a bonus:  the right to check out at a special counter where, for the moment at least, everything seems to chug along a little faster.

It’s a a good-looking bag and a great idea – maybe it will become a trend. And wouldn’t that be a good thing!

Hello Toronto

Just flew into town last night for the Sante Wine Festival, where I'll be baking World Peace Cookies and Rum-Drenched Vanilla Loaf Cakes in Yorkville Park tomorrow between 1 and 2 pm, and hosting a dessert station at a gala walk-around tasting -- there'll be plenty of Caramel-Crunched Chocolate Tart to go around.

In between meetings with my colleagues at Bon Appetit, co-sponsors of the Festival, I'll be meeting three Canadian bloggers:  Rob of Hungry in Hogtown; Ivonne of Creams Puff in Venice; and Brilynn of Jumbo Empanadas.  I can't wait!  It's going to be so much fun to actually meet and have a tete-a-tete with these ether-friends whose blogs I love.

And about that Canadian still life in the photo -  it's what greeted me when I got into my room at the Toronto Four Seasons Hotel.  No surprise that the sweets tucked into the maple-syruping bucket were buttery and mapley too: they were leaf-shaped cookies pressed together with maple frosting.  Just what I needed after my flight up had been delayed three hours!

Beard Awards: Good News!

When I pushed open the front door to the apartment last night (this morning?) at 2 am, my two - count'em! two! - James Beard Awards were still hanging around my neck, knocking into each other and clanking merrily.  And I was still grinning - still am and will be for a long, long time.

While I knew I was going to be inducted into the Who's Who of American Food and Beverage, I didn't know how excited I would be when Wolfgang Puck slipped the medal over my head or how wonderful it would be to share the stage with the other new inductees, all-American celebrity chef Bobby Flay, Spanish chef Jose Andres, Jim Clendenen, owner and winemaker of Au Bon Climat, and Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and one of my heroes (sadly, he wasn't there).

Then there was the looooong wait for the cookbook part of the program to begin.  Fortunately, when it did, the Baking and Dessert category came up early.  Even though I was convinced I wasn't going to win, hearing the names of the three baking books that had been nominated - Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters, King Arthur Whole Grain Baking and mine - didn't stop my heart from going flip-flop.  And when Baking was declared the winner, everything went flip-flop in triple time and my knees went jellyish too.

It was incredibly exciting and so wonderful to be able to share the moment with my little family - both Michael, my husband, and Joshua, The Kid, were there - my fabulous editor at Houghton-Mifflin, Rux Martin, and my friends in the food community.

This book has brought so many new people into my life - including my new friends in the blogosphere - that last night, as the lights dimmed in Avery Fisher Hall and the awards ceremony was about to begin, I truly felt that whatever happened in the following few hours wasn't so important: the book and I were already winners.

Licorice, Again: Combos Odd and Odder

Because I love black licorice you can be sure I couldn’t pass up this little novelty from La Grande Epicerie, Paris’s swankiest supermarket.  What you’re looking at is chubby barrels of softish, fairly sweet black licorice dipped in fairly sweet Belgian milk chocolate and imported from England (the company’s name is Cocoa Deli).  Unfortunately, neither the chocolate nor the licorice was primo quality, so the candies weren’t terrific.  But the combination, odd as it is, is not dismissable.  It’s funny, I think if the chocolate were softer and more luscious (the way it looks to be in the picture on the bag) and if the licorice were little more licoricy, the combo might actually be a breakthrough.  Of course, it would remain odd, but it would be odd and winning.

And, while we’re on odd, here’s another offbeat match-up: Sauvignon blanc and black Panda Licorice from Finland.  Because this idea came from smart and talented Martha Holmberg, food editor of The Oregonian, I’ve got high hopes for it.

(Actually, writing this I realize I’ve probably lost my touch as a reporter – why didn’t I ask Martha how she ever came to put these two things together?  It’s not exactly evident, as the French say.)

Well, the Panda is ready to roll and the wine is chilling in the fridge.  And, just to prove that I think the duo has promise, I’m going with a good wine:  a South African sauvignon blanc from Mulderbosch in the Stellenbosch region.  I’ll report back.

Two Hours Later:  I can’t figure out why, but Martha is right:  it’s a really good combination!  The most characteristic flavors of both the licorice and the wine seem to be intensified - you get more anise, more grapefruit.  It’s kind of fun, but also kind of esoteric.  I don’t think the combo is likely to replace gougeres and Kir as my favorite aperitif this summer, but I can see it as a Sunday afternoon snack – it would go great with a crossword puzzle.

Everett Potter's Travel Report and Moi

Talk about 15 minutes of fame - first Ari of Baking and Books interviewed me, now I'm featured chatting about my life in Paris on Everett Potter's Travel Report.  Everett, a columnist for USA Weekend magazine and a writer with terrific style, has been to just about every corner of the world and parts of the world that don't even have corners and he tells all on his blog. It's a terrific read with lots of practical info as well as a dash of stuff to dream about.