One thing that can be said definitively about crème fraîche is that while it may indeed be crème, it is by no means fraîche. In fact it’s sour, very very similar in taste and texture to sour cream, though with some important functional differences. Crème fraîche’s main difference is that like just about everything French, […]
READ ONYou know all those things you eat that are going to kill you? The ones you’re on all those diets to avoid? Well now it turns out that the act of dieting itself is going to kill you. Might as well just eat the Twinkie now and go out with a smile on your face. […]
READ ONWould you believe I was once a big t’ai chi practitioner? But I gave it up. Way too soon it seems. Way too soon.
READ ONI was little more than a kid, but I can still recall that bitter conflict as if it were only yesterday: elf versus granny, granny versus peanut man, peanut man versus pretty much everybody else. It was a dark and ugly period of retail baking history. I was a mere foot soldier in 1982, a […]
READ ONYou said this was a couscous cake but there’s flour in it! What gives? Well yes that’s right, there is finely milled (and bolted) flour in this cake recipe. But then I should point out that most of the other couscous “cake” recipes you see out there aren’t really cakes in the way that we […]
READ ONI hope everyone of the Christian persuasion had a terrific Easter weekend (and all others did the same but, you know, without the Easter bit). Speaking for the Pastry household, the E.B. was good to us, and spread plenty of colored eggs and candy around. Little Joan got healthy in the bargain, which was the […]
READ ONI don’t know what went on Friday and Saturday, but nearly two thousand of you good folks came to see me on each of those days. 1,100 was my previous single-day record, set about 8 months ago. I don’t know what happened out there to generate that kind of traffic, but whatever it was, I’ll […]
READ ONA feverish and wheezing infant will prevent me from carrying on with our couscous cake this week, but here’s wishing everyone out there a happy and holy Easter this Sunday. May your cakes be light and your fillings rich and delectable. Funny isn’t it how when it comes to the holidays we turn to the […]
READ ONI’m big enough to admit it, I’ve been one of those pretentious olive oil buffoons before. I’ve sniffed at a little plastic cup full of Tuscan extra virgin oil as though it were a Baccarat glass full of Château Mouton Rothschild. Oh yes, a hint of pepper and grass, but redolent of the real fruit, […]
READ ONLooking around the food blogosphere this morning, it seems a few of my fellow bloggers are working up quite a lather over what is apparently an attempt by the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association to lobby the FDA into changing rules that dictate what is and what is not allowed to be called “chocolate”. The apparent issue […]
READ ON